Vault’s Verdict

A serious firm for serious consulting professionals, A&M has developed a knack for thriving regardless of the state of the business cycle. It truly comes into its own, however, during tougher times, which means that many at the company are sensing opportunity in the air heading into 2023 and beyond.

Firm Culture

“A&M is very hands on with clients. Rather than telling them what they should do from a mile-high perspective, we are onsite with them identifying and solving the problems side by side.”

“A&M has a diamond structure (opposed to a pyramid structure). Meaning A&M has a higher portion of managers and directors than associates. Therefore, younger consultants get to work/learn from more experienced colleagues.”

“High quality individuals with actual experience as operators (C-Suite levels) actually engage in projects. Big 4 where I previously came from (Deloitte and KPMG), I saw much less action from Partners, Managing Directors and Principals.”

“[One of] our core values is personal reward. Personal reward can mean lots of things - actual compensation and rewards (which you'll see talked about a lot in the market for A&M) or individual or group growth, increased opportunity, etc. You don't see many firms calling that out in their values and you see it reflected here - we value personal reward in all its forms. It helps us retain ambitious, type A talent. 

“We have the strongest brand in the business for the type of work I do, so we often win the most interesting engagements. The people I work for are great at what they do. And the compensation is transparent and top tier. I sometimes consider different career paths, but almost never different consulting firms.”

Quality of Life

“A&M believes in work/life balance. Most individuals are starting to come back to the office, which is great. I miss the social interaction of being face-to-face vs. Teams/Zoom. However, my roundtrip commute is fairly long and gas prices/tolls add up quickly. As far as taking time off, my group is fairly flexible. You just need to give ample notice, make sure your tasks are covered and should you have any open items, to properly communicate them to the team beforehand.”

“Consulting in general is more difficult/demanding due to travel. Alvarez & Marsal does an excellent job trying to align opportunities with location and allow for team members to be home on Friday mornings. Could not be more pleased with the commitment to family and integrating work with family.”

“Flexible work arrangements regarding location but going into the office to build culture and integrate new hires as part of the team. Tone-at-the-top to help people really take vacation and manage life commitments. Travel outside of the office is very infrequent, especially for junior staff.”

“Leadership tries to be considerate of personal needs and commitments. However, the nature of the work is such that when a deal is running hot, which can be for months, there are tight deadlines and lots of work to be done so work/life balance takes a hit. It's not for lack of trying, it's just the nature of the beast. The flipside to that is the work is usually more fun during those times.”

“The firm is flexible and the majority of people hold the value of family first. I had triplets while working at the firm and was able to take paternity leave and the firm gave me additional flexibility with my family to be able to balance out work and life in an effective way. I spent a significant portion of my career at big 4 and would never have been given the opportunities with work or understanding of family while at the other firms.”

Compensation

“A&M's compensation is the best in the business, if you're busy.  The firm--from staff to partner--lets employees and executives keep a percentage of their collections.  The process to get to that number is math, which insulates the decisions from normal workplace politics.  My staff and I make much more than we did at our prior firm.”

“Base compensation is not at the top of the market, but the bonus structure is excellent for employees with high utilization and strong contributions to practice development.”

“Fantastic total compensation program. Lower base salary, high variable comp that is based on hours billed and year end rating. Very rewarding that you get a piece of the pie and the long hours aren't just for the firm’s profits. Bonus numbers are VERY large compared to other consulting firms.”

“The best part is high variable pay (way above market) and therefore high total compensation. For client facing roles, salary progression is also very quick, as there's no time barrier or limits on progression for high performers. The worst part of the comp is the base salaries are on the low end of market, by design, since it's a variable comp driven model.”

Career Development

“A&M has lots of formal and informal trainings and content available to learn quickly about my practice's core service offerings and about other practices as well. Mentorship is strong here with both formally assigned performance managers as well as informal coaches and great comradery in the practice. I have been promoted early twice at A&M with growth and support from my mentors, and believe the firm to be a true meritocracy.”

“Best: The level of apprenticeship, informal training and coaching is excellent at all levels of the firm. Associates through Partners all work actively to answer questions, share knowledge, and provide experience-based insights for me to learn. We also have dedicated Performance Managers who are high-level members of the practice whose sole responsibility is to help us grow and achieve our personal/professional goals while at the firm.

Worst: There is some training that is a la carte or self-discovered/assigned. However, my practice is relatively new and is utilizing a mix of content from the larger firm, 3rd party resources, and internal content as part of the formal training. There are active projects to help curate and organize these trainings for priority and consistency.”

“I think the best thing my firm does for career development is give lower level, less experienced consultants a lot of exposure to MDs and SDs throughout many projects. This gives less experienced consultants many one-on-one or small group learning opportunities.”

