Company: KPMG
Date: 2014-09-26
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

KPMG UK - Financial Services Consultant - Positive experiences despite lack of direction
Pros: If through a mixture of luck and judgement you can get yourself onto an interesting client project with colleagues who will support you, there are plenty of positive experiences to be had. You can take on responsibility early, engage with very senior people at the client, be involved in big decisions and learn a lot about the marketplace; whether in a specific sub-sector of the financial services industry, or more broadly if you can network your way onto projects for other teams within KPMG. There is a nice mix of career-consultants and people with deep industry experience, so you can learn from both sides. If you like drinking and international travel, you will be well catered for as a consultant at KPMG.
Cons: The lack of strategic direction means that you can be working on very different projects from year to year, and month to month. For a while this is a pro, as it lets you try different approaches, learn to apply consulting skills in a variety of contexts, but in the long run, it is a con for me, as it makes career planning difficult. KPMG ultimately will do whatever clients are paying for this particular month: regulation, IT implementation, business strategy, tax reclaims, or a bums-on-seats job where you are no different to a one-man-band contractor.
Where will I be working in 3 months time? As a consultant, you never really know. 5 days a week in Brussels? 4 days a week in Dublin? 11 hour days plus weekend work in London? Or a more relaxing time "on the bench", working on whatever random client pitch absolutely must be finished and submitted in the next 2 hours, when nobody can agree on what our opinions, approach or prices are. Some people thrive on this environment, but generally not the ones with kids.
Performance management, mentoring and coaching of junior colleagues gets some support and a bit of lip-service, but ultimately it's sink or swim, from manager grade downwards.