Experiences of working for Big 4 Consulting?

[Bluenose]

Thanks for your contributions. It echos what I've heard in the past. I'm not in IT, I work in legal/reg side of banking. I feel like giving it a try, because I've not tried it before. It's only 6 months, worst case I hate it and do 3-6 months and then grab another contract. Their paying higher than top tier banks, which kinda surprised me actually. Its a Manager role so they said I may be manging/supervising some juniors, but its TBC. And they said I'd be allocated a project based on my personal interests and strengths...which is nice, if true.

I think this is the right decision, just be prepared for dissapointment about the experience.

Legal work is almost always punishing hours so that won't be a surprise to you, I suspect.

[PerfectStorm]

Worked for Deloitte at a government account, was easiest job ever, outside IR35, basically doing nothing (it was government) got £650 per day and found out they charged £1650 per day for me. Next time I'll ask more.

You won't get it - not unless you're a party donor anyway :-)

[PerfectStorm]

One of my experiences of working alongside this lot. Once, on a client site, it was decided we would have a little Friday drink after work. I was minded to usually work at home on a Friday, but the Big 4 types weren't allowed (due to their self-imposed presenteeism rules) and so the drink would happen then. Not a problem, I thought, and duly came in for a day of work followed by after work drinks. "Maybe we'll all finish early" I thought. 4:30 comes around - nothing. 5 - nothing. 5:30 - nothing.

The Big 4 types were all studiously working away in a meeting room trying to finish a PowerPoint that no one cared about, all knowing they were delaying the after work drink that most normal people were waiting for.

Finally at 7PM I got up and left realising how much time I'd sunk into waiting for them to finish.

The drink never happened.

And no one cared about the PowerPoint either.

[vwdan]

No experience of working for them - but lots of working with, alongside them at clients.

Their people always fit into one mould - taking things a bit too seriously, working far too late, and delivering via PowerPoints and massive documents rather than actual things. As far as technology goes, they're book-smart, but not street-smart. And I get the impression there's not much scope to be an individual - the nail that sticks up will get hammered down.

I wouldn't have anything to do with them personally.

Same here on all counts - and when I did deliver a project TO a Big Four (as in, the Big 4's own infra) it was, frankly, one of the grimmest projects I've ever done.

[hungry_hog]

Have worked for one (as a permie) and with them (as a contractor) on projects.

Pretty horrible experience, long hours, lots of politics.

If you were a permie you got shafted with the hours and having to deliver projects + internal work + training + business dev, so four jobs in one. If you were a contractor you got looked down on for not being a permie and shafted with the jobs no one wanted.

It does also depend on the client. If get you a bad client (we had a well known telecoms company with a large office in St. Pauls, cough cough who could that be?) you are up creek. We ended up doing Powerpoint slide till 11.30pm most nights...3 months of hell.

[Paralytic]

We ended up doing Powerpoint slide till 11.30pm most nights...3 months of hell.

As a contractor, I can't understand how someone can let themselves/their business into this situation.

It really is important to set your stall our early and make it clear you're a service provider, not an employee (not that working till 11:30 should be normal for employees either)

[SussexSeagull]

Admittedly back in my permanent days so a few years back but I was on a project with Accenture and the way they treated their stuff was unholy. 15 hour days seemed to be expected but at the same time they never really seemed to achieve anything.

[malvolio]

Admittedly back in my permanent days so a few years back but I was on a project with Accenture and the way they treated their stuff was unholy. 15 hour days seemed to be expected but at the same time they never really seemed to achieve anything.

There are two types of employee, those who can and those who get promoted. The latter are the ones pushing the long hours, since the partners - who mainly came up the same way - seriously believe that time expended equals progress made. The detail that the progress is going into reporting and planning rather than actual delivery is irrelevant. Hence the pushy ones do the stupid hours and drag assorted minions along in their wake.

I spent the last 6 weeks of one assignment sitting in a datacentre control room on a three shift rotation in case my skills were needed. The fact that I'm a Service Management expert, not a technician, and my reports were far more capable than I was at sorting any likely issues was not relevant. What I did achieve was keeping the client management happy, which was not actually part of my role, so the workers could get on and work. Complete nonsense, but a solid 5 figure payment every week sort of made up for that.

You have to be a bit cynical about it. The Big 4 are largely staffed by MBAed incompetents. If they're stupid enough to pay me to sit around, I'm not going to argue. I'm there to gain income, not promotion.

[SussexSeagull]

There are two types of employee, those who can and those who get promoted. The latter are the ones pushing the long hours, since the partners - who mainly came up the same way - seriously believe that time expended equals progress made. The detail that the progress is going into reporting and planning rather than actual delivery is irrelevant. Hence the pushy ones do the stupid hours and drag assorted minions along in their wake.

I spent the last 6 weeks of one assignment sitting in a datacentre control room on a three shift rotation in case my skills were needed. The fact that I'm a Service Management expert, not a technician, and my reports were far more capable than I was at sorting any likely issues was not relevant. What I did achieve was keeping the client management happy, which was not actually part of my role, so the workers could get on and work. Complete nonsense, but a solid 5 figure payment every week sort of made up for that.

You have to be a bit cynical about it. The Big 4 are largely staffed by MBAed incompetents. If they're stupid enough to pay me to sit around, I'm not going to argue. I'm there to gain income, not promotion.

The project I was on had start from the client side as well who were encouraged by Accenture to work long hours with them. What they didn't realise was the client staff got overtime. Fast forward a few months and someone pointed out the whole overtime budget for a multi year project had gone in the first year.

I found the whole exercise slightly distasteful. The client management stood by and watched people work hours they wouldn't have dreamt of asking their own staff to do.

That said some of them as individuals were good and talented people who went onto better things. Coincidentally one of them got in touch with me yesterday about a contract so not all bad.

[hungry_hog]

As a contractor, I can't understand how someone can let themselves/their business into this situation.

It really is important to set your stall our early and make it clear you're a service provider, not an employee (not that working till 11:30 should be normal for employees either)

I was an employee...
The contractors however did get dragged into the nonsense