“One of the best aspects of my personal and professional development at A&M is that our leadership constantly demonstrates that the Core Values of the company are indeed important and relevant to the Firm and its people. The Firm has offered me many opportunities and I gladly accepted them. Training opportunities are endless. You also learn a lot on the job. The support system is great as well.”

“Promotion is based on merit and not time served which is beneficial to people who are quickly outgrowing their current position and looking for more of a challenge. The working groups are often diverse in every definition of the word. Mentorship is abundant, learning opportunities are plentiful, and formal training is always available on demand.”

Community Engagement

“DE&I is primarily a grassroots effort championed by Employee Resource Groups, with some sponsorship of events, communications and a small number of dedicated staff provided by management.”

“Firm is heavily focused on improving D&I efforts and acknowledges that there is a lot of work to do to improve. Leadership is making this a priority which is good to see.”

“Significant growth and improvement in D&I efforts and opportunities. Org. has sought out new ideas and feedback and implemented multiple initiatives. Firm has self-identified areas of opportunity and created programs to address them.”

“The executive team is very open and honest about opportunities to improve diversity and efforts to do so. … Couldn't be more pleased with the candidness and integrity of the leaders of the company in openly addressing things the company needs to do to improve.”

“We incorporate a presentation in the monthly meeting on various cultures and backgrounds. In addition, newsletters are distributed giving quick backgrounds on holidays and other key dates of all cultures/religions/progressive movements. This has been a great way to raise awareness. I believe all consultants have equal access to interesting work and promotion.”

Business Outlook

“Best: Our industry focus, our key competencies, our business model, our team composition, our bias for action and results, etc. position us very well to continue to outpace our competition, steal market share, grow the core, and continue to grow at staggering rates. 

Worst: We're continuing to build out our recruiting function to meet the demand/growth of the practice. We're growing at a strong rate and must continue our focus on our agility so that we do not lose our edge. This is a top focus for the team and I feel confident that we will be able to continue to grow sustainably.”

“Business outlook is strong because of our diversified offerings, specifically restructuring & turnaround and M&A and our global expansion. A&M overall tends to stay busy as the market slows down but the type of work shifts. It will be interesting to see how we fare in light of the news from a couple of the big 4 splitting and no longer being conflicted out of some client work. Coming to A&M to avoid audit conflicts had long been part of our sell and we will need to adjust.”

“I believe we are in a position to thrive and grow over the next several years.  With growth comes some growing pains with employees stretched thin a bit while the firm works to staff up to meet client demands, but the firm is actively recruiting and those pains are short lived.”

“While the economy overall is slowing, A&M has strong outlooks both in its private equity / M&A and turnaround/restructuring practices. Due to the company's strong countercyclical hedges and compensation structure, there has never been a layoff in our ~40-year history, and employee morale is still strong.”

Hiring Process

“A&M follows a Competency Based Hiring approach, which evaluates certain required behaviors from candidates during the interview and case study process.  The ideal candidate demonstrates certain behaviors valued by the firm, including analytics, problem solving, collaboration, resilience, intellectual curiosity, and a spirit of service.”

“Every candidate, whether a referral, applicant, talent acquisition sourced, or externally sourced, goes through the same interview process for unbiased interviewing. A&M seeks entrepreneurial, motivated and driven, candidates with strong communication and technical skills, and client-facing capabilities.”

“I believe the firm has a very good recruitment process overall. It is hard to comment on the ideal candidate. Our firm makes bets on skillsets that sometimes don't seem in play for the economy. However, the ideal candidate is one that is brought in for one skill and has the ability to adjust to another skill should the demand for the original skills change in a rapidly changing economic environment. So, to sum up, the ideal candidate is one that can adjust positively to the changes dictated by a rapidly changing and volatile economic environment.”

“Our ideal candidate needs to first fit our firm values. After that, a strong educational and career background are needed, but values are first. We look for people that are fun and down-to-earth while also being very intelligent.”

“We ask candidates to interview with several team members and then someone in leadership before making an offer.  We seek individuals that have demonstrated aptitude and skills but show an attitude to continuously learn and grow in their career.”

Interview Questions

“All staff (managers and below) participate in the same 2-hour case study looking at an example M&A transaction, working through data, etc.”

“Cash flow modeling and presentation exercise.”

“How do you handle challenges? What is your leadership style?”

“Interview questions are mixed. Depending on the role, one may ask behavioral type questions, technical type questions and situational leadership type questions.”

“We follow the Competency-Based Hiring methodology where we ask candidates to explain situations they've experienced across certain attributes. For example: ‘explain a time when you faced sudden changes in client leadership and how you handled that situation with the client and your team.’”