Pros
First off: I thourougly enjoyed my time at Protiviti and would highly recommend it, if it fact the individual believes it is a fit. If you are interested in Audit or IT Audit, Protiviti can be a great place to get your career started. In my opinion, during better economic times, Protiviti did a great job of sponsoring morale-boosting events like happy hours, sports leagues, holiday parties, subsidized ski trips, employee meals, etc. For an individual fresh out of college, Protiviti gives you the chance to see an inside view of many different companies and industries. Protiviti can also give individuals a chance to travel. Furthermore, the compensation and choice time off (sick time included) are generous. Protiviti’s work force is made up primarily of young, social individuals and can be a great place to make lasting friendships if, for example, you are moving to a new place to start working. If you work extremely hard and are good at the work, you can rise withing the company very quickly. The best individuals can make lower management in four or less years. The typical, good worker makes it to that point in five years. A lot of the individuals in upper management are great people that have risen for the right reasons and truly care about the lower branches of the company. The recent layoffs were extremely unfortunate, but it is happening everywhere and should not be considered damning to a company. For some of the individuals that were let go I was not surprised and for others, I was shocked. However only management themselves truly know if these were handled fairly or not.
Cons
A great amount of the work done by consultants and senior consultants is not nearly as glamourous as it can be made out to be in the recruiting process. The largest portion of the work done by staff employees (I can only speak for the Bay Area) is Sarbanes Oxley Compliance – an industry that is dying and extremely dry. There is other, more excited work done at Protiviti, but the majority is Sarbanes Oxley. Furthermore, the hours can be extremely draining. I would say the typical consultant (once again, I can only speak of the Bay Area) works from at least 9 hours a day on average on top of generally a 1.5 hour commute roundtrip. Project mangagement is lacking as I often felt that it was the cause of unnecessary hours being worked. There almost seems to be a strange pride among some individuals for how many hours they have put in over month/week/year. Furthermore, bonuses are often based on the number of hours worked over the mandatory 40 hours per week. Working 110% (only including work chargeable to clients, not admininstrative or downtime) is encouraged. In the Bay Area, resource management is the largest downside. The projects in which a staff employee is scheduled for are based on client/management preference rather than desirablility/convenience to the employee. For example if you live in the South Bay Area, it is very possible that you could be scheduled for a project in SF when there is a capable, available individual who lives and works in SF. Furthermore individuals in the resource management division of the company have the tendancy to take their role a little farther than management intended. Unfortunately, a great deal of how much you enjoy your time at Protiviti depends on luck. Luck that you get the great travel engagement (which usually means futute travel engagements). Luck that you get the type of engagement you want (which usually means more of that type). Luck that you get projects with a convenient commute. Some travel is not as glorious as others. For example some individuals have been blessed with travel to Europe or Asia while others were put on an engagement in a suburb of Seattle where they were working 12-hour night shifts.