Pros
Flexible hours in-between projects Supportive of personal interests and goals Generally friendly people Copious amounts of Happy Hour drinking (necessary to deal with the stress I suppose) Lots of after work activities sponsored by co-workers.
Cons
Extremely demanding hours while staffed, largely self-imposed due to tacit expectations from project managers and upwards. Poor hiring practices, leads to a lot of unqualified candidates making it through Though advertising themselves as allowing the consultants to have a say in their project staffing, this is actually very misleading. Your choice is typically between being staffed on a mediocre/not a great fit project and sitting on the bench unstaffed and thus billing internally and generating no income. This is frowned upon and ultimately greatly impacts your year end 'numbers'. These numbers play into your bonus and career potential. As with most of the consulting industry, a great place for type A personalities, with little tolerance for anyone else. Additionally, as with most companies of this size, there is an established 'inner circle' who have great influence and little oversight. Highly varied salaries and bonuses amongst similar skill sets leading to a sense of inequality. This one was more important to me, and for someone joining today would likely not experience it, but the culture has been significantly diluted over the past 5 years. What was once a group of individuals dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and inclusion has now been reduced to a consulting machine. Insert consultants, extract revenue, repeat. By the time I left, there was very little emphasis placed on internal research efforts and employee satisfaction. All efforts were expected to be directed towards the acquisition of revenue streams. Witnessed several employees effectively cut for simply not being aggressive enough with taking on leadership responsibilities.