Pros
One of the standout positives of joining this management consultancy was the strong sense of camaraderie. You truly feel like part of a cohort, especially when you're starting out with a group of peers. That shared experience can create a supportive environment. Additionally, the company’s meticulous attention to detail and the discipline they instill in their consultants, like slide formatting and rigorous standards, can be a valuable skill set you carry forward in your career.
Cons
Long Hours: One significant downside is the extremely long hours. As a newcomer, you have little control over project assignments, which means you could end up working 60-hour weeks for several weeks in a row. If you’re assigned multiple demanding projects back-to-back, it can essentially wipe out a whole summer and make it difficult to maintain a social life. Hierarchical Culture: Despite the company’s claims of a positive culture, it’s actually very hierarchical. Senior staff often throw their weight around, and this can create a difficult environment for junior employees. Feedback can sometimes feel more like a popularity contest than a genuine effort to develop your skills, and contradictory feedback from multiple projects can make it hard to know how to improve. It often seems like your development is less important than how well you fit into the existing hierarchy. Work Monotony: The work itself can be monotonous and lacking creativity. Often, you’ll find yourself doing repetitive tasks like writing transcripts or cold calling, which is difficult if you were hoping for more engaging or creative challenges. It’s easy to feel like you’re not making a meaningful impact, especially as an entry-level employee. Misconduct Issues: There were also incidents of misconduct, including sexual misconduct, that were not adequately addressed. This created a problematic environment and made it difficult for some employees to feel comfortable or supported. The lack of a strong response from management only added to the overall sense of hierarchy and imbalance. Feedback: After each project, you receive feedback, which means you could get multiple conflicting pieces of feedback in a single month. Rather than fostering genuine development, it can feel like a tool for managers to shift responsibility or impede promotions. In practice, it often becomes more of a popularity contest than a constructive review process. Lack of Diverse Leadership: Almost everyone in senior roles started at the company as a grad and stayed there for years. So you end up with a bit of an echo chamber, there aren’t a lot of outside perspectives or fresh ideas from people who’ve worked at different places. This gives a false internal sense of CIL having a great culture, when my experience of working at other firms is that the culture in reality is poor.