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Vault’s Verdict

Long known as the industry’s turnaround kings (or afterlife guides for those that are beyond saving), A&M has found its services in high demand throughout the rocky economy of the past couple of years. While that has translated to a lot of work for its consultants, this firm is also known for its top of market compensation, based on an eat-what-you-kill philosophy. So while consultants may have been racking up the hours of late, they’ve also been getting well-rewarded for doing so.

Like many insiders in the post-pandemic world, A&M’s consultants point to flexible working situations—albeit varied by team and manager—and good ability to control work-life balance as some of the benefits that have come out of the enforced office life hiatus. As such, while hard work is always part of the A&M experience, it’s arguably more manageable now than at any point in its past.

In terms of future outlook, the firm’s M&A side will be hoping for a friendlier lending environment in 2024, but the beauty of A&M’s business model is that it’s built to thrive whichever way the economic winds are blowing.

 

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

  • “A great place to start a career. Great access to C suite and difficult problems with interesting clients.”
  • “An amazing place to learn and grow where you can have outsized impact on your clients, your firm, and your professional career."
  • “Diversified service offerings that can do well in good or bad environments -> ex: Restructuring vs. Management Consulting/Performance Improvement.”
  • “If you want to do challenging work that will save or transform the clients and communities that we support and work at a firm that recognizes and rewards individual contributions and entrepreneurship, consider A&M!”
  • “The autonomy that employees have is totally different than other firms. Employees are given a high level of independence and leadership trusts employees at all levels to handle client interactions.”

Quality of Life

  • “A ‘client first’ culture means a bias towards being physically present at client sites and always being on-call, particularly in crisis related work.”
  • “Dependent on the team, you are able to set boundaries and people respect that. However, there are times that things come up and you're not able to do anything about it except work late. Additionally, travel for clients is not always predictable but is not too frequent."
  • "Being consulting, the work is difficult to forecast. We have little ability to plan for vacations, time off, or any work-life balance. The firm has focused on improving these areas, but it has taken few tangible steps to make work-life balance better. The client comes first, regardless of the firm's employees.”
  • “The best part of the firm's culture is everyone's respect for each other, and from my vantage point, their excitement towards new hires and their ongoing efforts to facilitate growth both through mentorship and formal training opportunities. They also made establishing a work from home setup seamless.  In terms of the worst aspect, I personally do not have anything negative to say, and I don't feel that I've been there long enough to make that assessment.”
  • “Unlimited PTO with zero judgement. Leadership immediately grants this PTO (as long as you are reasonable with your timing of the request) and does not push for any evidence or proof of the reason. Never has this been an issue across my, or other, teams in my knowledge. They are very flexible when travel is required, you are never pushed or made to feel bad that you have to miss a meeting due to commute or travel requirements.”
  • “WLB is as good as you can get in consulting and is often significantly better than when in industry. Travel can be significant depending on client requirements. That being said, the firm is investing a lot of energy to make WLB as good as possible.”

Compensation

  • “A&M has a very generous compensation package. Our salaries are probably a little bit on the lower end, but our bonuses make us one of the highest compensated professionals in our industry, if not the highest. It's common for an analyst to have a six-figure bonus.”
  • “Every metric of your productivity and everyone else in the firm is always available.  The only negative to this is that there is significant pressure for performance.”
  • “I think the worst aspects of the firm's compensation package is the lack of resources for wellness and education such as counseling, meditation and nutrition education. From what I have heard, the salary progression and bonus structure is great, but I have not worked here long enough to receive my yearly bonus or a promotion. I think the best initiatives are the discounts at different gyms, but I have not needed to use them yet.”
  • “Overall very pleased with the compensation, it is truly entrepreneurial in nature, as my annual bonus is based on my billing and performance, not a business unit. The only downside to the policy is that there is not an adjustment for holiday/vacation pay. Time off is not a problem at all, but my annual compensation is not adjusted to reflect that I have 10 holidays (2 weeks off) when calculating my utilization rate (i.e. I don't earn pay during holidays, only for hours billed to client work).”
  • “Very happy with compensation package. It is merit based - every hour I work late is money in my pocket. I do not know any competitor that has a similar compensation model nor do I know any competitors that pay more than Alvarez and Marsal.”

Career Development

  • “A&M has been a great place to work. Coming from a different industry, my colleagues have been extremely eager to help in my transition through both formal and informal training. People go out of their way to see if you need help with anything, and despite working remote the process of being integrated into a very diverse ~40 person team has been fast but not rushed, and it has been an enjoyable experience thus far. They provide extensive formal training as well, and it is not just limited to your own practice area.”
  • “Entrepreneurial culture allowing everyone across levels to drive own career and be creative in servicing our clients.”
  • “Fantastic international and work opportunities but not as much opportunity to transfer internally once you start supporting a practice.”
  • “Limited international exposure, reasonable promotion criteria and sensational on the job training and experience.”
  • “There are no standards developed and trained so junior staff aren't always aware of their expectations (which change with different leaders). Better training and defined standards would greatly improve our ability to support our junior staff.”

