Company: KPMG
Date: 2018-02-03
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former

Consulting is not for everyone, and KPMG is no exception
Pros: Great firm, people, processes and professionalism. KPMG tries to take care of its employees, and their processes are well defined and generally fair. Lots of opportunities to travel in Advisory (if that’s your thing), work for blue chip clients, and learn along the way

Good paid time off, and other benefits.
Cons: Consulting is not for everyone. If you are in the technology space, you basically operate in a horizontal that has no industry affiliation. That means you may end up bouncing from client to client across different industries, starting from scratch every time, and taking on the associated stress along with it. Quite often it’s just a glorified staff augmentation model, where the client wants a body with a certain skill, and KPMG is more than happy to provide as its revenue anyways. 

Be ready to spend time on the road 3-4 days a week, every week. If you have a good amount of work experience, expect to spend a lot of time managing projects with kids straight out of college who have been “sold” to the client as “experts”. Given that you’ll be out at client sites with different KPMG teams (from offices across the US), you may be a stranger to colleagues in your own office in spite of being with the firm for a long time. 

Additionally, you have to be constantly in billable projects (to maintain your utilization, which in turn impacts your bonus), participate in sales and support, community activities, administrative activities, and other extra curriculars. It sometime just gets too much, with too little in return for all the stress and anxiety. Work life balance is in name only.

In the end, it all depends on your preference and goals. All the points I have listed are more reflective of the consulting model itself, and not necessarily unique to KPMG.