Company: EY
Date: 2020-01-29
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

A lumbering leviathan of many parts
Pros: - Potential to be exposed to interesting clients and a variety of projects
- Some highly capable and caring colleagues
- Some good governance and compliance to learn from
- Some ostensibly genuine attempts to wrest control of technology platform from "Global IT" and create a working technical environment
- Good opportunities to learn how to manage people and projects, mentor and coach others, etc.
Cons: - How people *behave* often doesn't reflect the stated *values* of the business
- Partner structure and career ladder encourages negative behaviour
- The technical strongest junior people realise they can do better and leave fairly quickly
- System of patronage around promotions leads to a tendency to pigeon-hole staff and promote those who support successful Partners, as well as a dog-eat-dog culture when times are lean (such as they are now). Realistically, you don't get a choice about whether or not you get lucky with how influential your Partner is - and such things wax and wane with their fortunes
- Overall strategy seems a bit "shotgun", with little year-to-year continuity about what's most important
- Client acquisition and retention strategy is - on the face of it - clear, and for the mutual benefit of EY and its clients; however, the reality is that many people still engage in transactional relationships that benefit one side *only*... for the "quick win" and a positive number in their personal revenue column
- Overall relationship between Audit and non-Audit generates significant liabilities and limits opportunities for consulting across the business - despite Audit being a millstone