Feedback - Junior Consultant Avencore Employee Review

Better work culture than consulting in general

Consulting hours can get annoying

Refer to the "Cons" section: "In instances where there is an over-abundance of concurrent projects, employees can be expected to be stretched thin, spread across multiple engagements, with no assistance or guidance forthcoming from leadership..." >> This automatically means you will have the opportunity to learn a lot, very quickly; as well as be responsible for a lot, very quickly. Compared to a well-operated typical/traditional consulting firm, this is unique, but you can play it to your advantage by leveraging it to drive personal learning and growth.

France-centric enterprise founded, owned, and operated by a couple of petty small-timers based out of Paris (France). Business model is based on enticing smart, ambitious, and high-pedigree (school-wise) kids straight out of grad school, with promises of infinite opportunity, high growth, and wide exposure (and all else associated with "firm building"). While this offering may have been true for a while after the inception of the firm (France: 2009, US: 2011), history shows infrequent and limited growth (revenue, new client acquisition, existing client recidivism) over the course of many years. There have been several long spells of negative growth along above parameters as well. Additionally, employee attrition rate is very high (revolving door). For example, despite >10 years of existence, the US branch has <10 employees Client portfolio, while interesting, is insufficient (leadership is very reactive, not proactive), often resulting in long spells of no work ("bench", "beach", "internal project"). This phenomenon also diminishes firm's leverage with clients who do provide work, forcing employees to often staff boring, poorly-funded engagements. In instances where there is an over-abundance of concurrent projects, employees can be expected to be stretched thin, spread across multiple engagements, with no assistance or guidance forthcoming from leadership; nor appreciation. Annual reviews are seldom on time (they can be over a year a late). While in a bad year you can expect to have reduced salary, no bonus etc., in a good year you are not assured any good payoffs- in fact the technique of delaying reviews is especially leveraged during good years so any payoffs can be delayed till the firm is in a bad spot, and potential payoffs you may have been expecting can then be totally forgotten about. Instead of making changes to try and rectify any of the above, leadership prefers to blame failure (inexplicably and irrationally) on employees, the market, and even the clients. It is a guarantee that when you leave the firm, you will be spoken illy of by management, even if you had served the firm impeccably and loyally for multiple years. As a result, there is no real alumni network that benefits former (or current) employees. Finally, you can expect to have to lie for the firm (e.g. about # of employees, when presenting company to clients or potential recruits). You can also expect you will be lied to at some point. All of the above makes it a challenge to retain any good employees; consequently firm has no "up or out" policy. Only long-term employees of the firm at this point are ones that are unwilling (for personal reasons), or incapable, of finding challenging, gainful employment elsewhere, and who will consequently sing dutiful praises of this shambles of an enterprise.