Pros
People on an individual basis are great. Focused industries in the office are enough to give you exposure to various areas of interest, specifically NFP, Gov Con, Healthcare and Public without spreading you too thin in terms of experience. Promotions are commiserate with effort.
Cons
The management and the office have lost their way. Culture and Unity- It's been 8 months since the McLean and Bethesda offices merged and each day the atmosphere gets worse. There is a complete "us against them" mentality whenever a controversial issue arises with each of the legacy offices banding together determined to win. It seems that the Top management thinks that this will work itself out in time so they usually stay out of the chaos, but instead of collaboration it's only resulted in the legacy McLean office management, seniors and staff slowly being pushed out because they no longer align with the tone at the top. Sadly, a 100% lack of direction from the very top in terms of the merging of offices/cultures has allowed for a cancer to spread and morale couldn't be lower due to the politics. Scheduling- Management used to always say how they would never take on clients that they didn't have the expertise or staffing to handle.. i.e. People First. This couldn't be farther from the truth now. The office continues to accept very large clients that the office can't handle. This is all amazing for both current revenue and future growth opportunities, but the redirect in staffing is sloppy and leaves most employees feeling slighted. There is no longer any concern for year to year consistency in staffing if you have a normal size job when a large job is occurring. A VERY considerable amount of manager time is spent justifying scheduling and why teams did/did not make minimum hours requirements. The focus has completely shifted from quality of work to quantity of work both on both a macro (revenues/# of jobs) and micro (employee hours) level. It's a lose/lose situation: either your audit team is torn apart when members have to go to one of the new huge jobs or you get put on the new huge jobs and feel like you're being punished for something you didn't do. The best performers are the ones that get put in the new/hardest jobs for periods of time that aren't sustainable. I have had great performers say to me 'I think that they (management/scheduling) are trying to get me to quit (due to scheduling)' which is a completely unacceptable tone to convey to these employees who only try to please. Turnover is rampant from first year staff quitting after only 7 months to senior managers already offered partner positions at BDO quitting to go to non-big 4 feel firms. It won't be long til the only legacy McLean people are the partners who have no choice. My advice: don't work here. If you want to put up with big 4 politics, then at least go to the big 4 where you will be properly compensated and have the experience to put on your resume.