Considering a career with Deloitte? Here's the inside scoop from a Deloitte consultant on what's it like to work there!
Hi I'm Ino and I worked at Deloitte Consulting from 2018 to 2021. I was staffed on Fortune 500 companies like Google and Salesforce and got to travel around the world, exactly how I imagined the life of a consultant to be like, experiencing both the glamor of traveling and working on exciting projects and also the gruesome consulting hours that every consultant will tell you about.
Now a quick overview on Deloitte before I dive into the details of working as a consultant there. Deloitte is part of the Big Four as you may have already heard. The Big Four are the four largest professional services networks in the world that own the market on tax, audit, and advisory services, which consist of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Deloitte is a private company and was founded 177 years ago in 1845 by William Welch Deloitte in London, England. It is currently the largest of the Big 4 in terms of the number of employees (415,000 employees globally as of 2022) and in revenue (US$59.3 billion as of 2022). Deloitte has 4 business units – Tax, Audit, Financial Advisory, and Consulting. Each of these is a separate legal entity owned and managed by a partner group. Deloitte Consulting is further broken down into 3 sectors – Human Capital, Technology, and Strategy & Operations. This last one, Deloitte S&O, is where the rubber meets the road for management consultants. If you’re looking for consulting job postings on Deloitte’s U.S. Careers site, use the system’s filter to select “Management Consulting” or "Tech Consulting" under “Choose a job type or service.”
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Why Work For Deloitte Consulting?
You get to work with large Fortune 500 clients, and doing critical and challenging work for the biggest companies in the world. For example, I helped spearhead some of the biggest digital transformations at Google, Salesforce, and Marriott!
It's got an incredible network. Deloitte has 415,000 employees worldwide providing audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk and financial advisory services.
Since Deloitte is run on partnership, each partner own his or her own business almost like running a separate mini company. If you show that you’re good at selling and can bring in new business for the partner, you’ll stand out and get a huge boost on your career, and be rewarded!
You can be fully remote! Deloitte recently announced that employees have the choice to be fully remote so you can work anywhere!
You don't get too many Ivy League snobs compared to firms like McKinsey, Bain and BCG. At Deloitte, you get people from all different backgrounds and it's super inclusive!
Huge emphasis on meritocracy and professionalism. There are clear structures for pay and promotion. Compared to the other Big Four firms, Deloitte has a better reputation for being meritocratic.
Amazing diversity due to its global reach. You will meet people from all over the world and from all different backgrounds. There are networks for employees from different religions, ethnic backgrounds, LGBT, etc.
After a recent increase in employer contributions, Deloitte now has one of the most generous pension schemes of the Big Four. They also offer a generous benefits package.
They invest in their employees and offer a lot of training for people who want to further their career and skillsets. They also offer to pay for your MBA education!
International growth and travel. Emerging markets are growing and Deloitte gives employees the opportunity to go on exchange programs to other offices and unique international clients. In particular, if you speak the language of any of these markets you’ll be a great asset to the firm. When I was at Deloitte, I got to travel to client engagements at Japan, Singapore, and Southeast Asia!
Deloitte in the U.S. is famous for supporting its female employees. There is a lot of leadership program for women and other initiatives.
Things to Watch Out For
Since it’s a partnership, it’s sometimes difficult to be entrepreneurial. A partner needs oversight of everything that’s going on with his or her client so if you want to do something different and unique there may be lead time before it happens.
As Deloitte is an audit firm as well as a consulting firm, so there are a lot of compliance issues in terms of the way information is shared and how you work with clients. For example, you have to be careful of the stocks you own that may have a conflict of interest if you do consulting for that client or have access to their financial information.
You may have to work late night hours if you work with a big client or with team in India
You can feel like a cog in the big corporate machine.
Conclusion
Deloitte is an amazing company to work and get your consulting career started. Its consulting practice is the biggest out of the Big4 and has a wide reach across all industries. I love my time at Deloitte and learned so much and would highly recommend it to hone your skills. Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin and I can share more about my experiences there and the recruiting process.