Pros
- You do end up getting really good experience. - The travel can be fun if you don't have any commitments (i.e. girlfriend/wife) - The pay *eventually* gets good, but be prepared to make little in the beginning. Once you make manager, you start getting pretty good pay.
Cons
- Management is pretty bad, horrible at providing feedback. - Partners and senior managers don't care about you. All they care about is selling. They will under-bid a project ridiculously, and over-promise. In these situations, the analysts and consultants get screwed. You may think this is the exception, but I was on six engagements over four years and each one was like this. Get used to having to deal with and clean up the messes of others. This includes working 100 hr weeks and weekends. In addition, since there is no budget, your manager won't let you charge overtime. - How you get rated is lame. It pretty boils down to kissing the right person's behind. - When employees are really bad, they don't fire them, they just promote them. I've seen it happen. - If you are a senior manager, and are the most evil person in the world, upper management will put up with you because you can sell and bring in dollars. I've worked with a senior manager like this that would thrash the people below him on a daily basis, killing morale. - The organizational structure is impossible to figure out. - Aside for mandatory analyst, consultant, manager, etc... training, other outside forms of training are rare since it comes from the project's budget. - You will work with a lot of arrogant people that don't know their stuff, but can talk a good game. - Get used to everybody covering their behind, no matter what. - People spoke about "good" projects, but after six engagements, I was never on one and never met anybody that was on a good one. - Be prepared to be considered an expert even if you have never done the type of work before in your life. If you don't know what Java is, don't be surprised to get staffed as a Java Jedi (and have to face clients.....) - I could go on and on, but if you haven't gotten the point yet, then maybe Accenture would be the perfect place for you! P.s. Don't believe the B.S. they say that after working at Accenture for a while, your next job will be a CIO position, or your salary will be twice as much. Every once in a while a partner becomes a CIO elsewhere, but most places won't pony up for consultants, in my experience.