L.E.K. Consulting Reviews

Pros

Good working culture, WLB, protected weekends, summer fridays and off by 6 one day a week.

Cons

can only get up to 20% of salary as profit share, long hours

Pros

I only rate LEK highly because of the strength of the exit opps. The opportunities are great if you reach for them. After my two year mark I would get interesting opportunities in PE, PE ops, VC, Strategy, and (oddly) data science teams in my inbox and LinkedIn every week. When I started to actively recruit I was able to get interviews in the industry and function of my choice with ease. My thinking is... treat the company like it treats its employees. Extract what value you can, then leave.

Cons

Partners and managers are incentivized to extract every bit of productive work out of As and Cs. This leads to high hours - 60-70 hour weeks for most. Not all ~65 hour weeks are created equally. At LEK the intensity of each hour is high, there's rarely a moment for a breather, I'm grateful if I can catch a 15-30 minute lunch and a 30 minute dinner before working til midnight or later. I am not one to get burnt out, but most As would complain to me about their feelings of burnout, which I definitely sympathize with. With hours and intensity at such high levels, the compensation feels low, especially when normalized for hours. After 1 year, the absolute comp and $/hr that you can get in industry is greater, and depending on the company, the trajectory can be just as fast.

Pros

Very smart associates; interesting work; great learning opportunities for leading teams, strategy work, PE exposure, etc.

Cons

Large lack of diversity in the firm, especially above manager level; hard to manage work life balance for years on end without a break; leadership acknowledges a need to improve culture (e.g., to be more inclusive, to be closer to social issues), but leadership as a whole seems to lack internal motivation to change things (saying without doing, promoting the wrong people)

Pros

As with other consulting companies, L.E.K. is a wonderful place to begin your career. The breadth and depth of the content you are exposed to, as well as the diverse skill set you acquire, effectively set you up for almost anything you want to do. The newer generation of partners (i.e., the ones with kids) seem to have found a better balance between taking care of their case teams and providing a good product for clients. Many were very accessible, and happy to serve as mentors in the capacity they were able to.

Cons

At L.E.K., you could draw a few good cases and work 50-55 hours / week for a while, or you could get thrown on a string of Due Diligences and get crushed with 70 hour weeks for a month- its really about the case, the competence of the manager, and the competence of the Consultant (for Associates) The Consultant issue is the biggest systemic problem at L.E.K.. The company, in an effort to get top talent out of business schools, effectively throws recently graduated MBA's who can barely tie their shoes into a position of enormous responsibility. While many learn quickly, some never do, and they spend two years torturing Associates until they're finally fired.

Pros

1) You would learn a lot! 2) The pay is OK ( relative to other career paths but lower than what you'll get at other consulting firms for a similar amount of work )

Cons

1) Hours are really long. You have no life outside of work 2) Expectations are unreasonable 3) HR is absolutely unhelpful and employees are treated like they do not matter 4) Really can't trust anyone 5) Turnover is unbelievable 6) Lower pay relative to other consulting firms. You are likely to receive only 30% of the stated bonus on your offer letter. No 401k matching