New Hires Get Trapped in an Unplanned Gap Year
Consulting firms are delaying start dates for college recruits as business slows, leaving many recent graduates scrambling for part-time work and other ways to spend their time
Aug. 17, 2023 11:00 am ET
(6 min)
Steven Jiang had a clear road map after landing a consulting job offer last year: He’d graduate the following May, move to New York, then start work at KPMG by the fall.
His plans have since evaporated as the consulting industry confronts slower business while trying to absorb the thousands of college graduates it recruits every year. This spring, KPMG told Jiang he wouldn’t start until December, later than he’d anticipated, he said. Then in July, his start date was pushed to June 2024—more than a year after graduation.
Steven Jiang PHOTO: AMANDA MAGLIONE
“That’s when I started freaking out,” said Jiang.
Welcome to the gap year that no one planned—or particularly wanted. Many recent consulting hires got lucrative offers during last fall’s college-recruiting season and were eager to start this summer. Now with too little work to spread around, firms are delaying start dates to an extent not seen in years. Firms including Deloitte, KPMG, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey aren’t bringing on some recent recruits until 2024. Some are even paying new graduate-hires thousands of dollars to spend during their unanticipated gap year.
Many of these young professionals are trying to tread water productively. Some are moving in with family and scrounging for part-time work or internships to pay the bills. Others have signed leases that now start months before work does, in some of the country’s most expensive cities.
Jiang lives with his parents in Richmond, Va., as he figures out how to spend the next 10 months. Many of his friends started their careers this summer. “If I start in June 2024, I’m essentially a year behind them in promotions and work experience,” he said.
He got a $10,000 stipend from KPMG to bide his time, and says he plans to spend some of it traveling in Europe. Meanwhile, he says he is open to part-time positions in hospitality and may try to monetize content on TikTok and YouTube.
KPMG said about two-thirds of the consulting campus hires it recruited over the past academic year will now start in 2024. Roughly half of that cohort won’t start until April or later. Like Jiang, many are getting $10,000 to compensate for the later-than-anticipated start dates, KPMG said.
Deloitte, which has pushed starts for some consulting recruits to early 2024, is paying affected graduates $2,000 or more a month meanwhile. One interim option it suggests is to serve with AmeriCorps through a partnership between the firm and agency. Bain has also offered stipends to new graduates with 2024 start dates.
Many consulting firms hired extensively as business boomed through much of the pandemic, recruiting leaders and campus career advisers said. Now, as businesses try to cut costs, most U.S. consulting clients have paused or canceled projects, according to a survey this year by market-research firm Source Global Research. McKinsey announced plans earlier this year to cut as many as 2,000 roles, focusing on support jobs, while firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG have also trimmed ranks. Still, some consulting firms say they are reluctant to cut jobs because they need to ensure they’ll have sufficient staff when business rebounds.
Mya Richards PHOTO: JOAN XIAO
Mya Richards, 22, says she got a consulting offer from a large firm last fall but won’t start until next January. After graduating from the University of Michigan in April, she is living with her parents in suburban Maryland and working part time in retail. She said she plans to start looking for New York City housing in the fall, but said finding roommates has been difficult because her peers have different start dates.
Still, she added, she’d prefer to be in this situation than having long stretches “on the bench”—consulting lingo for being without a client.
Some graduates worry a delayed start date means a company may ultimately rescind an offer, though that’s unlikely, said Zeynep Tolon, a career coach for Carnegie Mellon University master’s students. Firms including Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG told The Wall Street Journal that they are committed to honoring offers.
Consulting recruits looking for interim work meanwhile don’t necessarily need to tell prospective employers that they are seeking a short-term job, said Sarah Johnston, a Durham, N.C.-based job-search strategist. “The job could be delayed even more, or you could actually really end up liking the position.”
Dusty Register PHOTO: ANN HERMES
Dusty Register, a 29-year-old recent Harvard Business School graduate, said he looked for short-term job leads after learning his job at Bain wouldn’t start until next January. He sent introductory notes to fellow alumni, his personal network, former Bain employees and others at companies that interested him. “I used the spray-and-pray approach,” he said.
He got an offer in June to work at Milo’s Tea, an Alabama brewer of sweet tea and lemonade, working as a finance and strategy intern. He likes the company’s culture—and has appreciated their understanding of his unusual internship timing. He and his wife first alternated living with their families in Birmingham, then moved in with a friend, he said.
Bain gave new M.B.A. graduate-hires the option to start in April 2024, offering a larger stipend to wait. Register decided against doing so.
“I’m not sure I’m at the stage of life to be able to take a year off,” he said.
Write to Lindsay Ellis at lindsay.ellis@wsj.com
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Appeared in the August 22, 2023, print edition as 'Some New Consultants Receive an Unplanned Gap Year'.
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