Pros

- Some of the people that work there are really smart. Most of the interns I met were pretty bright.
- If you're an intern, you can usually swing by with 40-hour weeks. I'm pretty sure they try to limit intern hours or something to that extent.

Cons

6 weeks of my 9-week internship were unassigned - that is, I literally sat "on the beach," as they call it there, trying to contact managers and find work. The "work" that I was given during those six weeks was literally busy work - like creating a presentation for a "hypothetical" client. I appreciate the managers trying to keep me busy, but it's completely unacceptable for Deloitte to leave its interns with nothing to do for the majority of the internship. The explanation I got from HR and managers was that there was work in other locations (e.g. Michigan economy sucks), but Deloitte's clients didn't want to pay to fly out interns to their project in the rough economic climate.

I eventually secured a role in a team on a client doing something only loosely-related to what I originally signed up for, but by that point in my internship I had no desire to work at Deloitte and pretty much put in the mandatory 40-hour weeks and peaced out.

The HR people tried to spin the experience in a positive way - saying that I can claim that I "interned in one of the harshest economic climates." Give me a break - all my friends interning at other firms (think E&Y, PwC, etc...) were plenty busy for the full duration of their internship. Most were even traveling to client sites.

Some of the people I met there were really smart, but many others were... let's just say I would prefer not to work with them. Many of the 2nd and 3rd year people I met there seemed burnt out and in a zombie-like state. A lot of the people seemed really stressed out and unenthusiastic about the work.

The other interns I worked with were also unassigned for long periods of time, so I certainly wasn't a unique case. It's clear that Deloitte is really struggling right now. For those choosing between accounting firms, I would recommend going to another big-4 firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Perhaps consider assigning interns to projects even if they can't necessarily bill for the hours they're putting in.

Pros

Good learning experience, good teammates and staff, interesting work and projects, quick accrual of PTO, Good benefits, decent location, challenging work if that is what is desired.

Cons

frequent 'over-use' of workers, no clear company direction, dishonest leadership, undefined promotion path, confusing mission/goals, challenging environment to communicate effectively, inability to learn from the company's past mistakes, poor management, management is not knowledgeable in terms of process, poor allocation of resources, inability to plan effectively, habit of over-committing to the client and making staff stay absurd lengths of time to accomplish what should not have been committed, entry-level techs are held accountable for manager/senior tech responsibilities, managers are rarely held accountable for their actions, decision making is not coordinated.

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest and pay attention to what is going on. If the teams continue to be under-appreciated and over-utilized, they will continue to leave. There is so much potential for good that will be undermined if things do not change very quickly.

Pros

Good brand name, very recongizable across the globe. A good place to network and meet other professional who might help you in your future.

Cons

Boring place to work. Poor client assignments. Not enough support form senior management. You're pretty much left on your own. Was only assigned to clients less than 50% of the year. The rest of the time I was expected to go out and sell work with very little support.

Advice to Senior Management

Its broken. Don't bother to fix it.

Pros

Great place to launch a career. Work with smart people. Great amount of paid time off. Clear career path if you're willing to put in the hours.

Cons

Very political and complicated matrix structured firm. Crappy laptops for a consulting firm. Inadequate bonuses/reward for outstanding performance. Performance ratings process is a very political and often unfair process.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen more to employee requests for tools necessary to get the job done.

Pros

Good pay to start
Clear path for advancement
Great opportunities to learn
Great people
Young environment
Everyone is very understanding

Cons

Pay often feels small for amount of work that you work
There are long hours during tax season
You need to be interested in the work, otherwise it can get very boring

Advice to Senior Management

Try to encourage more work and life balance

Pros

Great culture! Very supportive of any concerns you may have. Great learning environment

Cons

It's a great place but very competitive....are you ready to put 120% 100% of the time? All type A's looking to get ahead faster

Advice to Senior Management

More aknowldegement to those who deserve it. When you have all type A's working together, work life balance is a theory of the past.

Pros

- Opportunity to intern abroad
- Really nice people (I loved my direct managers)
- Easy to take vacation

Cons

- High turnover
- Confusion over what to do at times
- Heard rumblings from full-time employees who were upset with having more work piled on them by partners...(partners get a share of those fees, employees work tons of hours and get paid less than American counterparts)

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees and focus more on what's best for keeping them around instead of heading out at 5 pm and piling more work so you can get rich off the fees

Pros

looks great on your resume
great for junior employees

Cons

Annual review process is very lengthy and the monetary increase is a joke
Management is oblivious to problems
Not good for people who want to work in C&A field
If you do not like your engagement, too bad!! YOU ARE STUCK!!!

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to what your employees have to say, take an active role in their careers

Pros

Have some flexibility in hours, but it's at the cost of giving up personal life. Tons of resources to use and learn from to help you advance your career and knowledge.

Cons

You realize the people that get out on time have learned to off-load as much work as possible to other people. The reward, if your lucky, is almost never worth the extra effort of taking on additional work and the personal time sacrificed. Good performance only gets you so far, therefore you have to make sure you meet the "right" people in order to get a good raise at year-end.

The fact that you can only get promoted at year-end is ridiculous. HR has no clue what the client service people do. Their role is merely to pay you as little as possible to keep you happy enough. If they allowed for promotions to take place at any time, then it will motivate employees to work harder for them. It's tough telling an associate that hey, you got hired on such and such date, therefore it's basically impossible for you to get promoted even if you're the best performer ever. I mean really?!!

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your outstanding performers and stop being so stingy. We can see straight through your so-called "straight talk" sessions when you talk about the economy b/c all you ever talk about is top-line attrition, but HELLO, you've axed a ton of employees which is your COGS. Therefore, don't tell me about top-line attrition (revenue), tell me how much profits have changed and then, THEN, I'll be satisfied (or very dissatisfied b/c it's obvious why they haven't shared this) that my pathetic raise, if you got one btw, is in line. Do a better job at balancing work-loads among your employees. Very frustrating to see the same employees leave at 5:00 and then like i said, to not be rewarded for the extra effort you put in.

Promote employees at any time. When someone is ready for a new role, then promote them. It's not a rocket science concept.

"If you treat your goof-offs the same as your stars, before you know it you're going to be left with more goof-offs then stars." - Unknown. I've witnessed a handful of outstanding co-workers leave the company because of this simple mantra.

Pros

Probably the best thing about Deloitte is the smart and talented people you get to work with on a day-to-day basis. The experiences you gain also benefit you in your later career, but are dependent on the projects that you are staffed on. Coming in as a junior resources allows you to try different aspects of consulting - something that you might not have been able to at another company.

Cons

Working at Deloitte is always about building your "brand" and constantly promoting yourself. As people are probably well aware, while the firm tries to promote the never-achieving "work-life-balance", I have yet to meet someone who has made it work. As part of building your brand, extra work is required to be spent outside of normal project work to help out on proposals, building firm eminence, contributing to the firm. Unfortunately, it's hard to get noticed, respected, and rewarded (i.e. financially, recognized), unless you participate in these extra activities.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize those who deliver high quality of work as much as those who sell the work.