We speak to Saikat, ex-Accenture Director of Strategic Programs at IncentiaPay

Your career

Movemeon has a great offering, I’m not surprised the word-of-mouth continues to spread! 

Saikat Ghosh
Director, Strategic Programs – IncentiaPay

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Congrats on the new role, Saikat! In your own words, could you tell us about your new role?

I’ve just joined IncentiaPay, an ASX-listed group that operates the “Entertainment” business and brand. Founded in 1994, as The Entertainment Book, our company has evolved to become Australia and New Zealand’s premier offers and rewards marketplace.

My role is all about understanding our member and merchant partners’ needs, their objectives and their challenges, and then making sure that Entertainment always puts its best foot forward to help them address these.

How do you view your experience at Accenture as a phase in your early career? 

When I was in college, Accenture was the only company I had ever wanted to work for. After completing my MBA I applied to only one company and was lucky enough to spend three years working in the best environment a fresher can ask for. Looking back, I’d say that strategy consulting was a great move for me – everything I learnt during my MBA had a real-world use, and I enjoyed using my skills to make an impact for clients. There’s no other career that provides such diverse learning in such a short time.

I found the skills I honed in consulting set me up really well for founding my own digital marketing business. Which in turn set me up perfectly for this new role at IncentiaPay! 

What are you hoping to accomplish in your new role?

I’m looking forward to applying what I have seen and experienced across different industries and business models to help the team find solutions to their particular challenges. I am hoping to accomplish our next phase of growth using the principles I’ve learnt over two decades in similar domains.

When you are not working, what keeps you engaged?

Having moved to New Zealand just a few years ago, I am still discovering the wealth of outdoor activities this country offers. When I’m not working, you’ll find me kayaking or fishing on the waterfront, tending to my garden or trekking on one of the Great Walk routes.

How did you find out about Movemeon?

Through word-of-mouth, I was referred by a friend who had just completed a great freelance project for an Australian company, which he found through Movemeon. It’s a great offering, I’m not surprised the word continues to spread! 

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Why you are losing candidates and what you can do to retain them

Recruiting

There have been a few ways to name the recruiting trends last year – a ‘candidate’s market’, a ‘talent squeeze’ or ‘The Great Resignation’… Whatever you want to call it, 2021 was a tough market to hire talent in. 

The race for top talent is incredibly competitive right now and finding the right person is harder than ever. In this article, we highlight the reasons behind this as well as share a few insights and tips that should help you find the talent you’re looking for.

Why has it been so hard to hire talent?

Salary Expectations

Top-quality consulting talent has always been expensive. Following on from Covid-19, consultants were in high demand; businesses across the globe were looking to pivot to the new normal and consultancy firms were seeing unprecedented levels of business. This naturally has increased the value of top quality consultants.

Unsurprisingly, this has led to robust pay raises from top-tier consulting firms. In October 2021, first-year BCG employees’ base salary increased by $10,000, with more experienced consultants expecting far greater raises in the next promotional cycle. With this trend happening across the industry, this has had a significant effect on what was already a very tight market. As a general rule, you could expect to pay over £10,000 more for a candidate than the previous year. In the near future, this could rise further for candidates with more specialist experience or top-tier candidates.

Less desire to leave consulting in the first place

Although things remain hopeful that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, it’s fair to say that remote working and flexible/hybrid solutions are here to stay. Whilst many of us may rejoice in this relative adoption to flexible working, this has led to more consultants deciding to stay at their firms. 

Historically, the lack of work/life balance and constant travel have been some of the most pressing reasons for consultants to search for new roles in industry. However, with remote working, consultants have been able to balance their work hours and their home life, and not have to spend their lives in trains or aeroplanes. This resulted in a significant number of consultants deciding to stay in consulting instead of making their move to an in-house role, coupled with the pay incentive that we previously mentioned.

Competitive job landscape

You might want to hire a consultant who could manage your strategy function, lead company-wide transformation, or even act as your Chief of Staff. After all, they are highly-skilled generalists that are adaptable and knowledgeable. The problem is that consultants are also highly sought-after by other scaling businesses and market leaders. It is true that every labour market is competitive, but none of them is quite as competitive as consulting. Our data shows that the average candidate is now in 4-5 interview processes as opposed to 2-3 processes this time last year. This leads to more dropouts, more counter-offers and even bidding wars between different organisations after the same candidate. 

Thankfully, through working with our partners we’re able to share a few promising insights and tips that we recommend to ensure you get the candidates you want.

How can I hire the best talent for my team?

Invest time in the beginning

Interviewing candidates is time-consuming. It’s tempting to set a variety of tasks or a case study at the beginning of a process to ensure that you always end up speaking to the best candidates. However, this is a sure-fire way of getting the best candidates to drop out of the interview process. The feedback that we have received from our platform users is that the first conversation with the hiring manager is the most important factor in determining a candidate’s “buy-in” for a role.

We recommend that hiring managers should meet with candidates before setting any task/case study. Not only is it a chance for you to learn more from each person but it also allows them to get a better understanding of the job. Even by spending 15 minutes with a candidate, you will significantly decrease the risk of dropouts.

Senior candidates are looking for new opportunities

If 2021 seemed dreary when it came to hiring new talents, 2022 is already looking a lot more hopeful. Interest from potential job applicants has seen a huge spike in 2022. Of course, this is quite typical for this time of year, however, we’ve found that candidate activity on the Movemeon platform is at an all-time high with greater numbers of views & applications than any other year.  In particular, this seems to be the perfect time to hire Senior Strategy talent – Since the beginning of Q1, we’ve seen search results for Strategy roles at Engagement Manager level or above soar. Whilst the junior market is still tight, the more experienced talent pool are clearly on the lookout for new opportunities.

Hire through Movemeon

At Movemeon, we specialise in partnering with global businesses across all sectors to find top tier consulting talent for your Strategy, Transformation & C-Suite teams. Our platform is able to generate a shortlist of high-calibre candidates within 7 days. By partnering with Movemeon, your roles are visible to a network of over 55,000 consultants & ex-consultants using our platform. We’ve been able to source active candidates as well as tap into the passive candidate pool ensuring you receive a more engaged shortlist. Click the button below to get in touch with our team to know more about our freelance and permanent offerings.