This paper is a discussion piece based on the authors experiences as a consultant in the geological engineering, mining and tunnelling industries and comparison with geological and engineer peers whom chose careers based as project or site-based employees of the major miners. The effects of the economic downturn that saw the end of the iron ore boom began to impact consultants first about five years ago, with many external contracts altered to be undertaken by internal staff; with subsequent redundancies offered to some employees of the major mining companies. Consultants have the ability to be flexible, bide their time and adapt to where the work is presently on the east coast of Australia in the tunnelling and infrastructure sector. Conversely the author has observed many mining colleagues take redundancies to move to other commodities or other employment sectors, so their knowledge and experience of the Pilbara is lost. The paper presents methods to ensure now during leaner times, projects are targeting the best people for the job and how to sift through resumes and tenders to find the right people, not just the right consultant companies to suit a projects needs. CITATION:Baxter-Crawford, H, 2019. The answer isnt always Phi=25: why reducing consultant input during downturns can hurt the Australian iron ore industry, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2019, pp 4956 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).