The Berkeley Partnership reviews

I've been at Berkeley almost two years and I wish I had made the move earlier! The way Berkeley operates is very different from other consultancies, this was the main appeal and I can honestly say it's still true after two years here. The culture of the firm is excellent, this is down to a number of things. The size of the organisation is much smaller than the bigger consultancies so you typically know everybody by name (the London office is about 80 people). The partners are very approachable (no offices / no PAs) and the firm only has two levels (consultant and partner) so it does not feel very hierarchical. All the performance management etc is done based on when you joined the company rather than the whole firm going through a performance round - this definitely takes a lot of the competitive pressures off that you get in other firms. The work is interesting, the Berkeley model is that you work across different industries and in different roles. They want people to become well-rounded consultants - this really suits me as I like a fresh challenge but wouldn't suit someone who wanted to specialise in a specific industry or type of work. I have done four projects at Berkeley and in each project I have been the sole Berkeley consultant, it takes a bit of getting used to but it means the roles are generally supporting senior clients on their most strategic programmes. You are well sported with the concept of a listening partner (the partner assigned to you for the client) and you can utilise this as much or as little as you need. The people are great, a sociable and collaborative group. There is always something going on with a whole host of different activities to suit different tastes (sailing trips, theatre trips, food themed, wine / whiskey, book clubs) and you can be as involved as you want or not at all. It is a very adult approach to work! I love that Berkeley do things like the re-induction, I recently went on an away day with people that joined around the same time as me. Two partners took a whole day away to spend with us, there was no agenda but it meant we could ask loads of questions about the firm and felt like we got really honest responses.