Company: Deloitte
Date: 2017-07-02
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Great Opportunities (and Great Challenges) of working at a large complex organization
Pros: People - I've worked at Deloitte for 4+ years and have worked with some incredibly smart, hard-working, driven and collaborative individuals. Moreover, there are very few people that I've met who I didn't like or who I think poorly of. 

Clients - Work with some of the biggest and most notable companies in the world.

Learning & Development - There are lots of opportunities to learn and develop your skills and your craft. As others have alluded to, Deloitte University is an incredible investment and asset, but more than anything anytime you have to solve a problem or challenge there are lots of resources at your disposal to go and do that. Finally while there are formal learnings and trainings, it ultimately is what you make of it, and because of the resources of a big company if you're really trying to learn and grow your skills you can really do a ton of that here.

Initiative-Driven Culture - If you are someone who takes the initiative you can really go far here. If you want to start something or do something as long as you can make a business case for why you should do it and find people to help you then you can make it happen.  

Benefits - I think the benefits here are pretty good. 401K, Health and Wellness Subsidy, Health Plans (multiple options, you choose what's best for you) from what I can gather one of the better paternity/maternity benefits in the U.S. Generous PTO packages (although it can be challenging to use it all if you work in client service)  They also have a Leave of Absence Program
Cons: Work-Life Balance - This is not a con of necessarily Deloitte, but rather, the field of management consulting and client service. Depending on your client and project the hours can be long, the travel can be difficult and unrelenting.

Staffing - This is hit or miss, and somewhat depending on your service area and service line, but when it comes down to it you're going to get staffed on either A) things that the Partners and Senior Managers sell to clients or B) whatever is available at any given point in time when you are looking for a gig. Hopefully that aligns with your interest and skillset but it doesn't always happen. Also, some areas can be somewhat stingy about trying to staff you on an engagement that falls outside of the group you in, which somewhat feels like you have no control over the direction of your career, and goes somewhat against their mantra of "you own your career." As such, I would be very thoughtful and careful as you think about what kind of work you want to do.

Politics - Deloitte has all the same kinds of politics that happen at any large complex organization. I've seen people who were supposed to get promoted get it nixed, people who had the green light to transfer to a different group only to get it taken away, people fight over staffing specific people without taking what they want into consideration, and pretty much about anything else you can imagine. This is what happens and it's hard to avoid it in any organization but it definitely exists. Also, since Deloitte is a partnership, partners can kind of do what they want, and as a result, you get these fiefdoms and kingdoms which kind of pop up. 

Doing Excellent Client work is not enough - If you want to just do great client work you'll do fine but never really advance. At the end of the day, you not only need to do that, but also do firm development work (proposal work, business development work, recruiting, firm building activities) and those who basically overextend themselves and do the most work are the ones who get ahead. Now, the firm has done more to focus on quality over quantity especially at the more junior levels (attrition became a problem) but at the end of the day it still rewards those who really extend themselves and take on a significant amount of extra work, which obviously cuts into your work-life balance.