Accenture Reviews in Canada

Pros

the People are generally very good

Cons

since the company is so large, it's quite the Bureaucracy

Advice to Senior Management

they are usually very approachable and willing to help you in any way they can

Pros

Young and innovative staff. Excellent personal work environment amongst teams - there are really some great people here! You will learn a lot and gain invaluable experience here - Accenture is the boot camp for consultants which will serve you well and look impressive on a c.v. when you leave: and most likely you will leave for better pay, projects that link with your competencies, and a better life-work balance.

Cons

Abysmal life-work balance. Accrued overtime never gets compensated - either in pay or time off with pay.
Byzantine metrics for performance evaluations which do not accurately reflect each individual's performance on a specific team or assignment. Executives often are out of touch or proactively indifferent to concerns of managers and consultants.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the performance review methods; while they may make sense form a top-down and fiscal point of view, they do not reflect the true performance of each worker.

Pros

If you just completed university and no other strategy consulting firm has recruited you - then choose Accenture. However, if your expectations are not high and you're just looking for a job that can provide an individual with multiple industry experiences (good or bad) Accenture is an excellent place to start.

For travel, you get to stay in a reasonably nice hotel.

During recruiting, the Senior Executives provided a lot of information regarding the firm and they were incredibly polite.

Cons

There are many downsides to working at Accenture, which is associated with your expectations.

1) Do not expect to be involved in a strategy role as this is a very minor component to Accenture.

2) Prepare to apply for many projects that are uninteresting, soul crushing, time consuming yet very easy despite what individuals say.

3) If you are interested in healthcare and life sciences this is a very small segment of this organization.

4) If you come straight from university and do not have an MBA and you have little work experience, you will be thrown into the Systems and Integration Analyst position. Depending on how one views it this can be beneficial, you may like coding and you might like attending to scripts - but there are many individuals who are not interested in this. Similar to the comments I made earlier, this is not a strategy firm.

Advice to Senior Management

- Stop trying to oversell the project and then realize that your staff lacks the skills to execute it properly. I know Accenture bills out their consultants at more economical prices compared to the top strat firms - but that does not mean you have to provide the client with subpar services.
- HR needs to be rated by the consulting force as they are not as effective or rational as one might think.

Pros

One of the best consulting firm in SAP and ERP Practice
Knowledge base

Cons

Heavy Middle Management and basically one time negotiate

Advice to Senior Management

One of the best place to work at the entry level so please maintain these status

Pros

People, People, People
Knowledge Sharing
Intranet
Global Network
Meritocracy

Cons

Workload can be unmanagable at times

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it real and continue to connect with your people

Pros

Reputation of the employer. Lots of the opportunities to learn.

Cons

Irregardless of what management say, your project assignment could easily turn into sweat shop.
Carefully monitor the pace of your growth in the company. If you stuck at level for too long it means you should consider the new job somewhere else... Unless you are satisfied with your current status.

Advice to Senior Management

Be objective and fair in recognizing people's accomplishments. Try to avoid favouritism. I guess this statement will be true for most other companies.

Pros

- good exposure to IT systems development methodology
- encourages stewardship, even as an analyst, with the concept of a career buddy
- young culture with interesting people
- reasonable salary
- possibility of going on training (easier if aligned a specific group)
- well known company
- bench time can be a good way of taking a break without using vacation time
- a draw of moving up quickly to more senior positions compared to non-consulting occupations

Cons

- projects are often unorganized and executed poorly
- experienced hire managers are often below par
- many employees who are there to enjoy benefits of the job, but do not take pride in high quality work
- tough rating system results in small chance of getting good raise until promotion to next level
- unorganzied projects and poor management may mean long hours
- career development is random, especially starting out; first project are usually assigned and are usually not great opportunities to develope specialized skills
- training is more available to employees who are aligned to specialties
- entry level employees rarely get to travel, but are probably drawn in because the job was advertised this way
- when employees get/need to travel, they are usually at point of life where they have more committments outside of work (e.g. employees who make managers, but at the same time become married or have first kids)
- travelling does not seem great for social life in home city
- unengaged career counsellors can really sink a career, because they take a big part in the promotion/ranking process
- not true meritocracy; must stay usually 24 months at position to be considered for promotion regardless of performance
- difficult ot specialize; difficult to choose roles aligned to career development especially starting out

Advice to Senior Management

- out source testing work
- hire people with a more techincal background

Pros

Accenture offers a great benefits package that you can tailor to your needs. You can also tailor your benefits with your spouse for greater flexibility. The savings and employee stock purchase plan are also an extra benefit.

There are many friendly people who work at Accenture. If you are looking to work in a friendly work environment, or with people that want to get together for a drink consider applying here.

Accenture is involved in the community and supports a lot of local charities, holding fund raisers throughout the year. This is one very positive aspect of working with Accenture.

Cons

Accenture really promotes work/life balance in theory but doesn't practice it. There have been a lot of budget cuts going on and all departments are under staffed and over worked. The time reporting system is a disaster, designed by Accenture, and it is frustrating everyone.

Annual reviews seem biased by Manager favouritism. Salaries are stagnated as more and more work gets offshored. If you are looking to be rewarded for your performance don't expect this to occur with Accenture.

Promotions and project work are given to the same people over and over, the situation with promotions and projects is very similar to the annual reviews.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your staff.
Communicate with them regulary and honestly.

Pros

Career Advancement
Work with competent people
Gain a wealth of diverse experience

Cons

Travel Requirements
Travel is not reimbursed enough

Advice to Senior Management

Satisfied

Pros

good on your resume, good experience builder. you get exposure to many companies in many industries with many problems that accenture comes in to help with. however, despite the potential positive aspects of this, the roles are very ambiguous at times. so now i'll go to the con's section.

Cons

very beurocratic, and you get lost in procedures for the simplest things. lots of "meetings" that go nowhere and it seems that sometimes, it's almost as if everyone is pretending to do something but really nothing is being done. okay, left of at the pro's, so sometimes because of all the ambiguity you may lose sight of your primary goals. simply because there are so many pointless procedures that must be followed even to do the simplest thing.

Advice to Senior Management

make sure you hire competent managers.