Vault’s Verdict

“It’s Deloitte.” That’s what one consultant at another firm said in response to a question about their perception of Deloitte’s prestige—and we have to agree. What more can we say about one of the largest and most reputable firms in the world? A massive global outfit with a deep well of expertise in a plethora of diverse industries, Deloitte’s reputation continues to speak for itself, and from what we’ve gathered by listening to employee feedback, the firm lives up to its reputation in every way.

Insiders at Deloitte describe virtually unlimited opportunities to gain exposure across industries and clients—a rapidly accelerated pace for growth and learning that is not for the faint of heart. Beginning your career at Deloitte opens the door to endless possibilities in consulting and on the industry side of things, but the sheer size and breadth/depth of experiences can be overwhelming. Deloitte rewards ambitious practitioners with even more innovative and exciting work, so you’ve got to be willing to invest the time and energy into getting the most you can out of the experience. But if you do, you’re in for one of the best and most rigorous learning experiences of your career.

A firm as large and diversified as Deloitte is built to last and currently celebrating 175 years in business, and survey respondents feel relatively confident that the firm is well positioned to thrive despite the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. Employee morale has taken a slight hit due to some pandemic-related layoffs; however, employees are confident that the firm is being proactive in its approach to growth while safeguarding the well-being of its talent.

Firm Culture

• “Deloitte is a place where you have the ability to chart your own career, and you will be surrounded by the best and brightest while doing so!”
• “We have bright, talented people in almost any field, and we can bring them all together to solve complex problems. It could be strategy, implementation, or operation related, and we have the talent to get it done well.”
• “We mean it when we say "colleagues for life". We make friends with our colleagues, and when you leave the firm, you're considered still part of the family. We care deeply about the best things for our clients. Internal dialogue doesn't lead with "how do we sell more"—it's "what's best for this client, and how can we make them most successful?"”
• “The firm has a wealth of opportunities available for talent that is adaptable, eager and willing to learn, and comfortable managing in uncertainty. For those who wish to carve their path, explore a variety of exciting client opportunities and are up for a variety of meaningful challenges, this is the right firm.”
• “Deloitte is a wonderful place to work, and an amazing place to learn new skills. Many people at the firm consider themselves a "lifer" because Deloitte truly makes work enjoyable.”
• “It's a lot of hard work but is worth it if you are willing to take feedback and grow. We are looking for people who want to take ownership of their work.”

Quality of Life

• “Work/life balance is a constant juggle for everyone and lot of it depends on the type of projects you get. As long as you learn the art of prioritization and plan things ahead of time, quality of life will improve. Deloitte is no exception and this factor depends on individual rather than the firm. However, my team leadership has been very supportive on emphasizing work life balance”
• “Overall, the firm's quality of life is decent. The firm supports the well-being of its employees in all aspects and tries its best to provide work-life balance to all. Though the latter is ultimately dependent on the engagement or project the employee is staffed on, the firm has consistently delivered the same message on prioritizing work-life balance and taking time off.”
• “Quality of life at Deloitte is relatively good. The benefits and pay are good, but the work/life balance is often more heavily weighed on work. There is high encouragement and many initiatives at the firm level to help weigh the balance more toward personal life, but at the individual project level, that does not always get translated.”
• “We receive ample vacation time, told to use it, but in practice, it's difficult to take time away due to client commitments and firm/leadership expectations.”
• “Our firm is very focused on the health and wellness of practitioners. In addition to providing an annual $500 health and wellness subsidy, there are a plethora of health and wellness classes offered every month across offices, project teams, industry cohorts, capability cohorts, business resources groups, and more. We strive to get practitioners engaged and comfortable and to build community across the board.”
• “The firm enables your project selection to be around the type of work and volume of work that you would like. However, compensation may not validate those that choose harder hours, travel requirements, and additional efforts. The quality of life can vary, but your selection to work less hours as needed and take PTO is accepted.”

Career Development

• “Our learning and development/training is seemingly endless. If only we had the time to participate in everything!  Promotion timelines and criteria are inconsistent across parts of Consulting, and sometimes more relationship-based than skill-based.”
• “Deloitte Consulting provides as much support and training as a practitioner can desire. While there are mandatory items to fulfill for promotion, there are many more optional items one can also attend to further increase knowledge and experience. The key is managing time commitments across client work, firm contributions, and personal life.”
• “The promotion path is very clear and lots of resources to use to talk through what is expected. In a non-COVID environment, there are training opportunities offered at Deloitte University, which is also a fantastic area to network with other professionals and firm leadership.”
• “Career development and mentorship is outstanding. Practitioners are constantly presented with opportunities to grow and learn. In [my time here], I've seen the firm focus more on how to help practitioners maintain better wellness and prioritize personal life with many work commitments.”
• “Dynamic culture with high expectations Easy access to leadership and practitioners across all areas of the firm. Strategic and quick response to market factors, such as COVID-19 and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion priorities. Visibility into Executive level decisions and factors used for decision-making. Incredibly high caliber and high performing workforce. Amazing development opportunities with stretch roles available across client and practice development areas. Structured and visible promotion and development path. Demanding environment which can be overwhelming at times.”
• “At Deloitte, you can find a career path that suits a wide variety of evolving career path interests. You can forge your own path as long as you are skilled and dedicated at networking, relationship building, and delivering high quality client service.”

