I have been much amused recently at the amount of vitriol on this forum directed towards Accenture and it's employees. I am an Accenture employee and have so far found no tangible reason not to like it as a place to work. I have worked for CapGemini and Deloitte in the past and to be honest all these big organisations are much the same. Yes you are always a small cog in the wheel and adding shareholder valus is always the priority but if you are realistic is that such a problem? I would like to ask does anyone really love working for Accenture and have something positive to say?

I must say I agree with you. Hearing about how Accenture and E&Y are full of slackers who go home at 5 and never work weekends makes me think that I might move into consulting one day after all.To be honest, I couldn’t give a sh*t if other consultants laugh at me, as long as I had a happy life and was doing interesting work!

Too darned right.Do accenture folk generally work less than 45 hours per week? If so, then I'm going to apply literally straight away. Working all evening and/or weekends? Sod that for a game of soldiers.

As with all enployers, there are peaks and troughs of morale. At Accenture, depending on the project, the proximity to the ridiculous laddering meetings and promotion points, the time of year and the annual no-bonus announcement, you'll find plenty of (un)enthused, (un)motivated people.As for me, I recently left.1 - nil to the non-Accenture-lovers.

I guess I have been lucky, I normally work a 45 hour week but regularly 'work' from home on Fridays. Have not had to do a weekend yet, get home every night with minimal travel. I know other people may have some horror stories but so far so good for me. Obviously I am not a top paid strat consultant or anything like that but my work-life balance is pretty good and thats more important to me.

Hi workshy. What would you recommend to somebody thinking about joining Accenture?What are the grades and pay levels? Is there anything I should look out for during the recruitment process to make sure I don't get shafted?

Take care here.It's as well to have some consideration for the large number of people that work at Accenture, and the even larger number of people working elsewhere in the consulting industry, before jumping headlong into this thread.martin makes some unvitriolic points for some of us and motivated me (in a funny sort of way), to delete my initial message and swap it for this less funny one (shame really but we all mature somedays). Get on with you nn. Were you really after an answer to all that?

What's wrong with NN's questions?I'm interested too as I'm thinking of applying to Accenture Strategy.

I’m sure his questions are fine, but I would have thought that someone would join an allegedly easy consultancy would be doing it for the hours vs interesting work rather than the money, yet nn’s first question is about pay structure. Not that it’s anything to do with me of course.

Allow me to clarify. I am of course interested in maximising my pay. But, within certain parameters. I don't want to work more than 45 hours per week on average. If accenture can offer me that combination, then I intend to apply literally straight away.

nn - you will obviously need a bit of luck to get on a good project near to home. The likelihood of this increases with experience as you build a good network of colleagues. When you are new you just go where you are sent - no arguments! However my experience is that Accenture is very big which means lots of projects which generally means plenty of choice. In this respect it beats many smaller rivals.As for pay it is probably average for the industry - I don't know all the levels but you will find details on this forum. As for interview advice, be prepared to justify and back up everything you say about yourself. It is not enough to say you are good at something - you always have to provide examples.

Just what we need more of at Accenture: people who can't really be ar$ed to work that hard.My normal day has been approx 9-8, plus 1.5 hours daily commuting.Can't say I love it, but I'm still here.

To address a couple of questions:My normal working hours were 9 - 7 Monday to Wednesday, followed by nights in a hotel, then 9 - 5 Thursday (plus 2 hours work on the rioja express train home) and work from home on Fridays.And as for the pay - I understand they base their pay on the industry 75th percentile. What they use as industry benchmark I have no idea.

Since when does "working hard" have to mean long hours?? Its' exactly people like you Bob who are perpetuating the sort of crazy hours that people seem to be working in this business!

I think working 08:30 to 18:30 is reasonable especially if you have no lunch break and two hours of commuting on top. Plus we can only charge 8 hours a day to the client. If I was asked to consistently stay until 8 or 9pm I would have some strong concerns abouty the project staffing levels. Accenture is supposedly committed to reasonable worklife balance - I hope that is a reality rather than just a tag line...

I left ACN about a year ago. I get more pay at my smaller consultancy and I would say I now have more responsibility (was M1, moved as an M3, if you get my meaning).1 year I did 8 months of 80+ hours, working 3 weekends per month, another I struggled to work for 3 hours per day whilst fully chargeable for 7 months. There are ups and downs.I miss the banter and friendships a larger project provides, but I do more thought provoking work now. Though I am on an upswing, this is consulting so it will no doubt go down swing soon.If you are happy at ACN, good luck to you. I have lots of friends who are.Opinion are only that and can never be right or wrong...

Actually, yes. The most well-rounded people I have come across from any consulting firm.

"Actually, yes. The most well-rounded people I have come across from any consulting firm."Is that because they spend 18 hours a day in front of a computer screen and don't get as much physical exercise as they should?

That may be your experience, but it's not mine.

I must confess I was kind of hoping this thread would trigger all kinds of derogatory statements from pompous MBBB types so that we could have some banter. You know, the sort of people you get on here bragging about their pay packets and the hours they work and feeling ever so superior to the big 4 'lower tier' consultants.Oh well next time...

Guys its just a different job, like saying doctors and nurses. Sod the tiers, i dont think they should even be comparable professions! When I interned at Mck at b shool, i worked on 4 continents in the space of 3 months, averaging 16 hours a day 7 days a week ( i had one sunday off). Im not saying ones better or worse, they are COMPLETELY different jobs. THATS why no one has come onto this thread saying that MBBB is superior.

Merlin, what are the top 5 things you learnt from your McK experience?

I really enjoy it here. 8-5 mon-fri and i still get a lot done. Some of my friends do much longer but it's a risk you take with this type of job. I don' do weekends and plan me week to avoid having to do so as it's something that's very important to me.

So I guess you wont be making consultant any time soon.

Yeah, getting promoted is all about the hours, you need to work at least 90 a week to make it to manager. Input is more important than output.

nonsense

but manager said the hours were important so it must be??????????

true that