please advise for grad level for strategy role. Is SB&A really all that? How respected is it? More, less, same as PA and I guess Deloitte?

Hey there. I work in ACN SBA. It is distinctly above PA and Deloitte. Deloitte as a consulting firm operate in a slightly different industry to ACN, and are well behind. PA does most public consulting work - thier strategy arm is not as detached, refined and strong as that of acn. SBA has a list of very strong clients, an excellent exposure, and the resources of accenture - which is still best 'big' consultancy out there. One word of advice thou; what stage are you in the application process? Getting into sba is extremely difficult - they take about 14 grads a year, thats just under 4 for each operating group. What uni / grade / experience do you have?

I have a BA and MSc degree from UCL. Im applying for a graduate position and thus I have very little, in fact no real experience. I am worried about the size of the practice. In an economic downturn, will the consulting dept be hit first? the hardest? Also are the new grads likely to be the first to face the chop? is the work real srategy consulting or pretty much referal work for the outsourcing and tech sided of ACN to do some business? How much travelling are you doing? cheers peter

As you seem to be in the know, could you shed a little more light on what you meant about 'deloitte operating in a slightly different industry'. Also how would you compare Deloitte v PA? which would you rather work for? Ive heard PA strategy dept is groing rapidly and does alot of work within financial services too! regards

Whoops..!!!Sorry about that peters, i dont know why i put your name down! Apologies!

ok. the size of the practice. there are about 350 sba employees in the uk, compared to 20,000 'normal' consultats. we are about as big as mckinsey in size. however we have access to powerful resources and immense databases, of people, experiences, credentials, clients etc that pure strat firms dont have. i think you shouldnt be worried with who gets fired first, if you work hard and youre good at what you do this should never be a problem. do you have internsips? societies? clubs? you need to demonstrate more than just good accademics. what stage of the application are you? MEMORIZE THEIR GRADUATE WEBSITE - if you get through to the strat interview, let me know and well see if we can have a chat.