Hi.I have been in EY Advisory (ITA) for two years now at the manager level. As an experienced hire, I have to say it's been interesting in many ways. A lot of bright, nicely dressed people with fine-polished PPTs longing for their partner status (some even act like partners at the consultant level). I always wanted to be in a BIG 4 company, but in many senses I feel the time is up to move on now pretty soon as I am street-smart enough to understand the risk/reward ratio is not very attractive. What ultimately amazes me is that so many intelligent people actually work their ass off believeing in the "partner dream". Come on guys - do the math ? What's the partner to employee ratio in your office ? I surely won't spend 10 years working my ass off with below-average pay and a cheap pension-scheme only to be appreciated with a cake on my way out. So I am thinking about moving to the industry (having spent close to 10 years in the consulting). So what is life after consultancy guys ? Give me some real-life (and near-death) experiences ! Do you really take a hit financially by moving to the industry (both short and long-term) ? $$ is important, but not at any price !

Hehe, I like you a lot!! Please stay in consultancy, we need more people like you...! The main reason for moving into industry is usually to work more of a 9 to 5. One gets to a certain age where swigging the corporate kool-aid about how you're a master of the universe and having to be subject to super-demanding appraisals every 2 months simply loses its appeal. The glamour of doing all-nighters with a slow, dysfunctional team and the thrill of pleasing "The Client" becomes less important than getting home on time to have tea with the family and to catch up on "Motorway Cops: New Zealand". You know, you can actually have those things in consulting too. The trick is to stop drinking the corporate kool-aid and avoid associating with people who use phrases like "The Firm". Just do a good job, go home at 5.30pm, and stop giving a rat's ar5e about what others think. Utterly reject presenteeism but do a good honest day's work. Avoid the freshly-minted MBAs and the new-to-consultancy types who will be gone after a year or two and forge some close relationships with people who matter and who themselves have been around the block a few times. Many of the senior people typically can't stand corporate BS either. Charge clients more to put the risk-reward ratio back in balance (it's not as difficult as one often might think) and consider joining a small company... small companies are great!

BEP hits the nail on the head, although I'm a bit worried about his dysfunctional offspring popping up on the board. Stinks of corporate nepotism ;) Around 5 months ago, I decided I'd had enough of working in the Big 4 Advisory company that I work for.. I was working ridiculous hours, got a rubbish bonus and pay rise. So I decided to look elsewhere - but only for the right job. As a result I stopped doing all the stuff I didn't like doing, started focusing on talking with people about my subject matter interest. I've been asked as a result to speak to their clients about it and have sold a couple of large pieces of work, got a team of really good people working for me and I've started enjoying life again in the Big 4 Advisory company that I work for. I've decided that I'm no longer to focus on the 20% of stuff that I'm no good at and have been told in the past that I need to improve. I'm focusing on 80% that I'm good at and enjoy and get other people to do what I'm not good at, and they're much better at doing it than me. I've made sure everyone around me knows what a great job the team is doing. I've never in my long career had better feedback, greater work happiness and balance.I'm now in the position where I want to stay.

[quote]I've decided that I'm no longer to focus on the 20% of stuff that I'm no good at and have been told in the past that I need to improve. I'm focusing on 80% that I'm good at and enjoy and get other people to do what I'm not good at, and they're much better at doing it than me. I've made sure everyone around me knows what a great job the team is doing. I've never in my long career had better feedback, greater work happiness and balance.I'm now in the position where I want to stay.[/quote]Very interesting. Accenture has this big paradigm shift going on with the performance management process; the idea being that from now on they focus more on people's strengths. I am still somewhat skeptic on how this is supposed to improve the quality of life/work but your message is somewhat encouraging.

I wish more companies would focus on working to people's strengths rather than doing harsh and unfair appraisals where young Johnny the analyst who has an IQ of 150 and a degree in astrophysics and can churn out reams of high quality, quantitative research and excellent client deliverables faster than one of the "change management" bods can cry out "Friday evening meetings to strategise about organisational culture!" has 30% of his performance rating based on his "presentation skills" or suchlike.

Aw! This change at Accenture means I shall have to stop advising the managers I know there..."Always hire one bell-end for the bell curve"

Spent two hours today fighting over me being part of a sales team on a project we won recently (I am a key person within the actual project). Seems like I was too late involved in the process in order to make me a part of it. Gotta love these companies - they spend so much time and energy on BS like this. Risk/reward is not in favour of them. High risk of me leaving and their reward is saving a few cents by giving me a Mickey-Mouse bonus. If they understood risk/reward they would keep me satisfied by giving me a credit for my contribution -> bonus. Instead they will now shortly lose another money-making asset.

Gotta love it when credit is apportioned subjectively. Oftentimes it bears no resemblance to individuals' actual contributions. Little johnny who joins the sales process during the last week and does all-nighters to help them get the pitch in on time and close the deal doesn't get any credit because he's "too late" in the process and "was hardly involved". Instead, the people who sat around sipping coffee and talking big during meetings whilst actually doing nothing for the preceding 3 months (and probably not a lot during the final week either) get the bonus because "they were centrally involved in this deal right from the very start".