Great company if you're not a designer. - User Experience Designer EY Employee Review

3.0
1 Aug 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

EY has really good benefits, you can work from home, good work/life balance, some really nice people and compensation is competitive. If you don't care about working on inspirational design work and want a good paycheck then this is the place for you.

Cons

- As a designer I can say that this is not a great design culture. A lot of the technology you will use is dated (they just got Macs for designers in Summer 2017 and Sketch) which means to complete a lot of tasks you have to use a Windows VM to do things like log your timecard, access the EY intranet etc. Speaking of, there are frequent issues with your email, Skype (or Lync from 2011 which is what you use on Macs) so anticipate spending a part of your day on the phone with IT consistently. This is not an exaggeration, outages happen about once every month to month and a half. TOO MANY MEETINGS. I can't say that enough. There's some days where I've been on meetings 6-8 hours. This is unacceptable for a designer that is supposed to be producing. A lot of the times meetings just drag on and they're not very focused. This isn't something that is going to change at EY as it's a part of their culture. - The design work is boring. If you're a creative designer, working in tax is a snooze-fest. There's only so many ways you can slice forms, text fields and tables. If you're looking to work on cutting edge design then this probably isn't the place. - Rules and regulations that have nothing to do with design. You have to do frequent testing on topics about finance and tax. If you are a client-serving team even if you aren't working with a client directly and you're not in any form of tax or auditing role you will be forced to sell stocks, bonds, etc. if they are clients EY serves. Same goes for your spouse. This seems unnecessary for a role that will never touch financial data. - A lot of the EY engineering teams you work with to put it simply are not good. I've ran in to situations where things that have been standards as far as a responsive design or some sort of animation could not be done because the developer couldn't do it. We're talking interactions that have been done for 5-6 years. This makes your job as a designer difficult because you're crippled by developers that are up to today's standards. They need to hire more developers that aren't all off-shore too.

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5.0
21 June 2026
Anonymous intern
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Amazing work culture I love it

Cons

I wouldn't say anything honestly

5.0
21 Feb 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. You will have a very hard time not falling in love with every single person you meet there. 2. Seriously, you will meet your soul mate(s) there. 3. Prestigious and looks great on the resume. 4. Your brain will grow a thousand times more powerful. 5. Forces you to conquer your fear of public speaking. 6. Fun team bonding and lifelong friends. 7. Stepping stone to high paying jobs. 8. Helps you work on perfecting your charm. You will learn from the most charming people how to really get people to like you. 9. HR really cares. 10. Big support network (IT, creative services, etc.). 11. Teaches you to be calm and in control.

Cons

OK, I'm going to be discussing all the taboo things, and there are a lot of them. In spite of these cons, I still admit it's worth a five star rating. 1. High performers are "designated" (you have very little control over your rating) by the partner group (can be a pro if you get selected. Seriously, I have worked with some of the supposed "fives" and they are not any different than my threes and fours. 2. Quality is extremely low. Sometimes I felt like I was working at McDonalds and not a professional services firm. The emphasis is on getting through work as fast as possible and expectations for quality are not realistic. 3. EY has a very hard time firing bad employees. If you get stuck with one it can be a nightmare. 4. EY has a heavy emphasis on wasting time. For example, there are lots and lots of checklists which have no value that you have to fill out. Also, they wasted money and time on creating "Canvas" which is literally slower and more awkward than the previous workspace tool, GAMX. There is a heavy emphasis on "reinventing the wheel" and fixing problems that aren't broken with even worse solutions. Instead of wasting money on useless tools, that money could have been spent on your employees in the form of compensation. Like I said, EY is really focused on attempting to look as though value is being created when in fact it is not. 5. Lots of meetings. Appearances are very important. 6. Employees on global 360 accounts get better treatment. 7. Some employees (executives mostly) tend to overemphasize how important this work is. Let's face it, if it was really glorious work then we would have action figures. 8. Looks are very important. Seriously, if you are a girl, you will get promoted based on how hot you are (the quality of your work is largely unimportant). If you are a guy, you are treated a little better but there is still a sexist undercurrent in the environment. This is advice you won't get from HR obviously, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. 8. You will be forced to eat hours. 9. Your ethical compass will start to get weaker. 10. You will get a little cynical. 11. Lots of driving and travel. 12. "Family men" and married couples with children are more likely to be promoted. If you want to be a partner, you have to be married (few exceptions). 13. You will work on vacations. 14. Loss of relationships with family and friends. 15. Some backstabbing and credit-stealing (but not very common). 16. Comp is below market but that's to be expected. 17. Employee retention is not something management is interested in. This makes you replaceable and expendable (yes even as a manager, unless you have been "designated" as a high performer by the partner group).

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