Need some help on comparing two offers.
MBA recruiting full time offers: Strategy & VS Accenture Strategy, the same base, sign on bonus ACN 5k more, the same city. So in terms of career growth, culture, exit opportunities, etc. which one is better? WLB is not so important to me. Accenture Strategy&
If you don’t care about WLB, then S&. At Accenture, you’ll maybe last longer, but S& pays more and accelerates pay faster, and will probably do more to build your skills. Fairly equal exits.
could you please elaborate on rough start for experienced hire? have an offer on the table for SM, experienced hire.
Accenture Strategy is great. But Strategy& no doubt.
Chief
What is the Booz network? 😱 I feel like you just asked the Sandlot who Babe Ruth is.
S& was once Booz&co before it was part of PwC (the & in Booz&co was part of the justification for our awful moniker).
The history goes back pretty far with Booz Allen Hamilton, pioneering the consulting industry.
Also, I call "Harvey Balls," "Booz Balls." Knowing the history of the Booz Ball is something every consultant should know😂
I'm not at the firm anymore, but I think it's an excellent firm. In terms of access to strategic projects with senior executives ("prestige"/exits), I'd put it a notch above ACN, but I'm not sure how much that's really worth.
Your experience at S& will be greatly influenced by the partners you work with. There's a lot of variance there. Which industry are you aligned to?
Strategy &
Strategy& will pay you more but demand more of you. since WLB doesn’t matter to you, there’s no question on which you should choose.
Chief
S& bonuses are also significant and not a "maybe" thing. Bonuses WILL be a substantial component of your income.
S&… I had a few S& colleagues for to Accenture strategy and ended up quitting after 1-2 years
I think it depends. If you want to exit to tech, I would say ACN. If you want to exit to finance, S&. You can do both from either firm, though. I would say ACN wins on WLB, potentially at the expense of a few grand per year in comp once you hit mid level. Up until mid level, we might pay slightly more (as evidenced by your offer).
I’d wager to say WLB is truly better than strategy&. I’m in ACN strategy and on average work 50 hours a week across the many projects I’ve had. Generally teams are respectful of PTO and if something comes up during the day. Of course there are exceptions and I’ve had some team leads creating terrible work life balance, but they’re very few and far between.
Listen - chances are you are going to quit consulting in two years - like most of my cohort at ASCDP did - choose the one that you like the people and allows you to recruit at the right exit. CPG/FS/Operating Partner PE- S& | Tech ACN strat
Wow thanks for the inputs! Didn’t expect this to be one sided!
What does Base and Bonus look like for manager promote at S&?
I only ask because I view the ACN manager at 172.5k to be extremely lackluster and the bonus is trash (albeit this is likely to change in a few weeks). Understanding this will help with progression
New MBA hires are being offered 175K base for senior consultant (level under manager). We’ll be seeing a big bump.
50% bonus? That’s really high.
Haha appreciate it! How does the performance review work at S&?
Acn strategy allows you to try any industry or function in your first year before you align. It sure if S& offers that.
Maybe some FS engagements are tougher. But I have been on different FS cases for close to 2 years with a decent WLB. Largely done by 8PM M-Thur.
Which industry group will you be joining at S&? This matters a lot. We still operate largely within each industry practice, so you will spend 95% of your time within your (relatively) small group. Some industry practices have a lot better reputation at S& (like healthcare is top notch) while others (like FS) suffers from culture reputation.
Also you say WLB does not matter but when you truly start pulling ungodly hours each week for an extended period of time, you might change your mind quickly.
OP, did S& not tell you which group you interviewed for? The job description or position link should have specified as well. Also, which group were your interviewers from? They all should have come from one group and that is the group you are joining.
In terms of hours = unless you get lucky and do not get staffed on a S& project, i would expect the norm to be 9am to 11pm or midnight from Mon through Thurs, Friday is probably 9am to 5pm or 6pm. Weekend work is usually limited, but that depends on how liberal your partners are with pushing work to the team, and how much your manager will push back against that. You may not be expected to do extracurricular right away as a new joiner but there will soon be other time commitments such as internal communities, proposals, etc. which add more time.
The above is for WFH during Covid. When we return back to normal next year, then Mon-Thurs on the road is the typical mode of operation. So waking up at 4am on Monday to catch the 7am flight, getting home late on Thursday, the usual fun consulting cycles
Curious to know what the base is since they are the same when I was at ACN the base and Bonus was not the same as S&. I worked at ACN strategy and Now S&. WLB depends on the team mostly and the performance bonus was significantly less than S& bonus. From what I’ve seen it also takes a longer to move up at ACN vs S&. I think you can also always go back to ACN and S& is a lot harder to get into with the caliber of people (degree wise, and school) being better at S&. Not to say that people are better I’m Strictly looking at it from the degree perspective so network will be generally stronger. ACN was also struggling a LOT during COVID and had even strategy people on call center projects and laid off a bunch of people, from what I understand not all were low performers. I am not sure if S& had something similar. Also S& you can live anywhere and PwC as a whole has really pushed this and for if nothing else for that alone I’d pick S& Either way, both very good options and good luck.