Company: Deloitte
Date: 2009-04-04
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Continuous Pressure to Perform yet Great Place for Professional Training
Pros: On my first year at Deloitte I hated it so much that I did not think I'd last a year, but the life at Deloitte gets much better the longer you stay in the firm in terms of compensation, network, peer / management support, etc.  When you are new you have a lot to prove and management may not take you too seriously.  

One of the best things about working at Deloitte is the people - my colleagues are all intelligent and motivated and I'd say 99% of them are always and genuinely willing to help you to get the work done or listen to your concerns.  There are also some great partners who will mentor, train you and want to see you succeed in the firm.  Deloitte also does a good job train you to be a "polished" professional.  You will learn to present yourself in a certain manner which can only be acquired from working within this type of environment.
Cons: There are always different kinds of pressure to perform above and beyond.  You need to maintain a high utilization number (to be 90% utilized you'd need to work 50 hours/week including non-client work).  The partner/director admission process is brutal and seemm almost inhumane (they are literally looking for supermen/women) which has been discouraging me from pursuing the next step.  There is also a pressure to bring in as much revenue as possible to be admitted to partner/director.  Recently many underperforming partners are being demoted to director, or directors are being let go.  So you will need to conitnue to sell, sell, sell in your entire life at Deloitte.

A lot of service lines are highly specialized.  You get pigeonholed if you stay too long.