AI is driving consultants to undertake the biggest talent overhaul ever.
As companies move away from slide presentations and consulting work multi-year transformation projects focused on AIthe profile of the ideal consultant in firms like Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and PwC is evolving.
“Going to a client and just offering them an army of consultants doesn’t really work anymore,” Gert De Geyter, former head of AI at Deloitte US, told Business Insider.
Instead of the traditional “pure consultant,” companies are now looking for a mix of “generalists and technical experts,” said De Geyter, who left the company in July to join AI startup Teragonia.
Business Insider spoke with nine industry executives and insiders to understand how consulting businesses are hiring, retraining and reskilling their workforce to meet the present moment.
A good time to be a technologist
The work of consultants is evolving. Outright consulting projects are being replaced by creating, implementing and maintaining business tools, requiring technological expertise rather than research skills.
Hiring data reveals how aggressively large companies have expanded their technologist grades. Accenture’s latest annual report shows that the company has hired nearly 40,000 AI and data professionals over the past two years. They now represent around 10% of its global workforce. EY has added 61,000 technologists since 2023, according to its latest annual report.
HAS McKinsey“AI engineer” is the fastest-growing non-entry-level position, followed by procurement manager, data scientist and software engineer, according to workforce intelligence firm Revelio Labs.
At Boston Consulting Group, Software Engineers, Frontend Developers, and Python Developers are the fastest growing entry-level positions.
BCG, which hired 1,000 people last year, has accelerated the recruitment of technologists since launch of its technology and AI branchBCG X, end of 2022.
“We are essentially building a technology company within a consulting firm,” said Sylvain Duranton, global leader of BCG
Its regular consulting division is also adopt a more technology-centric mindset.
Scott Wilder, partner and managing director at BCG, told Business Insider that a new team, called “advanced deployed consultants,” is moving up the ranks. He is inspired by a software engineering role popularized by Palantir, Wilder said.
These consultants code vibrations and create tools on client projects, he said. When one of these tools becomes successful, it returns to the R&D team and becomes a broader tool that everyone can use.
Moving between worlds
For companies like McKinsey and BCGThe must-have hire in the AI era isn’t a pure engineer or a pure consultant, it’s someone who can move between the two worlds.
“What we want to be able to do is find the people who actually tend to be that great McKinsey consultant and/or a great technologist, and then groom them to be both,” Alex Singla, a senior partner at McKinsey who co-leads its AI arm, QuantumBlack, told Business Insider.
He added that candidates also want hybrid roles: Many don’t want to spend years building products for a cloud company like AWS, nor do they want to become traditional consultants.
McKinsey’s AI initiatives account for 40% of the company’s work. Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Singla said McKinsey is looking for “5Xers – they are passionate about one thing, but can do three or four different things well.” »
QuantumBlack, with its team of 1,700, drives all of McKinsey’s AI initiatives, which account for 40% of the company’s work, but McKinsey’s technical talent is not limited to that group, Singla said. There are about 3,500 people who develop internal technology for McKinsey, and another 4,000 to 5,000 consultants who lead the technical work on the business side, but don’t necessarily have technical expertise.
The improvement imperative
The consulting talent landscape has been in flux since the pandemic, when a surge in demand prompted large firms to recruit aggressively. As this boom faded and demand for consulting services slowed, many companies found themselves overstaffed, triggering layoffs and a a more selective approach to recruitment.
Amid a changing market, the traditional pyramid model – built on large cohorts of junior consultants – began to recalibrate as companies focused on roles that drive value rather than labor. This priority has only increased with the rise of AI, encouraging companies to invest massively in upskill their existing workforce.
“Everyone is taking into account the fact that AI has exploded onto the scene,” Saurabh Sarbaliya, head of AI at PwC, told Business Insider.
“The demand for people who can make AI work in the enterprise will only increase, but there simply aren’t enough experts. So you need to focus on upskilling your existing workforce,” he said.
KPMG tax interns during AI training at Lakehouse, the firm’s training center in Florida. Polly Thompson
At KPMG, Sam Gloede, the firm’s trusted global AI leader, said it was prioritize improvement on hiring.
“There’s not a massive change in our workforce,” Gloede said. “It’s just a focus on skills development, literacy and learning.”
EY takes a similar approach and prioritize AI capabilities of its employees, Imgard Naudin ten Cate, global head of talent acquisition at EY, told Business Insider.
In October, EY held a two-week training event to teach employees how to create AI agents to use in their daily work. The company also offered 15-hour courses on topics including AI engineering, applied AI, and AI compliance.
Nearly 100,000 employees, or around a quarter of the workforce, have earned a digital “AI badge” for completing one of the courses, said Simon Brown, global head of learning and development at EY. The initiative has been “a phenomenal, large-scale way to gain deep AI knowledge,” he added.
Sometimes technical skills are not necessary
Technologist positions are in high demand, but don’t expect a hoodie-wearing Silicon Valley-type team when your company hires consultants. Most in the industry are still generalists with strong problem-solving and communication skills – and they probably will appear in costume.
Even as companies hire more technologists, most consulting work still doesn’t require deep engineering expertise. Traditional consulting roles at large companies continue to increase, from 250,000 worldwide in 2022 to 340,000 in 2024, according to Revelio Labs.
“A lot of clients are still jumping into the AI pool, so over-engineering solutions don’t work for them,” said de Geyter, former head of AI at Deloitte US. “It’s much more helpful to have someone help them get the right data governance in place so they can prepare for long-term AI solutions.”
AI has exploded onto the scene,” Saurabh Sarbaliya, head of AI at PwC, told Business Insider. Jack Taylor/Getty Images
A senior software engineer at Deloittewho requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, told Business Insider that most employees’ technical knowledge is improving, but remains in a “very nascent state.”
“They’re looking less for people who know how these black box models work or who could train one themselves, and more for people who can quickly leverage them for a specific set of solutions,” the person said.
They nevertheless warned that the current level of competence presents a strategic risk: “We cannot let this continue for too long.”
Jim Rowan, head of AI at Deloitte US, told Business Insider that his employees have “the latest technologies and certifications to work effectively with machines and achieve even more impactful business outcomes for clients.” Deloitte is not only hire more data engineers and technologistsbut “actively investing” in upskilling its workforce, Rowan said.
Soft skills still matter
Several executives told Business Insider that soft skills are becoming more and more relevant now that AI can perform specific quantitative tasks.
“When we’re asked what we’re looking for when we’re recruiting, the bottom line is actually attitude,” said Niale Cleobury, head of AI workforce at KPMG. Communication, collaboration and agile learning – “the kinds of things that AI can’t really do” – are the most notable qualities, he said.
McKinsey is still active on university campuses recruit undergraduates, MBAs and PhDssaid Kate Smaje, global head of technology and AI at McKinsey.
In its selection process, McKinsey emphasizes elements of judgment and design thinking in problem solving, resilience and the ability to learn quickly.
The ability to build relationships and the core leadership qualities of EQ can be “pixie dust” on top of what you can do analytically that will now set you apart, Smaje said.
“What we’re really recruiting are voracious learners, people who are curious about the world and have the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn,” she said. “These are the people we really want.”
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