Pros
It all comes down to which team you work in - if a good team & group of partners / consultants can be a good first step into the search world
Cons
For a public company in a people business the culture is disorganised. Finance runs the place and management generally takes the "cats in a sack" approach - maintain an ever-open mandate to hire new consultants by throwing money at them, layer them on existing teams and see who survives. Much press about "bursting through the $1 billion barrier" - this is the result of acquiring and growing HR consulting services, the search business is flat or shrinking in many parts of the world. CEO lacks authenticity and is basically a CFO who has a marketing team around him working around the clock to project him as a CEO.