Company: Deloitte
Date: 2017-02-25
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Smart, hardworking colleagues, not meaningful work
Pros: Deloitte provides myriad opportunities to gain business and project management skills that can be applied in many industries. My colleagues were incredibly hard working, smart, sharp people. Although I think that women and minorities are at a disadvantage in every organization, Deloitte is much more forward-thinking than many in terms of social and gender equity. Leadership has also allowed people to have more relaxed dress codes when possible and encouraged shorter meetings. The health insurance is fantastic and there is an excellent family leave policy, plus a health and fitness subsidy, a corporate card you are encouraged to use for work happy hours, and discounts from a bunch of vendors.
Cons: One of the biggest issues is that the onus of finding a project is on the individual junior practitioner, but the availability of projects is determined by the competence of leadership - so when people are "on the bench," it's not necessarily because they are turning down opportunities, but the performance model punishes people for things that are often outside their control. In the Federal practice, the projects tend to be very long and not particularly fulfilling. Despite the adage that "you own your career," you don't. You often can't roll off projects because it's more important to provide a consistent experience for clients. Despite the message from leadership to value a diversity of educational backgrounds, MBAs are paid significantly more than people with other masters or even doctorate degrees. Vacation days are extremely generous, but it's an empty benefit because utilization metrics are too high to allow you to take days off. The 401K matching is low (maximum is 1.5% of salary) and it takes 4 years to vest. There is a lot of what feels like busywork - internal projects that never go anywhere, proposals that get abandoned or are lost, coffee meetings that keep getting postponed. Organizationally, it felt like the loudest voice in the room always wins - it's not a place for introverts. It's also hard to figure out what exactly anyone does, because there's a lot of consultanese and self-promotion. Although the Federal practice is supposed to be less demanding than Commercial, I routinely worked 50-60 hour weeks.