Perhaps the most disorganized and unprofessional recruiting process I’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing. During 2018-2019 Oliver Wyman’s Singapore office had approached me unsolicited three times enquiring about recruiting me for a Principal opportunity, and each encounter has been a waste of my time due to them being disorganized and indecisive. Reading through other reviews, the Singapore office seems to be an anomaly compared to their other global locations.
The first encounter, they reached out regarding a Principal level role with their team. We had some talks regarding my CV, how my skills applied to the practice they were looking to expand, how many projects I oversee, and how many consultants I manage. They followed up to say they were doing some thinking about what they needed for the role and weren’t sure whether they ultimately wanted to hire a Manager (more junior), a Principal, or a Partner (more senior) for the position. Then they asked my thoughts on that. I said I’d be up for the challenge of a Partner-level role if they decided they didn’t want to fill the role at a Principal-level, and the interviewer chuckled as he got my meaning. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that this wasn’t some bait and switch game to try to get me to accept a more junior position than the one for which I was approached. Ultimately, they said they decided they’d rather pursue a Partner-level hire for the position, one that I assume they never found as their search continued.
They reached out months later to restart talks, after arriving at the decision that they were certain they wanted a Principal-level hire. After more discussion, they were unsure whether they wanted to staff the potential hire in Singapore or Australia and said that I need to be comfortable to accept either location. I said fine. Wanting to know my salary requirements now, they were apparently confused that any semi-intelligent person giving them the flexibility to locate them in the office of their choice would expect a higher salary if involuntarily staffed in the location with a 45% tax rate (Australia) versus the location with a 17% tax rate (Singapore). I’m not sure what that says about the intelligence of Oliver Wyman’s consulting team if they can’t understand such a basic business idea as net income. They said they needed some time to “consider their APAC footprint” and the discussion ended.
More than a year after the first contact, they reached out yet again, certain they wanted to hire a Principal and certain they wanted that Principal to be based in Singapore. I half expected more tomfoolery, and Oliver Wyman didn’t disappoint. After more discussions, they requested a list of clients I had worked with and samples of my work. And then silence. Like a school child fearing the reprimand of a teacher, they couldn’t even respond to my email request to inform me of what was going on: do you want more information, do you need more time, did you decide to go in a different direction yet again?
Their behavior almost makes me wonder if this is some pathetic attempt at market research of other consulting firms; to collect client lists, salaries, organization structures, business models, etc. At this point I’m hoping the silence from Oliver Wyman continues, but I suspect in another 6 months they’ll be bothering me again. In any case, their recruitment practices are unprofessional at best and unethical at worst, with the request for my client list and work examples and then not responding to follow up mails being the most egregious example. Potential experienced consultants considering interviewing at their Singapore office should be aware of how they treat candidates. I’ll also add that in nearly every instance I was scheduled to discuss things over the phone with someone on their end, something came up last minute for whoever I was set to talk with (generally communicated by way of just not answering the call or not calling me at the scheduled time and then informing me afterwards that they were sorry some meeting or other ran long), and I needed to be rescheduled to later in the day or week.
Perhaps another consulting firm can help them reorganize how they try to recruit people? Because apparently all the data science and machine learning they’re investing in can’t teach etiquette and respect.