Related Posts
Bowl Leader
Do you use a roth or traditional 401(k)?
How most my dates go
Additional Posts in Consulting
Chief
Pro
Anyone have any insights into salary, WLB, and general day to day work within Capital Projects consulting (also know as capital programmes / major projects) in the UK? Specifically for Senior Associate / Senior Consultant level, but also more generally. I have 3 years experience at an Engineering firm and I’m curious to hear some inside Deloitte" class="linkified" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" >knowledge.Deloitte EY PwC KPMG
Holy moly, the lettuce won
It’s Monday and I’m already burnt out…is this normal
Top consulting firms right there!!
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
I've heard several Partners describe the difference as this: to advance in commercial the focus is on technical acumen. To advance in federal the focus is on business acumen (sales). In federal, you'll spend time with clients face to face on a regular basis even as staff. Will you develop deep technical skills? Probably not. But if you spend some time (not much 3-5 years) you'll learn relationship management and project management skills you might miss in commercial if you're locked in a back room perfecting that excel model.
Commercial oftentimes appears to look down at federal since they have shorter work weeks and are "less competitive", but at the end of the day it's just a personal choice. Both have pros and cons. Though Deloitte federal is separate from Deloitte commercial, I believe they evaluate based on the same criteria so, in my opinion, neither necessarily produces better consultants
Commercial tends to have "sexier" clients but longer hours and travel can be exhausting. Federal typically is local so little to no travel and usually only 40-50 hour work weeks, but work is oftentimes more staff aug and is slower because of the bureaucratic red tape
I've gone from fed to commercial and the two big differences are length of projects and how quickly decisions can be made in commercial vs federal
@SA1 Agree with you spot on. One of the main reasons that I am not eager to leave public sector for commercial. As an analyst i had plenty of opportunities to work face to face clients that were in upper management roles. Which is a good foundation to build a "generalist" career skills set off of.IMO
I'd be a little weary of public sector. It's all partner driver (the partner literally owns you and will NOT, I repeat WILL NOT, let you try other types of projects within public sector. Not without a serious fight). It's also much more difficult to get promoted in public sector due to their revenue stream / slower pipeline. I know several EAs and Seniors who leave for commercial or the firm altogether for these two reasons.
PwC 1 that's really unfortunate to hear. I don't think that is the prevailing experience though. Provide some context..how were you doing on your projects? Why are you trying to move? Are you trying to move after a short amount of time?
@SA1 im actually in commercial but know quite a few people in public sector. One experienced associate wanted to do a L&D tour of duty and her partner and director tried to sabotage her. They told the L&D partner who interviewed her that she had poor work ethic, and wouldn't be a strong candidate. All because they had no one available to cover her workstream; they also told her she was costing them money even though L&D pays for her time. I also had a different friend express she wanted to try work in a more health related agency and her partner refused but kept saying "yes, we will work on the"...one year later and no progress. She left for peace corps. They also experience a lot of turnover at the EA/SA level because it's so difficult to be promoted. They basically tell lower staff you have to sell $500k in work to get promoted to senior, $1m to manager. Meanwhile there are EA/SAs running workstreams and managing entire project teams but without any recognition. Not that commercial doesn't have its fair share of issues, but I've notified that the same issues seem to be more pronounced in Public Sector.