Accenture Experienced Hires??

Oceanbunny

Hi All,

I am thinking of going into Accenture consultancy after best part of 10 years in industry.

I have no problem with working hard and doing what's required, but anything I see/hear from people is that they work you to the bone. Is this true? And is the 70 hr weeks the only thing that is measured for promotion?

Are we talking constantly in excess of 45hrs a week? I am married and don't want to sacrifice my family life, though I would be interested in the work?

Also I am taking a step back to go in the consultancy direction, so wondering what's the average age of a consultant for Accenture? Do all their staff still come from Graduate schemes?

Travel wise, if there are any accenture workers there, are they 4.ooam Monday flights and back in dublin at 10pm Thursday night type of thing?

Thanks for any and all help,

OB

ixoy

Oceanbunny wrote: »

I have no problem with working hard and doing what's required, but anything I see/hear from people is that they work you to the bone. Is this true? And is the 70 hr weeks the only thing that is measured for promotion?

You're worked hard but I don't believe I've ever worked a 70hr week or anything close to it. I know some projects have had those hours coming up to an important deadline but it's certainly not a regular thing on any of the projects that I'm familiar with.

Are we talking constantly in excess of 45hrs a week? I am married and don't want to sacrifice my family life, though I would be interested in the work?

It'll depend on the project and its needs. Again, on a typical week, probably not but as deadlines approaches I believe so. Are you looking to get into management (given your years of experience)? More may be asked of you then.

Also I am taking a step back to go in the consultancy direction, so wondering what's the average age of a consultant for Accenture? Do all their staff still come from Graduate schemes?

This is a bit different. There's multiple career streams within Accenture and the typical concept of a consultant is hired straight out of college. There are other streams into which they generally place experienced hire.

Travel wise, if there are any accenture workers there, are they 4.ooam Monday flights and back in dublin at 10pm Thursday night type of thing?

Never had to travel but a lot of it could depend on your seniority and your project. Can't help with this one I'm afraid.

Tom Dunne

Actually, are they hiring at the moment? I sent in a CV to a job advert a few weeks back and I've heard nothing since.

Not that it matters, since I have been offered another job, but I wouldn't have minded talking to them to see what they are like.

Oceanbunny

Thanks for the feedback.

Anyone else working for them and travels a lot?

Tom Dunne - I am presuming they are hiring at present, at least in some areas, but their recruitment process is quite long and detailed, so it might be worth a follow up call to HR?

ceidefields

I have not personally worked for Accenture but I have worked extensively as a consultant and have worked alongside Accenture. My general experience is that they use the college grads to do the hack, boring work. If you're experienced, then you have an area of speciality. Go in with a firm idea of what you would want from the job.

As for travel, it really depends on what you're doing, but all the consulting jobs I've come across generally require at least 50% travel unless you're fortunate enough to be allocated long term to a local client.

I used to travel Mon-Fri, 40 weeks of the year. If I had to travel abroad for a few weeks straight, I generally got a week at home after that. It's very good for the career but wreaks havoc on your personal life.

ceidefields

Forgot this: for the 70 hour week, again if you're on the road anyway, you tend to work 18 hour days because even in your hotel room, you have the laptop open working.

useless

OP:

Globally, Accenture have a habit of not giving experienced hires who come from outside the consulting industry enough "credit" in terms of years of experience. For example, if you have 10 years experience in industry, they will probably try to bring you in at a level which you would have reached in 6-7 years had you joined as a graduate. See topconsultant.com and vault.com for more discussion on this issue. Bargain hard

Historically, most Accenture recruits would have come through the graduate programme. However, the company is aggressively hiring experienced people at all levels now due to growth.
Be aware too of the differences between Consulting, Solutions and Services and what the expectations are for each of those. Talk to your interviewers and HR about it.

45 hours a week is about average, the 60+ hour weeks are rare enough, unless you're at a really busy phase of a project. Travel tends to be of the first flight out on Monday/last flight back on Thursday OR mid-afternoon Friday type. However, there is quite a lot of work in Dublin, particularly in financial services and government, so it's possible you won't have to travel at all.

TomDunne- they are hiring at the moment. Sometimes HR aren't as sharp as they should be in following up applications. Might be too late for you now that you have another job, but if anyone else is waiting more than a week for a response, definitely call recruitment and ask about the progress of your application

dudara

useless wrote: »

Sometimes HR aren't as sharp as they should be in following up applications.

QTT - I gave up on my application with them after they lost my CV - twice. Nothing against Accenture as a company, its just that their HR seems to leave a bit to be desired.

I worked there for a good number of years until recently enough. The record on the integration of "experienced hires" is not great but I believe is improving because of the churn and burn nature and the fact that they need to fill many vacanies due to growth. The Accenture revenue model is all about bums on seats out on the client site. Since the change to the public company scenario in the early 2000's this has become the driving imperative. That is to say, that the concern is not really what you actually do (if anything) out there "on-site" once the client is paying for it. Increasingly people are dissatisfied with poor role definitiion. What you end up doing is completely arbitrary - depending on what role is needed to be filled at that time.
In addition, it's important to point out that it's not mgt. consultancy - it's 95% IT systems integration. Even if you are not IT you'll be doing process work to facilitate the IT put-in, or testing. Or just bog-std project mgt.
Also, if you've never experienced full-time client site work environments you may not like it.
Re the level that you are coming in at - you are prob being offered "C3" I imagine, or early mgr. This is to mitgate the fact that you may not work out and therefore you just won't get promoted and you'll leave. That's the way they work. Don't get me wrong - you may thrive in the organisation. If you like proj. mgt. and are willing to "be nice" to all sorts of client people, even complete tossers, and also able to deal with the internal politics and make your mark coming into an organisation "cold" then go for it. But be honest with yourself first!

a bit American-focused, and a bit negative, but largely correct: -

http://www.thevault.com/community/mb/mb_main.jsp?forum_id=5349&ch_id=252

the performance mgt. process is one thing that you may wish to look at...