Company: EY
Date: 2013-10-05
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

If all you want to do professionally is test security and compliance controls, this is the place for you
Pros: Sometimes you'll do cool projects that are operations oriented; pay scale is aggressive; nice way manage people quickly.
Cons: This is in regards to an IT audit position:

Most of the time you will be doing compliance work, which by nature, is incredibly boring.

My office loved to promise the world to our clients, and then the staff got to pay by working long hours. This is because management is so concerned about selling work they don't care about the consequences. Where I worked, it was "client first" not "people first". The work life balance they are so fond of talking about was not in place.

They'll promise you in the job interview that you'll be working at lots of different companies doing neat work, but what they don't tell you is that they will only train you for Sarbanes Oxley control work. If you want to get in on the good, interesting training sessions (like Oracle or SAP implementation classes that are on the opposite coast and only occur once a year) you have to REALLY FIGHT for it - because they will always have some job for you to do that takes precedence because it helps your utilization. Also because the local office doesn't want to pay for your travel.

I gotta repeat this so it sinks in for you - companies don't typically hire consultants to do work to create new IP - the IT audit work is typically compliance initiatives they don't want to bother using their own people to do. I worked at multiple Fortune 100 companies, but the work was still horribly boring.

It's a crap shoot as to whether or not you will work with a manager or senior manager that cares about engagements. I only had one in my entire time there that was actually worried about our work product and not just selling more services to the client. Most of the time, they are trying to push their work down on you, which would be good and fine if they trained you to do it, but they don't. Also, bad managers don't care about your bandwidth, they just expect you to get it done.

Heaven forbid an engagement "goes south" on you - because senior managers and managers are writing reviews, they like to push the blame down and make the staff look bad. I was on a team of 20 people that worked really hard, but because the statement of work (i.e. the client's expectations) was nebulous, we continually delivered a product that the client wanted changed. The project was managed very poorly, because management was too busy selling to define the final goal prior to starting. But, at the end of the engagement, guess who got stuck with the bad reviews? Not management.

Speaking of reviews - every job requires a thesis on people who work under you. It is extremely over engineered. Staff get reviewed for things like "market growth" which they have no control over, because they don't sell work. Also, mandatory yearly goals are set, so don't expect absolute freedom to direct your growth.

The tools you work with are ATROCIOUS, even on the IT Audit side. Lotus Notes, several versions back, was the email client while I was there (it was 10+ years old, and operated like it was 20 years old). I used Microsoft Groove to share engagement files, which is a product Microsoft discontinued a long time ago. And for consulting work, I used Paisely GRC, which I honestly can't even believe E&Y paid for. For a company that prides itself on being so forward thinking, the IT department REALLY failed. Ernst & Young needed to hire a real tech consultant to turn around their abysmal IT situation.

You'll also travel a lot, but it is not to big cities worth visiting. It is to data centers in the middle of nowhere and corporate parks on the outskirts of the city. For training, you go to Cleveland. CLEVELAND. Not a top destination spot, by a long shot.

Honestly, if you are someone who simply wants a big company on your resume, you should take a step back and really think about your career - REAL consulting work is happening at Bain, McKinsey, LEK, Accenture, etc. They will work you to the bone as well, but at least the work you are doing will be interesting. Padding your resume with compliance work might secure you a career, but I can't adequately put into words how mind numbingly boring controls work is.