Deloitte Reviews in Washington, DC Area

Pros

Great people, great training, solid reputation. No hire and fire mentality. Would have endured a double-dip without layoffs. Selective hiring so it means something that they hire you.

Cons

If you take all of your vacation and holidays, you're already below utilization goals. Add firm events and extracurricular activities and you're looking at 42-45 client hours per week (even if there's a holiday) PLUS whatever else is going on.
Bonus and raise was a joke unless 10% bonus and especially a mere 4% raise for a top 25% performer is ok for you.

Advice to Senior Management

A lot of rotation with leadership going on. Good and bad for networking I guess. Principals/Directors could approach junior personnel more, especially when they're the client lead and you are on a project there.

Pros

Work/Life balance
Chance to show competence

Cons

Push to contribute to sales can be a burden.
Metrics are hard to maintain at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep compensating you practitioners, but do above the market rate, don't try to simply match your competitors.

Pros

Excellent Salary and bonus packages. Lots of opportunities to develop an eminence area or interests. Many people complain that you have to do a lot of firm contributions. That is true, but I am very strategic about the activities I participate in. Therefore, while there is pressure to have firm contributions, you can focus on the areas that are truly of interest to you. This includes philanthropic/ community activities.

Great place to build your career with many career models that employees can take advantage of based on their goals. Partner/ Principal/ Director Track if you are interested in managing projects and building revenue. Specialist Track if you are more concerned with building eminence and becoming a recognized SME in an area. Associate track, that is less secure, has less commitment to the company by the employee (i.e., hired for a specific project and potential future work, but not guaranteed).

Cons

It is sometimes hard to become visible to the leadership who will be determining your year end performance (bonus, salary, rating).

Extremely matrixed organization that makes it hard to answer the question, "Who is your supervisor? Who do I work for exactly?"

Inequity of the real estate management. Some offices are after thoughts and make it very hard to execute some of your job functions. Staff who are not ale to work at the client site have a hard time finding long-term work space.

The Federal practice is profitable, BUT much of the work is Staff Augmentation and not true consulting. The commercial work is definitely much sexier. However, I have heard that the commercial sector employees burn out a lot faster.

Lots of Conference Calls and Junk Email...It is exasperating for the first 6 months. After a while you learn which ones to ignore.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut out the junk email. Provide opportunities for Commercial and Federal resources to do an exchange program of sorts so that everyone can learn all aspects of the business.

Pros

Plenty of opportunity to learn, grow, and prove yourself.

Cons

Sometimes management can forget the human element of management.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember to use common sense when leading and providing direction to staff.

Pros

The overall benefits package is good.

Cons

-You are told you have 5 weeks vacation but in reality due to requirements on billing you will never be able to take it.
-Incompetent managers.
-The managers seem to think technical work is below them. Yet they give themselves titles such as "Architect".
-It's obvious they are just ripping the government off. Unfortunately the government is no knowledgable enough to know. So much for "doing the right thing"
-In regards to technical skills the staff is very lacking. Many meetings devolve into explaining to Deloitte staff very basic concepts. Yet these people are billed as experts in the area.

Advice to Senior Management

Deloitte federal sector is just another government contractor. You should try to instill in it the values that the commercial side has. It's obvious to anyone who has any technical skills that the team is lacking. Rather then do what the client needs everything is geared towards getting more work. In the long run doing the right thing and giving the right advice will lead to more work.
Try to remove the legacy Bearing Point staff. It really put me off how lazy they were. My impression of Deloitte Federal is very low and would never work there again.

Pros

Name recognition, opportunities to gain a broad range of experience, and communitiy involvement opportunities.

Cons

Difficulty in getting the type of projects that you want, emphasis on sales/revenue growth, culture can be difficult to navigate so you must take a good deal of initiative to find a community that works for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Give practioners the projects they want, provide more flexibility in working remotely, and ask that managers/sr. managers take on a more collaborative tone (and less hierarchical).

Pros

Name on your resume before you hop elsewhere
Training
Good vacation time
Clients you can list on your resume
Leadership from legacy Deloitte is strong

Cons

High ratings on projects don't correlate to raises
You are about 10% under market if you have higher education and work in government consulting
Managers are usually experienced hires from other firms (BE) and lack credentials
Top talent tends to leave for much higher salaries and job titles

Advice to Senior Management

If someone has a lot of credentials, high reviews, and is in a niche industry, don't treat them like a number. And don't be surprised when these types of people leave.

Pros

Great people!
Flexible work schedule!
Continous learning opportunities!
Challenging assignments!
International travel opportunities!!
Access to update accounting resources and firm guidance.

Cons

As in any public accounting firm, there are times you work extremely long hours; however, given that its a team environment that helps.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should identify ways in which the tone at the top is communicated timely to staff and lower management. In our office, directives established were lost and the intent blurred.

Pros

Intelligence is key here and evident in the people that work here...everyone is very knowledgeable and looking for ways to advance to the next level in their career path. Management is focused on the company's strategic vision and offer as much time as they can to mentoring their staff. Love for the community is something that Deloitte is really BIG about and they are definitely true to their word.

Cons

Deloitte is a rather large firm and therefore it can very hard to decipher where you want to do, but you know that the opportunity is available you just have to NETWORK! This is a company about getting to know your counterparts and your management.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to work towards building the skills of your employees and keep doing that great community service!

Pros

Compensation
A good place to work if you are very ambitious

Cons

Culture
Cutthroat
Not good for those who just want to do good work without moving up the chain
WIthout a very strong network, it is hard to get staffed on projects