Capco Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Capco has strong client contracts but many of the employees outside the senior level are subpar. The company has a horrendous interview process (multiple phone calls leading to group meetings - boiler room style) and I should have never accepted the position after going through such an unprofessional number of steps. The Federal client has a positive overall impression of Capco though this is likely achieved at the C-level and does not filter down into middle management of financial and IT programs.

Cons – Worst interview process I've ever gone through with a consulting company or investment bank. Extremely unprofessional and I didn't feel valued during the several weeks of discussions. Client engagements were often rushed and overbilling of the client more commonplace than with other (similar) programs. Team building exercises were often looked upon negatively and rushed by nearly all members.

Advice to Senior Management – Highflying consultancies and investment firms are a dime-a-dozen. The ones that last long-term do not conduct themselves with such mannerisms. Strengthen your core-management values and client engagements and the financial benefits will follow. No need to have so many ex-employees tell their friends and former classmates not to consider working with Capco. Right now, your profitability ratios are decent, down the road, they will be much less so if you continue along the same path. One of the strengths of the best firms is retaining key talent, not just attracting said associates with decent compensation packages.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Ability to be staffed and put in front of senior clients regardless of experience or qualifications
Willing to dramatically undersell competitors to get in the door without considering impacts to consultants on the ground or quality of delivery
Leadership team with lots of experience--they're the ones that helped crash BearingPoint
New Leadership from UK office not afraid to ignore, ice out, fire, or berate lazy Americans

Cons – Recruitment hires non-stop regardless of pipeline
Poor management alienates qualified people
Doesn't value people or clients
Mostly a body shop with little investment in training
Little respect from clients or prospective employers

Advice to Senior Management – Keep doing what you're doing. The few pockets of good people you do have left will continue to leave and then you'll be left with the sweatshop you've worked so hard to cultivate.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Decent wages, willingness to sponsor some employees for visas (not applicable to me), hours are reasonable for consulting.

Cons – Management treats employees like chips in a game of poker, bringing in more when work is plentiful and cutting them when business is slower. The fact that they are heavily weighted to small handful of clients contributes to this fact. There is NO clear training or growth prospects since the infrastructure is lacking as are formal processes. Most client engagements are staff-augmentation roles so that you become of temp employee of the client - not a consultant. Due to the high turnover and erratic client engagements, you WILL work on projects that are outside of your areas of specialty leading to low quality output and client dissatisfaction. Finally, unprofessional employees permeate this organization and there is no means of voicing needs regarding change.

Advice to Senior Management – Remember that consulting firms watch their assets walk into and out of the door each day. Build a culture and earn organizational growth by investing in your employees' development. Act professionally when on-boarding and off-boarding employees since its a small market and you will run into them again. While I like many people with whom I worked, I will not hire Capco for as a client nor would I consider rejoining them as an employee without dramatic organizational changes.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Capco full-time for less than a year

Pros – 13/15 Best place to Work...
3 weeks vacation per year and a generous holiday schedule

Cons – Morale is low and people are leaving at all levels and they don't seem to care about matching offers.
Quality of projects is below average, you are sold a dream and encounter a reality of dead-end projects such as testing, PM or similar back-office positions
Salaries below average, but they claim they offer "Market rates"
"Forced" vacations while on the bench, they call it Quality of Life

Advice to Senior Management – Is Capco a Management Consulting firm, or just a group of Project Managers, Testers and other Back-office support. No shame in that, but that's not Forming the Future of Finance...

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Capco

Pros – Lots of smart people with great work ethics, experience and diverse backgrounds.

Cons – I had joined Capco to be part of an industry leading niche player that focuses exclusively on interesting financial services initiatives. What I actually joined was a generic consulting firm that has no clear direction, poor leadership that has been unable to penetrate new clients and a highly political environment. if you are fortunate enough to be aligned with one of the so-called "practice leaders" you are generally set. Project opportunities are typically generic project management/PMO type or staff augmentation type roles. Strategic work the firm used to be known for (and what originally attracted me) is non-existent. Client base has dwindled and there is high concentration of people at only a handful of clients. Many if the practice leads/partners came from BearingPoint - yes, the same firm that went bankrupt - and now they are leading Capco in the same downward direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Return focus to value-add client work, flatten the organization and decide what the firm's true mission is now going to be.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Salaries can be good.
More open than most other consultancies to applicants with no prior consulting experience

Cons – Plenty of nepotism and politics when it comes to both resourcing engagement and year end promotions - almost all of the management team are ex-Accenture and project a clear bias to their former colleagues.
Rapidly gaining the reputation for being a 'PMO shop' i.e. the opposite of a high value consultancy

Advice to Senior Management – Adopt a consistent and impartial approach to compensation and promotion

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good salary for an experienced hire coming from industry

Cons – Very poor leadership in the banking domain, long hours, Accenture culture

Advice to Senior Management – Stop trying to be Accenture

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Capco full-time for more than a year

Pros – Easy access to senior people who you can learn a lot from
Chance to participate in high level strategy projects

Cons – MPs tend to create an hostile atmosphere at many projects and treat employees as second class citizens
Always the same type of short, high level projec. Lacking in real substance
The company tries to promote an own culture, while in reality, things are different…be aware of many false advertisements and many broken promises
Projects are too intensive work wise and demand more then 8 hrs. along with weekends

Advice to Senior Management – Either give better perks or treat people better, otherwise, you will not be able to retain employees too long

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Capco

Pros – Nice NYC office (alebit in downtown...no one is downtown anymore), good exposure to senior management if you make an effort, if you like PMO this is your place.

Cons – Poor compensation and no signing bonuses, all PMO and staff aug work. The project based opportunities are large scale tech implementation (PMO nonsense) where utilizing your brain is frowned upon. Senior management in NA is European and they have no sense of the culture / drivers of the US market. Bonuses over 5K are distributed semi-annually as management knows people will take the money and run elsewhere

Advice to Senior Management – Pay people accordingly; the bonus structure is pathetic. Your blogs where you constantly make fun of American traditions annoys everyone. Stop watching soccer on the TV's in the office and try to sell some decent engagements.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Capco

Pros – Access to senior leadership because it's a small firm

Cons – No pipeline meaning there are no projects where you can get staffed
Poor quality hires and people (mostly ex employees from the defunct Bearingpoint)
Really poor project opportunities
I truly felt like Capco was a bottom feeder, winning projects that none of the other consulting firms wanted or compete on. That's how desperate this firm is to stay afloat.
Lack of repeat clients
Losing respect in the industry

Advice to Senior Management – Tried to grow too fast with too high of ambition starting out.
Niche firm focusing only on financial services was a good story but delivery is severely lacking.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend