Pros
- Great place to explore different functional and topical areas if you are unsure what direction you want to head in. I had the ability to jump between healthcare, marketing, HR and finance - Strong feedback culture means that you receive regular input on your performance and understand development areas needed to reach the "next level" - the path is clearly mapped out for you - Mentorship is also generally strong, with a lot of senior leads taking a genuine interest in development of more junior staff
Cons
- The flip side of a strong feedback culture is that there is often a hyper-fixation on minor development areas that can lead to feedback overload / not knowing where genuine pain points are given ratings / feedback shift from week to week; managers seem to feel a lot of pressure to come up with something to say which means some feedback should be taken with a grain of salt - There is a good amount of favoritism with unequal opportunities / career path laid out based on what senior leads you can make a connection with, leading to big discrepancies if you are not a "favorite". This is a probably an issue at most workplaces, but seemed particularly acute here. - Function of consulting in general vs. OW specifically, but expectation seems to be that you are perfect across virtually every competency (interpersonal, creative, quantitative, leadership skills, analytics, writing etc.) - this leaves less opportunity to really gain confidence in what you are naturally good at / lean into that.