Extremely solid first job out of college.. with a few minor improvements needed
Pros
Overall, OW is an extremely solid company to work for right out of college. Very grateful to have been there. If you are trying to break into management consulting, don't be disillusioned by the term "MBB" -- OW is a real deal, and you will be surprised how amazing it is. - Extremely caring, genuine people with a not-fratty, yet still super collegial culture - Again, people, people, people!! After all, you will learn that your general sense of happiness at work really comes down to whether you enjoy working with your team or not. Obsessing with landing a sexy case or gunning for a big name client will come at a significant WFB cost. - Lots of interesting cases with direct exposure to senior clients - Did I mention people?? - Partners are very easy to approach -- they are always happy to grab coffee with you. Pretty flat culture too. SF office head is a rockstar - Competitive compensation and the management does an excellent job maintaining its competitiveness - Very generous benefits -- I would say OW's benefits (e.g. FlexOW, LFO, business class policy, and free Amex Platinum to name a few) are FARRRRRR more generous than those at Bain & Company (e.g. no business class even when flying internationally) - Very advanced back-end IT infrastructure and the IT dept is always trying out new things to constantly improve things. Very entrepreneurial team and they do an excellent job to make your life better (McKinsey and Lotus... you listening?) . Laptops could use an upgrade though - Very design driven thanks to Lippincott -- aesthetically speaking, even MBB can't beat OW - Non-judgemental, LGBT-friendly place
Cons
I'm going to preface this by saying OW's pros far outweigh cons. But anyways, here's a few: - CCAR; enough said - Extremely uncompetitive healthcare package compared to MBB , because you get what all other MMC employees get. The most risk-averse package was a $300 deductible plan with $2.5K out-of-pocket. But it's mainly structured on copay from an actuarial perspective, so you still have to pay -- for example -- $50 in copay for a specialist visit even if you have already hit the out-of-pocket (v. coinsurance which would require no additional costs). MORE IMPORTANTLY, insurance premiums are not pa by OW in full, and consultants are expected to take a considerable hit on their disposable income. E.g. For the $300 deductible plan, they deducted approx. $500 for my share of the plan's monthly premium in pre-tax money. Yikes. On the other hand, McKinsey offers a $100 deductible plan with $1K out-of-pocket -- which is 1) paid in full by the firm (McKinsey might offer a slightly lower base depending on the region, but what McKinsey wires over to your bank account is actually richer because there's no pre-tax deduction required) In addition, BCG offers a similar insurance package with a mere $5 copay for almost everything. OW really needs to take an action on this. - Lack of industry diversification and misleading sell-day information about industries represented - Expense system is an utter nightmare. Please upgrade - Also maybe up the $25 receipt threshold? It's whopping $40 at BCG, and McKinsey doesn't even require receipts to begin with,regardless of the amount, as long as you use your corporate card - A bit too technical and quantitative -- feels like many cases are operational rather than super high-level - Limited office social budget - Lack of clear expense guidelines and -- as a result -- a few stingy partners when it comes to expenses. They will yell at you if you spend more than $25 on dinner.... First of all, at BCG, no one cares and partners tend to be very generous. Second, at McKinsey, $25 is what you get for lunch and I think -- don't quote me on this -- they allow up to whopping $55 for dinner - Not very values-driven - Overly aggressive training program that's just way too ambitious
