Pros
No travel to clients in other cities. Good place to gain consulting experience if hired from industry.
Cons
Biased employee treatment, particularly women of color. I know many Black female employees with extensive industry experience (10+ years) and advanced degrees (MBA and Masters) were hired in at Associate Consultant level - the same levels offered to new college grads. Management favors white employees, particularly males, for promotions. To be promoted also requires tons of political support- you have to make friends with the right Senior Leaders, who are mostly white, and male. If you are an employee of color you will need to volunteer tons of time with internal contributions such as the Employee Resource Groups, all of which are unpaid hours, while meeting your billable client hours. You’ll also need to help with client sales pursuits and bring in contracts to be considered for promotions, even though they tell you only those Principal and above are judged on sales, On average expect to put in 45 hrs a week for clients and ghost any extra hours you might work even though they say Slalom doesn’t ghost hours (they‘ll tell you how concerned they are when you go above or below 45 no matter how much you actually work that week). Then also add in 10 hrs of unpaid internal contributions and meetings for sales and other internal initiatives. Do all this and you still will probably not be promoted unless you make friends with the right leaders and settle down on an account to become close to clients who have buying power. Management will also undermine you by telling you how you are not good enough even when you are doing great work and your clients love you - all so they can make sure their own protégés get promoted. They tell you they care but it’s all optics, All this and lack of rewards for sales has led to decreased profits and unsustainable markets.
