Decent company where the up years are ok to good, but the down years are a major struggle
Pros
Other reviews correct, 401k matching is one of the most legit in the consulting industry T-Mobile business plan BYOD with fairly cheap payroll deduct upgrades like extra line or extra data. Depending on your client you may not use it for business reasons often, but you still have it available for personal/business use when necessary + tethering which is always a nice perk. This straddles as a neutral for me as I knew going in, but opportunities for travel are minimal. For those with families who wish to remain local to the area, this is superb as you will not need to jet off every week or so, or drive all over the region for the clients. If you tend to get itchy feet on occasion and like to see the insides of the nation's airports, look elsewhere. Minor relocation assistance is possible if you have a specific skill for a business need. Senior guys knowledgeable and usually willing to help out the many Jr staff push their careers forward Initially: happy hours, group events, health benefits (see below), tuition reimbursement, office atmosphere Great opportunity for new grad to become established and for people late in their career to settle into and retire from without fears of age discrimination that also have been strangling the consulting industry. Depending on team, work from home and flexible hours are fantastic. Get your assignments/meetings done and you won't feel like you are slaved to the PC when the work dies down... just be available for the rest and you will be ok. This is never an excuse to slack, but more motivation to work efficiently and swiftly in a minimum amount of time which is necessary considering working hours of some international clients. People who are desperately working to keep the workplace culture alive as it has diminished over the years as teams have been split up across the units, not to be seen again for months at a time if ever again. These people are fantastic and their efforts appreciated during downturns. Various project choice allows developing your skills in any number of directions that may loosely align with your career goals, or try out subjects you otherwise would not have if it was not your main role somewhere else with little risk of failure as a deterrent. If it absolutely does not work out, you can be reassigned. Beware of chasing the in-demand skill of the day, though, as by the time you master it, the deal that prompted it may have fallen through entirely or the skill of the day has changed and you will be expected to follow suit. Pick a few technologies to specialize in and ardently stick with it - it is healthier for your future career after Sogeti to have strong talents in smaller areas than weak talents all over the board that you never actually put into practice.
Cons
Things have changed over the last few years, mostly from having too many eggs in one major basket in the Cincinnati market, and when that basket starts getting smaller, the squeeze hits everybody exceptionally hard. This has resulted in a culture shift for the worse as time has gone on from my start date, with far fewer company events, almost no happy hours, few extracurriculars after work, and generally the office feeling pretty empty when it was once jam packed and buzzing with activity on any given day. Part of this was caused by a client moving out of the building, reducing face to face visibility drastically. Bonus plan changes yearly company-wide, and you will almost certainly never see the 24k the benefits page promises or be able to draw from all the education reimbursement you have (1yr golden handcuff on that anyhow and can feel like pulling teeth to use it). Speaking of which, the great 401k plan vests at the 3 year mark as others have stated, but turnover typically beats this out by a year or so, so don't bank on it. Salaries here are lower than market average and very difficult to shake up on a down year so don't feel locked in by the vesting schedule. Sogeti was also sold as having great project mobility to align your interests and skills to a project best suited for it, but approaches this with a body shop mentality where you will be placed on next open project to keep you billing, even if it is a bad fit. Once this happens it can be exceptionally difficult to move elsewhere especially since you get pulled into that same sorting pipe again if we're currently running lean, although some people do genuinely get placed where they are most useful and where their interests align. Has a very "bulk up the staff now, sort it out later" feeling to it. Health benefits were sold as free premiums not more than just a year ago, even though the deductible was pretty high (nearly catastrophe plan levels), the younger workforce they employ appreciated no premiums for a plan they would use minimally anyway, so it worked out well for the majority. Recently though, the "realities of doing business in the USA" have caught up to us and instilled some lofty premiums for the same catastrophe level plan, with no adjustments in salary to compensate, so a benefit became a unilateral pay cut and saw a major shift in company culture that most are still bitter about. Families have taken the brunt of this issue. Finally, and this is not a problem unique to this location, but management feels like a rubber band. You reach a certain point in your career where if you want to make more $, you need to introduce sales goals into your title without exception, otherwise you hit the cap. I liken this to a rubber band because the harder it is stretched, the more stress it will feel without suitable reward. There is very little consistency at the practice manager level as there is not much reward for doing the required work of the role, and also doubled with the expectation of keeping on task with the current engagements while remaining billable. This places enormous stress on the consultants' direct leadership as the leaders will make it one year before trying to pass the role on to the next guy in line trying to climb the ladder. Very few people are able to juggle this demanding dual workload without cracking at the seams so kudos to them for holding on. What this means in your day to day life is limited engagement with the person directly responsible for your promotion, so you might need to be a bit intrusive to make sure they remember who you are in their already extremely packed lives - and spread that out over the entire practice and you can see how this can be an issue.