Community Engagement

  • “Business units have hired Executive leaders that are engrained with the executive leadership team. Support for DEI all the way to the co-founders of A&M. It's a formal cultural value that leadership takes very seriously.”
  • “DE&I efforts here are pretty good. The ERG opportunities are good and the opportunity to create one is also available. Budget can be obtained for ERG specific initiatives with the appropriate and right amount of planning and adherence to process. There is opportunity to create a more diverse Managing Director and Senior Director population. I believe this trend is occurring but that more time is needed to change the landscape.”
  • “Like much of the US, the firm is under-indexed on several vectors of diversity, but is striving to close the gap with recruiting. The firm has several ERGs and hosts various events celebrating diversity. I do feel that all have an equal opportunity to succeed.”
  • “There are committees established regarding diversity for both ethnicity and women although it's unclear how that translates into any meaningful influence in promotion, mentoring or retention.  There are however significant efforts made in hiring people of color and women. I am not aware of any efforts regarding LGBTQ+ individuals or those with disabilities.”
  • “We have a Chief Diversity Officer who is very involved. She interviews every candidate before they can join the firm. Her team has hosted several trainings throughout the year related to DE&I initiatives. These include trainings around Women Allyship and support for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Business Outlook

  • “A&M is crushing it this year due to the strong performance of our Restructuring & Turnaround practice, and we are investing heavily in Software, Technology, & Services related verticals as well as the development and use of cutting edge AI tools. Turnover is low at our firm given the outlook and our rewarding compensation model.”
  • “Employee morale is extremely high, and despite being known for restructuring as their top specialty, all of the groups I have seen play a vital role and the firm is eager and willing to take on new technology initiatives.”
  • “Outlook for the economy is downward sloping and A&M does a fantastic job thriving with their restructuring business and investing into the other areas of the business, hiring aggressively while competitors are laying off colleagues.”
  • “Tremendous momentum in new service lines, industry coverage and geographic expansion into emerging markets will sustain growth for the foreseeable future.”
  • “We're in restructuring & turnaround and are very busy right now. I don't see that subsiding anytime soon given the state of the economy and interest rates.”

Hiring Process

  • “A&M mostly hires experienced workers and does not hire very many new grads, at least in HIG (Healthcare Industry Group). The ideal candidate is someone with a proven track record of success and ambition.”
  • “I believe for our team, the ideal candidate has previous experience in both engineering and consulting. Our team is looking for a slightly different candidate than the rest of the firm since we focus on infrastructure projects.”
  • “Looking for sharp people who want to learn. Not an expert on my industry but was hired because I am willing to ask questions and step into situations where I am not always comfortable and work hard to contribute.”
  • “The firm is seeking out well rounded, intelligent and capable candidates. I struggle to think if I would get in as a new hire today.”
  • “We have huge HR support so the process is very focused on bringing candidates in and making it as smooth/painless as possible.  We are focused on a quick yes/no to respect each candidate and their time.”

Interview Questions

  • “Build a cash flow forecast from scratch.”
  • “Case questions are very similar to what we would see on a real project. The candidate is provided with background information, investment banking material, and financial data and is asked to identify key adjustments and make observations.”
  • “If you were closing down a factory and relocating, how would you maintain productivity and produce enough to handle the down time in getting the other location fully operational?”
  • “Provides cases in advance to allow the individual to invest time and energy into it, similar to a case with a client rather than doing it on the spot similar to competitors which is not practical in real world.”
  • “What is your favorite Excel formula? How do you typically learn? Big picture or from the detail?”
Alvarez & Marsal

600 Madison Avenue
8th Floor
New York, NY 10022
Phone: (212) 759-4433

Firm Stats

Employer Type: Private
Co-CEO: Antonio Alvarez II
Co-CEO: Bryan Marsal

Major Office Locations

National
Global

Major Departments & Practices

  • Accounting, Tax Advisory Consulting
  • Automotive, Consumer Goods & Retail
  • Economic Consulting
  • Energy & Utilities
  • Financial Consulting
  • Health Care & Pharmaceuticals Consulting
  • HR Consulting
  • Information Technology Consulting
  • Litigation & Legal Consulting
  • Management & Strategy Consulting
  • Operations & Supply Chain Consulting
  • Public Sector Consulting
  • Retail & Pricing Consulting
  • Risk & Compliance Consulting
  • Turnaround & Transformation Consulting
  • Restructuring & Turnaround
  • Digital Consulting
  • Disputes and Investigations Consulting
  • Forensics Consulting
  • Aerospace, Defense, Aviation & Space Consulting
  • Infrastructure and Capital Projects Consulting
  • Travel, Hospitality and Leisure Consulting.