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Hi Fishes, I have been offered by Cognizant Consulting to move to UK for a short term. However I have my permanent braces treatment going on in India. Can anyone guide if Cognizant Consulting (UK) covers dental treatment in insurance. Can anyone also let me know how much does braces treatment cost in London? Cognizant
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And btw our CSat and ESat are off the charts. Take that for what you will, but in my case, as a candidate, the Glassdoor reviews (I read hundreds over a few weeks), sealed the deal. I can also say that, now as an employee for a year or two, they hold up.
I wouldn't recommend those Slalom offices with as much vigor as others, tbh. They're bother recovering from GMs that liked staff aug a bit too much and are going through a tough transition, culturally. Dallas has a great Service Design practice, tho.
To put a finer point on it: I'd rate those two offices in the bottom 30% of employee experience at Slalom. But I'm not even that informed. Only know the financials and a about a dozen employees across both offices.
Austin is blowing up, and Atlanta, St. Louis and OC/SD are all awesome if you're down for a regional move. 😐
Slalom does a broad set of things across all of their markets, but it's Experience Design and Agile Product that get the most positive feedback across the board. If I had to recommend Slalom, regardless of locality, for a specific project, it would be one where the client knew they needed to create a product to solve a business problem, but didn't know how, if it would even work, or what the entire lifecycle should look like.
Discovery
Mapping
Prototyping
Human Testing
Iteration
MVP
Market Pilot
Iteration
Branding
Program-level Dev
Launch
... Hand over the keys
What city are you looking at? Slalom offers a different employee experience in each city. That said, I left Sapient for similar reasons, but prinicpally that Sapient was severely vertical and I found myself with 60 direct reports and basically color coding employees every week (Red/Yellow/Green) and cutting vast swaths of SubK's whenever a project would wobble. Slalom is a lot flatter, more like a sandbox. That's true in every city.
Overall, if you drop what city you're looking at (or give me two or three to choose from) I can drop some inside knowledge.
@D2 So where does Slalom fit in? Glad to see you agree we will be MBBS soon.
...but seriously, Slalom wins out in that list
I left Publicis for Slalom. Would do it again. My life, the entire thing, is better.
Slalom. The way its growing, few years down the line it will be MBBS followed by big4. It has the potential and culture to go there.
NY is fantastic. Top tier culture and considering the fact that they are competing with some heavy locals, the work is pretty cool, too. Strong Experience Design, Tech and Marcom capabilities. Office could be sexier, but word is a new spot is in the works. They're growing a lot, almost doubling in the last two years (approx.). Would definitely explore that further.
Boston is very progressive, doing a lot of work with MBB (candidly) and developing a world class product capability. NYC and Boston are probably in the top 30% of employee experience.
I think Slalom
The work at Publicis/Sapient will be very very cool and the client roster is fantastic. Publicis has C-Suite access to almost all of the brands it works with, and it works for some well known brands. Culture and people are also fantastic. Publicis as a holding company is several times larger than Slalom, and Sapient is a high growth area so they are investing a lot of resources in this space.
Downside is that comp and comp progression will likely be far below Slalom. And Slalom’s comp tends to be lower than B4. If you go to Publicis, you 100% have to be okay with
consistently having below market comp in exchange for other parks.
Both are good choices. I’ve heard terrific things about Slalom too. It just depends on what factors you value most.
Never heard of any of these
Thanks for the insight - very helpful :)
Chicago is Slalom's largest office (at last check), so it really depends on your individual scenario: what type of work you want to do, what projects you land on, the team that you end up with. I know some people from the Chicago office who love it (former Leo Burnett, McK, Manifest, Razorfish) and would never leave. I also know some people in Chicago who want to transfer to another market or are otherwise unhappy. Sometimes the culture in Chicago is hurt by commuter or remote lifestyle. There is also a large delivery center connected to the Chicago office, like 400+ devs or something, so that has a sjew on culture a bit.
Overall tho, a good reputation.
Does Slalom have projects in and around Sacramento?
SC1 - I’m considering both firms. Are you willing to chat offline. I can share a burner email or you can. I tried to DM you but seems like you’re not setup yet. Would love to chat if you’re open to it
There is an OC/SD office. What kind of specifics are you looking for D4?
What do you most dislike about your current job? What are your priorities? Give us some criteria and we can be of better help. Neither is a bad choice in general, but they are VERY different.
SC1 and others - my reasons for seeking to switch are the inconsistent local work (which almost forces me to travel every couple of months due to local projects ending or timing misalignment), a general sense of being an outsider / lone ranger (somehow I mostly feel like an outsider despite trying my best to build my network, and one biggest reason is that the people I jive with are based in other cities), and lastly transactional relationships (I’m the only person from my specialty in town, and I hate the very transactional nature of most of my leadership and client relationships).
I love what I do, and put my heart and soul into my work. I’m looking for a local role so that I can be home in the evenings and spend some time with my kids also (some limited travel is fine). Additionally I’m looking for a group that nurtures it’s people (building relationships with leaders matters to me, yet it’s super tough for me when they aren’t based in your local office), and lastly I don’t want to work myself to death and am looking for a reasonable 45 hour work schedule (my current schedule varies for 45-70 hours depending on the project and phase). Comp wise I’m making good money, and am ok with staying the same or even taking a small cut if it translates into a better work life balance.
Thus, trying to figure out if a move to either P.Sapient or Slalom would be wise, and will they have the things I’m looking for (above), and hopefully have less of the reasons prompting me to move (above). Both say they are great and have the things above, but most firms say the same, and reality tends to be different. Thanks in advance for any insights.
You should look at SEI - employee owned, flat, local model with an awesome office in Dallas (some of my closest friends) DM me if you want to chat.
I’m looking at Dallas and Houston
@SC1 - how is New York and Boston? Can you also share insights on culture in these locations.