Deloitte Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

You will come across some Great people in the organization. Analysts up through managers are very motivated and driven towards success.
Deloitte is a very prestigious name; good for your resume.
The importance of Work-life balance is stressed through out the organization. Its upto the individual on how good he or she can manage it.
Some of the projects out there are great.
Most people leave Deloitte before the manager/senior manager level to work for private companies in internal audit, corporate accounting, or financial reporting. Typically, they end up making way more than they would at Deloitte, but usually those great jobs require public accounting experience.

Cons

partner culture geared towards sales metrics, unclear review process, compensation below par, if you are not stellar you are just average, poor employee retention

Advice to Senior Management

Stress on people development rather than just meeting your 'numbers', the compensation process needs a overhaul - pay discrepancy between upper management (partners) and staff is too big

Pros

Pay and benefits are excellent, if you are close it is an easy commute. The level of expertise of the common worker is high, it is ashame that turn over is s great that they can't keep the truely knowledgable people.

Cons

Micromanagement is taken way to far, leaving less time for true productivity. It is more of upper management than direct supervisors leading this insane way of life. It is ashame that they are replacing truely great management with new management that support the micromanagement due to the lack of expertise and the abaility to knowlegable in their own jub. Definitely a place of promotion to the highest level of incompitency.

Advice to Senior Management

Loose the micromanagement and concentrate on measurable results. Instead of giving people your shoes to walk in, walk in their shoes.

Pros

Great career opportunities, very fast paced, great people. In general when you join Deloitte you notice that you will work with 23-35 year old type A personalities who are extremely intelligent and knowledgeable. The drive to succeed is the core of the organization, however, it’s not a cut throat competition - people are very down to earth, and at all career levels people are interested and willing to take the time to develop those at the lower career levels. Generally, a friendly and fun work place with a lot of opportunities, but not for the lazy and disinterested individuals. If you have a goal and willing to work for to make it happen, someone will help you get there - senior management that you work for directly generally has a genuine interest in helping you succeed. Deloitte also offers a lot of opportunities and flexibility in terms of career choices – once you are in, you can change your concentration, travel abroad, teach, work on developing new technologies, and do million other things- if anything, you will never be board at work, and that beats any other accounting job you will ever have – try to stay excited about doing month end close every month, or settling account recs, and writing the same accounting documents – not to knock on other professions – but big 4 and Deloitte generally gives you a lot more in terms of career choice and growth if translated at a rate per year of employment – and Deloitte difference is truly the people that you work with.

Cons

Unreasonably long hours… Best people work the most, and the work life balance thing becomes a far fetched dream - 5 months of 80 hour weeks is a lot to ask of anyone. Sometimes i think of Deloitte as Darwin’s lab - survival of the fittest is the best way to describe it. If you have guts to stick it out, the reward is there, and then Deloitte truly stands for “where the best chose to be,” because no wimp is going to be able to do this day in and day out with a smile.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize high performers, and be fair in rating people - it would help to cut the free-riders a lot sooner, to help the rest of the crew work more effectively, reduce workload for those who have to make up for the underperformers. Hopefully, this can help reduce the turnover among the strong performers, as people may be willing to stay for the long term benefit if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Pros

Commitment to practitioners and to the community through their programs, internal intiatives and support for community activities. Practitioners are able to take interests from their personal life and make them Deloitte initiatives. For instance, I am involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters. There is an annual Bowl-A-Thon to help raise money for the organization; Deloitte encourages its staff to participate in these events and to encourage others to attend. They also sponsor membership fees for various professional organizations; have a day of service, where all practitioners go out into the neighboring communities for the day and help better the environments where the offices are located.

Cons

We provide our clients with the best we have to offer and that often impacts work-life balance. As with most clients, when an RFP is presented they want to get the work done for the lowest price possible. In some cases, potential clients are restricted by budget; however, in other cases, they push the envelope to get the best deal. If we, as a top producing firm with a great reputation for success, understand what it takes to successfully complete the task, we should stick to those number instead of cutting for the sake of price. Ultimately, it hurts the practitioners who are forced to do the work typically expected with more resources.

Advice to Senior Management

When bidding on projects, bid the need and not the price. So often we bid a smaller staff to do a large implementation because of price. At the end the staff end up overworked and lack a healthy balance of work and personal life.