Pros
Both pros and cons will be somewhat dependent upon your practice and group. With that in mind, the biggest pros of the company / healthcare practice include: 1. Sufficient size to reel in interesting projects. The healthcare practice wasn't necessarily doing eight-figure projects for top-5 health systems, but they were doing large engagements for recognizable regional and national brands. I believe they're still one of the top five healthcare practices in the country, measured in revenue. 2. Reasonable billable hours targets. Targets for analysts/senior analysts were 80%+, MCs 75% and ADs 70%. If you did good work, and hit your targets you were rewarded with good reviews and timely promotions. This translated into average workweeks under 50 hours and little weekend work if you were smart about it. 3. Work-life flexibility. Provided you were receiving good reviews, there were minimal face time expectations. My team and I basically worked until the work was done. It's consulting, so that's 12 hours some days. But it's also 5 hours some days, and nobody expected you to make it look like you were working 12 hours those days. Opportunity to work remotely as needed (MC and below) or permanently (AD and above). 4. Great training ground with good exit opportunities. Other than one super-talented employee who I think sold himself short when he left, those who left our group took good jobs that were good career moves, myself included. 5. Office culture can be a pro, can be a con. Varies significantly from group to group, practice to practice. When I started, I had a couple people who relayed cautionary tales about Navigant from different practices, and I'm glad I chose to ignore them. Once established I found it easy to positively influence the office culture for my group. 6. Within my practice, travel was limited to 2-3 days a week for Directors, 1-2 days a week for ADs, ~1 day a week for MCs and <1 day a week for SCs. YMMV, but this can be a real perk in consulting. 7. Other pros that are present in most consulting firms but no less true at Navigant, including working with smart people; learning analysis, project management, etc; fast paced environment; quality managers for whom you like to work and who will develop you (though not everybody); etc.
Cons
1. Compensation is reflective of the lower billable hour targets. It's consulting, so the pay is still good relative to other jobs, but probably lower than peer firms, especially after bonus. Makes barriers to exit relatively low. 2. Nothing formalized for professional development. Employees receive an evaluator (or whatever the position has since been renamed) to whom they may have no working exposure over the course of a review period. No formal or prescribed one-on-one cadence. All but the best self starters run the risk of receiving insufficient guidance when starting out. Work was in process to improve this when I left, but it's still a deficiency. Also probably a step below MBB, Deloitte, etc. in terms of training rigor. If you want to be better at excel than your buddy at BAML, look elsewhere. 3. Quality of life can vary group to group, practice to practice. Tough to tell before you start what type of group you'll find yourself in, but not every group adheres to the corporate billable hour targets or understands interests in your life beyond work. 4. The healthcare practice was reorganized on a monthly basis. This was less a con than it was just plain annoying. 5. Other cons that are present in other consulting firms but no less true at Navigant, including ebbs and flows to workload, including some weeks with long hours in crunch time; turnover of your favorite people (which, when embraced, can mean new favorite people); managers you don't like to work for (though not everybody)
