Pros
Working with enterprise class clients in wealth management and insurance industry Promotion potential - Those starting out in the consulting role will get a lot of experience with a good chance to get promoted within 2 years to Senior Consultant.
Cons
Working Conditions: Long work hours – Most consultants arrive at 9:30am and leave 6:30pm and above. Busiest days are Mondays and Fridays where leaving past 7pm would not be uncommon. Some projects require seemingly unending overtime hours and weekends. That produced a lot of turnover causing further pain with the remaining team. Technology: Technical Consultants must learn “Scheme” programing language which is a non-transferable skill to any other company. You will basically be building a skill you’ll never use anywhere else and may impact your career growth at external companies demanding experience from popular programming languages. Model Driven Architecture - Must learn to use the NexJ Studio (eclipse plugin) to develop applications; again a non-transferable skill. Company Topology: Top heavy org structure - At least four VPs and many Directors in Pro Serv with only 3 large and active clients. Managers in pro serv do not have direct reports. They are considered project leads and do not coach or mentor the teams they lead. Consultants report to Project Manager and Director or VP tied to the project. Few consultants actually speak to the client’s staff directly Promtions passed Senior consultant are slim due to the low sales and few projects Employee Compensation: Starting pay for new consultants is below average; experienced consultants can negotiate a stronger salary. Yearly performance rating affected your yearly bonus payout which ranges from 0% - 15%. Most get bonuses less than 8%. But anything greater than 8% was split between multiple payouts that spanned a year. This was called a “Retention Bonus” as the company dealt with high turnover. An excellent performance was not tied to yearly raise. An employee can expect a raise in the range of 0 - 2.5%. Potential employees are enticed with share options, however the stock performance is dismal and the price of share options was often above the open market price. Basic coverage for dental and health; no option to increase coverage. Only 3 weeks of vacation is offered. Few people below Director level were able to negotiate 4 week vacations. That normally required being a Director or above.
