[katyseagull]

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It depends on the type of business. I'm an attorney, so can only speak of the legal field. But in the legal field there are certain cases that you can only get if the firm is a certain size. E.g., let's say a big, multi-million dollar law suit is filed, and the defendant thinks they'll need a team of at least 8+ attorneys working on a case. That client will reject a 5 person firm. So you have to expand your 5 person firm to 8 people in order to get those types of cases.

Since you can't just hire people off the street to become lawyers, you sometimes need to have more lawyers than you need at the moment, in order to get the cases you want--to show the potential clients that you have the capability to handle the case.

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Ok, well this had actually crossed my mind. My company has expressed a lot of interest in getting government contracts. You may be onto something here. But isn't it unethical to hire unsuspecting people just to puff up a firm? It seems pretty crappy to a bunch of us.

Another thing - one of my friends at work told me that our boss has yearly "goals" just like the rest of us technicians. One of her goals is to grow her division. But doesn't common sense tell you not to grow your division if there's no work coming in? Why would a department boss focus so much on meeting her goals when they are just so silly? I guess your instinct that my company might be going after contracts that specify a large firm is the only thing that makes sense.