Having been there (consulting not TS), I'd say it's a good place to start a consulting career for a few years - the graduate program is very good and that community is strong, and that then flows into the next couple of years after being accepted into a business unit. However after that it's time to get out. MC salaries are tight but not desperately under-competitive, but too much of EC and VP comp is dependent on bonus set against unachievable objectives and an over-aspirational bonus pool to divvy up. The firm makes much play around having a more laid back culture, and uses this very deliberately to attract and convert experienced hires (whether it attracts the right kind of people is questionable..) and to prop up the comp policy. In reality though, the ethos is very much that of the body shop, and utilisation is really sweated, much to the detriment of investment in training (do it in your own time...), proposition development (ditto..) and practice management (ditto..). There might not be regular pressure to work weekends on client project, but in order to stand a chance of hitting all the other objectives, those weekends start evaporating. There is also huge pressure from an early grade on individuals to take full responsibility for their own utilisation - which, when they are not in a position to sell directly to a client, means a lot of stress when the pipeline is thin. The utilisation pressure rewards becoming a generically deployable body rather than developing specialist expertise - which makes it harder to get a job externally, particularly client-side. The old lags there speak warmly of the Gemini days, when there did appear to be some differentiators in place, and I think CG is still very much trading off those past days.
