Pros
An excellent place to learn and develop oneself in early career for a couple of years, with reasonably good starting salary: - Truly unparalleled client interaction and project exposure for all new analyst joiners: trained to lead face-to-face meetings with entire project teams and highly experienced professionals (often up to Project Directors and sometimes beyond to Heads of Projects Divisions of owner companies) from the get-go, enabling exposure to more projects than owner company project professionals may see in their entire careers; really helps foster attitudes of independence - Being responsible for entire evaluations, including client interaction, project analysis, report writing, presenting and admin quickly also grows your independence - Structured methodologies and processes can be satisfying to apply at least for a time - Travel opportunities hard to find anywhere else in terms of frequency and potential to enjoy; often able to find time outside work in evenings or even afternoons to do your own thing and explore new international locations - Kind but quiet atmosphere facilitating comfort and stability; family-friendly offering good benefits for my partner and child - Able to work on your own schedule outside meetings - Flexible hybrid working
Cons
The place sucks you into comfort without providing sufficient growth opportunities beyond 2 years or so at the company: - Client interaction can be intense, particularly for those not enjoying travel and needing structured routines, involving full days of meetings in client offices around Europe and Middle East, with business trips typically lasting 2-4 days - Lengthy independent analytical report work easily sucks you into working outside work hours as deadline timeframes are often not feasible for writing such lengthy reports; amount you are required to work outside work hours is not justifiable over the long run, particularly as salaries are not that high - Culture is lacking in non-open office environment, though the occasional social events can be fun - having your own office cubicle can feel like a pro, at least to begin with, but for more social personalities this quickly becomes stale, particularly as it combines with the predominance of introverted personalities that the company likes to hire across all its offices - Career advancement takes a long time - hard work and reasonable success can see promotion every two years, but role profile does not change much with each career step - 4-month paid 'sabbatical' (holiday) on offer to all analysts after 6 years sounds great on paper, but when you think about it and do the math, it only offers marginal financial benefit versus just taking a career break for 4 months between jobs, and even then if any new job you get offers slightly higher salary this already outweighs any benefit - Occasional instances of rigidity around work policy and working with some of the quirkier, more sensitive/easily flustered personalities towards deadlines can be frustrating - Benchmarking work rarely offers the ability to use creative licence as you must stick to tried and tested methodologies, brewing a feeling of stagnation within oneself over time the longer you stay; drives away the ambitious more sociable personalities, leaving the quirkier personalities behind as senior staff