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I was laid off during Deloitte‘s mass layoff in July of last year. I have worked as an independent contractor since and projects haven’t been consistent at the client I’m working for. I’m looking to get back into a big firm and was seeing if anyone would be able to refer me or help get my foot in the door. I was a business analyst for 1.5 years at Deloitte and have several years of additional experience which I’d be more than happy to share.
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That's why you're paid the big bucks.
It’s your first year. Just give it some time and your pay will sky rocket in comparison to theirs.
Stuff gets done within that window. If they need more work done hire more people or consultants. Pretty simple I think
Till midnight ? Yikes. I’m an analyst as well and have done that maybe 2 times in 1.5 years. Sounds like your leadership isn’t handling things correctly.
That’s why you get paid the big bucks kiddo. But seriously your Manager should be pushing back on the client if you’re working till midnight consistently. That’s neither sustainable nor healthy.
I’m only saying this because why the hell am I here till midnight every day with asks dropping on my desk at 5pm for people who leave at 5 to actually have a life?
There’s a real ironman, work all hours of the day mentality in consulting. Personally, I don’t cotton to it. Yeah, there are crunch times where you will need to work long hours, but half of the time people are staying late for appearances, not because they need to. Don’t fall into that trap
Optics. It's all about the optics.
Hope you're charging in all those hours you're working!
Clients are hit and miss about this. Some are great and stay with you, others slack off and use you like staff aug.
Ummm...you do it. And get paid more than they do for the “privilege,"
Doesn’t matter how much you get paid, working till midnight then being back in the office at 7,8,9am whatever is ridiculous. Part of the reason we have a depression/anxiety bowl is because of this. I get it you gotta do what you gotta do but if we have a choice, why not make it.
Totally feel you - currently working under a manager who doesn’t prioritize and have pulled several all nighters in 4 months without really having any progress to show. On the bright side, as a junior consultant, you are demonstrating value and being a go-to person to the client - that hopefully translates to accelerated learning, opportunity to build your network and identify add-on work opportunities, building a reputation within your firm, and therefore progression along the ladder.
I had a client like that. Learned really quickly to say “No” in less negative ways. They need it by tomorrow morning? I can have it for them by end of week. If the workload is consistently more than 40 hrs a week, then it’s time for extra resources. If mentioned correctly, it’s perfectly fine to push back like this.
Sidenote: I’m in Europe where work/life balance really is a thing, so it’s possible that this makes a big difference.
I’m in the US & have been consulting for 13 years. I learned this early too & rarely have to deal with this kind of client behavior, and now my teams don’t have to deal with it either. There is always the odd exception, but on the whole, people aren’t forced to work late into the night on the regular. It’s just poor management.
Be forthcoming with your manager, there’s a chance M isn’t aware or may need to escalate.
Way she goes bud
When you get more experience under your belt you will start to understand the term “work smarter, not harder”
Hours are useless, it’s all about output .
Once, sure. Twice? Maybe. Consistently? You have a leadership problem. Say no. It feels scary, but let them know you have a commitment outside of business hours & are not available to consistently work past <insert time>.
The best advice I got was from a GM at Microsoft (that is their version of Partner): any job will eat you alive if you let it. Only you can set expectations for your time. If you don’t set expectations, then you can count on being taken advantage of & you have no one to blame but yourself.
Every now & again we all have to pull ridiculous hours (even clients), but to be consistently working until midnight is a red flag that your engagement leadership is bad at their jobs (assuming you have escalated & they gave you zero support). Start networking & roll off to the next gig ASAP.