Accenture Reviews in San Francisco, CA Area

Pros

Work with different clients is good for career enhancements

Cons

Had to travel all the time

Advice to Senior Management

None at this point

Pros

Training opportunities on various subjects
Promotion can be achieved without much politics if you are a hard worker
Passionate people

Cons

Hard to balance work and life with high expectation from Senior Management
Compensation level not too great compared to other similar firms

Advice to Senior Management

Sometimes work that does not align with your skillset is given without much explanation. Standard on quality sometimes varies by people

Pros

Great place to work if you are a go-getter who wants to manage your own career. Requires networking and seeking out best projects/managers to grow within the company. If you sit back and take the lame roles that are given to you it won't be a good experience, but if you more proavtively manage your career it can be great.

Cons

A lot of time spent on backend project management which sometimes gets tedious.

Advice to Senior Management

Many people complain about the travel. I say ignore them - that's part of the deal when you join the company and it's no secret. HR should seek people who are actually ok with the travel (or even enjoy it) instead of hiring the people who will complain about it.

Pros

Accenture is a great place to start off in the work world. The differing experiences, soft skills and hard skills that you gain in your time at Accenture will not compare with what you get elsewhere, both corporate and consulting. When I look around, my 7+ years in consulting have given me the knowledge and skills to compare me to others in work place that have been working for 20+ years.

Cons

The travel is something you will either love or hate and at some point in your career (i.e. when you start a family), you will have to ask yourself if that is the lifestyle you want to continue to lead. (Don't get me wrong, I love the miles and points.)

Advice to Senior Management

Move the focus back to industry alignment and deep industry skills.

Pros

Company has an excellent brand. Large company which offers lots of opportunities for diverse experience. Good place to start a career. Aggressive people can get to partner with time.

Cons

Too much travel and often not justified. Mid-level managers are too young and inexperienced to offer adequate guidance to consultants and analysts and don't have enough confidence to push back on senior managers who are feeling lots of heat from partners to perform.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer more training to mid-level managers on intricacies of "management" finesse. Reward those with MBAs and experience with accelerated paths to mid-level management, especially if they already have leadership experience.

Pros

Ability to change the type of work and industries you work in.

Cons

Long hours, needing to regain client trust - client after client, travel

Advice to Senior Management

Don't sell fixed fee work.

Pros

Once you figure out who to know ... things can get easier.
Decent company

Cons

Constant Networking
Long Hours
Compensation
They are big on perception
Skill Sets are not too deep (sometimes)

Advice to Senior Management

Really look beyond the perception of who think a person is .. and what value they bring to the table

Pros

Clear path and track to partnership. Great learning and development.

Cons

No work life balance. You will travel cross coundtry on a weekly basis, and add to the plane ride 70 hours work weeks. Up or out model; its sink or swim.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more transparent about promotions. Allow your employees to actually have a life.

Pros

Diverse Client Base
Many Opportunities
25 Days Annual Vacation
Training opportunities
Respectatble salary
Great Benefits outside of salary (salary was on par with industry average)
Nice offices!

Cons

Non-Flexible career growth model
Always felt a push from behind to move up or out
Was required to travel 3 out of 4 years

Advice to Senior Management

Be more flexible with career path
Develope a 'local only' staffing program
Make reviews bi-annual as they used to be

Pros

Right out of college the pay is good, 5 weeks of PTO, overall the people are fun/supportive. Finally, for those looking to build leadership experience outside of work (say, for business school), LOTS of opportunities to do so through minority interest groups and professional related interest groups.

Cons

Depending on who you ask, the name brand is so-so. I would say for Top 10 business schools, Accenture's name is less than stellar (mainly a byproduct of its IT consulting/delivery business). For schools outside of the Top 10, Accenture's name is good. As for work, IT consulting can be a pain esp. if you're not interested in it. Furthermore, even if you're NOT in IT/delivery work (say strategy), you tend to do a lot of technology related work anyway and it's not very applicable if you choose to change your career later in life. Finally, the hours can be out of control and there are plenty of managers there who will get you to work those long hours if you don't assert yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

This isn't really advice to management but rather an overall critique of Accenture. Accenture management has a tendency to "commoditize" the work of their employees where people are fed onto assembly-line like work. Although this may increase efficiencies, these mindless tasks really drives away all of Accenture's best and brightest workers. For instance, just look at Accenture management. Most of the SEs and nearly all of Accenture's C-suite officers are from 2nd rate colleges... All the smart kids, those from Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, etc, leave after 3-4 years because there are better things they can do with their time. This leaves all the state/local-college kids working and managing mindless IT projects. That said, depending on your background and what opportunities you have in front of you, Accenture is either a really great place to work (read: state college grad) or a place to start and find better work elsewhere.