Compensation

• “Deloitte has strong benefits and pays a market competitive salary.”
• “I wish we had additional insight into diversity/pay equity, but overall compensation has felt fair, though additional transparency would be nice while "reinventing performance management." Our 401k match is not competitive with what I hear from my friends elsewhere.”
• “Overall, I think salary is competitive with the market, but certain areas (e.g. analytics) are undervalued vs what other firms pay. Salary scale favors external hires; those who joined out of undergrad and stay with the firm are consistently underpaid relative to their peers in the firm.”
• “Compensation is very meticulously calculated and reviewed across the most senior leaders of the firm. We strive to ensure our practitioners are getting among the top compensation across consulting firms. Bonuses are tied to both individual performance and firm performance.”
• “Salary progression is the best aspect along with benefits. The annual bonus can be another best aspect or the worst aspect at times depending on how the bonus pool was split and how the firm has done that year.”
• “Our firm has been bolder with perks related to the pandemic, including financial support for boosting internet connectivity and added wellness days to be away from your laptop.”

Diversity

• “I believe Deloitte takes diversity, equity, and inclusion very seriously. While the consulting industry in general has a ways to go, the problems seem to be due to systematic problems before people even apply for jobs (education systems, other systemic issues). Deloitte has been doing a lot to encourage conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion and leaders are willing to listen to junior staffs’ complaints and ideas for improvement.”
• “I think Deloitte is trying to be fair in its hiring practices. I think the firm is making concerted efforts to increase representation of all kinds in its leadership, which of course starts with recruiting out of college.”
• “I think the firm is making a concerted effort to employ, retain and promote more diverse leaders. There are increasing efforts to get to a more balanced leadership team across all disciplines.”
• “The firm works hard to retain and promote women — and we've done a great job. We're trying to figure it out with POC. But, I'm confident that leadership is taking it seriously and we'll see significant change over the next five years, just like we did when they focused on bringing up women.”
• “The firm has acknowledged a need to improve diversity across all levels.  I think opportunities are similar for men and women, but the firm has not yet fully figured out how to keep women at the firm at equal rates past the Manager level.”
• “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion is the cornerstone of everything from hiring, to talent development and retention. Leadership is held accountable for mitigating unconscious bias in recruiting, to staffing decisions to promotion opportunities such that each individual is seen in the context of their individuality and unique strengths brought to bear for the practice.”

Outlook

• “As Deloitte is such a large, multi-faceted firm, we are positioned across nearly every industry and market globally. Our positioning gives us insight into the various factors integrating to affect our business. This insight gives me confidence into the firm's ability to forecast the future, despite uncertain times.”
• “Breadth of services and ability to support clients from strategy through implementation is a strength —our strategies are executable where others may struggle. Size of firm and internal bureaucracy can limit speed to market with innovative offerings.”
• “Diversity in portfolio and strength in performance leaves us well-positioned for future growth. As with many organizations, this year has been a challenge for talent and clients, and that leaves morale varying.”
• “This is a precarious time for professional services, but if any firm is going to figure out how to do well in this time, it's Deloitte. Being in GPS, I believe we will continue to experience record growth. The challenge is going to be making it sustainable — we are stressing our employees out by the amount of growth our public sector is experiencing.”
• “Extremely adaptable to the market; proven most recently with the quick pivot to remote working during COVID, our client POVs on market challenges, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, etc.”
• “I believe the firm feels it is doing everything for employee morale but the conversations that I have with resources makes me believe that there is more to do.”

Hiring Process

• “Structured interview process, with checks and balances to ensure candidates are evaluated on merits and not materially influenced by variations in interviewers. The ideal candidate is someone who has unimpeachable integrity, deep knowledge, unbounded teamwork and the conviction to say what they think is right.”
• “The interview and callback process is very straight-forward as a campus hire. The ideal Deloitte candidate is inquisitive, bright, and engaged. Those who are amicable are also more likely to succeed at Deloitte.”
• “[Deloitte] heavily recruits from universities and likes to see candidates that are analytical and determined. Technical background as well as management skills are extremely valuable. Also, innovative thought leaders are ideal candidates.”
• “We usually do two-day interviews on campus [pre-Covid-19] — a behavioral and case study one day, then you get called back for two longer interviews the second day. For experienced hires it's just one round and includes behavioral and case, plus potentially an interview with a PPMD.”
• “[We look for] creative, independent thinkers that can also communicate well within an easy-to-understand framework. Passion and diversity of thought go a long way in our process.”
• “[The ideal candidate is] a person who is easy to talk to and relaxed in composure. They must be quick in their thinking and have a unique perspective. Additionally, someone who personally reacts well with the senior leadership interviewing them will have great success in passing the "airport test".”

Interview Questions

• “I always ask the candidate to identify a problem they saw with something at work or at school, and how they took action to fix that problem. I also ask an example of how they've convinced someone else of a point of view that wasn't popular.”
• “Tell us about a time you had to deliver an unpopular opinion that you believe is right to an important client who is about to make a decision on awarding a project your firm is bidding for.”
• “For technology consulting, our case study usually pertains to common dilemmas faced by implementation teams, including providing recommendations on deployment strategy, design, build, and testing project phases.”
• “Case questions are open ended to make candidates think and apply their thoughts. This shows their practical ability to handle simulated real-time scenarios.”
• “3-part interview process to focus in on core consulting skills, behavioral components, and a case study. Extensive leadership discussion involved in hiring talent.”
• “Interviews typically focus on competency/skills and compatibility/cultural fit. When I interview, I interview based on interpersonal skills, aptitude for consulting, influence, and technical skills for my practice.”