Vault’s Verdict

hy distinguishes itself with a vibrant company culture that thrives on innovation, flexibility, and transparency. It’s unsurprising, then, that one phrase comes up repeatedly in its consultants’ reviews: eye level.

The firm is extremely dedicated to providing a flat, meritocratic environment, where everyone is allowed to take ownership of their work and the business alike. It values direct communication with clients and team members alike to foster an entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, and lets consultants follow their own ideas to develop new business.

hy is also very flexible. Insiders laud its commitment to remote work, even when meeting with clients, and its flexible scheduling. All this flexibility doesn’t come at a cost, either. While the firm’s base salaries are slightly below market, its employees say the bonus system—which pays out four times a year—more than makes up for it. Altogether, this is a great firm to consider if you want an environment tailored to self-starters where you can take ownership of your career while doing innovative work.

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

• “Everyone, including consultants, is allowed to make sales and hire attractive leads. It's not very hierarchical. People speak at eye level.”
• “We are a gym, not a spa. We’re hard when it comes to business, but soft when it comes to people."
• “We have a yearly three-day retreat, which is really fun. There are many social events with cool colleagues, and management proactively encourages taking time off after crunch time.”
• “Of course, client services work brings certain challenges. However, hy takes great care to ensure that the company isn’t adding any unnecessary challenges on top of that. For example, there are no requirements regarding office duties, place of residence, and so on. Private appointments are no problem at any time of day.”

Quality of Life

• “hy is probably the most entrepreneurial consulting company I could imagine. People are encouraged to follow their own ideas with regards to product and service development, specialization, and their sales approaches. All in all, it’s a very innovative and fun place to work.”
• “It is still consulting work, but as a young father, it still is easy to combine work and life. The company is super flexible and always says to build your work around your private life, not the other way around. You can set family blockers in your calendars, get support when your child is sick, and so on. This makes working in consulting still a good choice for me.”
• “We travel very little compared to other strategy consultancies, and our clients are used to virtual settings. The working hours can be long because it’s consulting, but what I really like about hy is that you talk openly about everything. We can always take days off after stressful projects, and leadership explicitly encourages us to do so. And if something is family-related or similar comes up, you have the team’s full support.”
• “We do customer appointments on-site only if it makes sense, such as for workshops. The rest of the time we have a remote option.”

Career Development

• “The firm offers a clear promotion path, and management is willing to bring you there. It’s a high-performance environment that brings out the best of you.”
• “Promotion is based exclusively on performance and not on other criteria, such as quotas. You are given a high degree of responsibility and direct contact with high-ranking people at the client company. Conversely, there is little room for careful development phases. The support at hy is huge, but if you need a lot of active guidance, you are certainly in the wrong place.”
• “The firm measures you against a transparent skills matrix. It has regular training days that focus on specific aspects of the skills matrix.”
• “hy gives consultants a lot of responsibility from the start. If you show great work consistently, leadership sees and rewards it. Training opportunities, both internal and external, could be better.”

Compensation

• “The target achievement level for the bonus is very fair and not individualized. As a team, including partners, we all receive the same degree of target achievement, which is derived from monetary team performance. In addition, the bonus is paid out four times a year. This means that stressful quarters receive immediate additional remuneration, while poorer quarterly bonuses are accompanied by more relaxed phases.”
• “The base salaries may be slightly below peer consultancies, but the variable payments are probably higher. As the company had a record year in 2024, we had a maximum bonus payout this year.”
• “The base salary is not competitive with other consulting firms, but it’s a good deal when you consider work hours and the overall package. The bonus makes up a high percentage of compensation.”
• “hy offers a lot of perks, such as extended paid paternity and maternity leave beyond the legal minimum, free lunch, job bikes, gym classes, an annual retreat, and totally flexible remote and hybrid working policies. Overall, these perks make it very enjoyable to work here.”

Community Engagement

• “We still lack women in leadership, but the firm is actively working on this. My team is already majority women. Also, as someone who has severe disabilities, the firm understands people with disabilities well.”
• “The firm is putting a lot of effort to elevate women to higher positions, such as partner. I don’t see any initiatives targeting people from other diverse backgrounds, but the firm has a very open and welcoming culture.”
• “The women@hy group is a very active program offering sponsorship, mentorship, and networking opportunities.”
• “We have a ‘hy energy’ sport group that is super active. Sports are a high priority for all of us, so it’s very normal for us to go to the gym together and prioritize sports, even during stressful periods.”

Business Outlook

• “We had a very successful year. Looking at client feedback, the vast majority is extremely positive. Although we are a small firm, we have good momentum in an environment that is stagnating or negative.”
• “We have open discussions about the business outlook and what everyone can do to be successful as a company, such as having all team members support our Innovation Summit and Innovation Report.”
• “We’re a small team and can react fast to changes. The numbers speak for themselves. Everyone is quite happy with our performance, and due to our deep expertise in innovation and pricing, we have a clear focus.”
• “hy had a record year in 2024 and plans to grow further. Besides the innovation and ventures team, the backbone of the company, hy has set up the leading pricing consulting team for digital business models. That team has grown from one person to more than 20 in just 2.5 years.”

Hiring Process

• “The process is relatively quick and consists of multiple stages: an HR interview, a team interview, two case interviews, and an optional partner interview. It also includes coffee and lunch meetings.”
• “We’re looking for high-potential people with an opinion and a high level of curiosity. We need people that think independently on problems.”
• “The company targets cognitively fit candidates, with analytical skills and general smartness given more weight than prior pricing experience.”

Interview Questions

• “We typically do ad-hoc case studies, brainteasers, and Excel tests.”
• “Normally candidates need to prepare a full one-hour case presentation. We share the task with them one week before the presentation.”
• “At home, prepare a conceptual solution proposal for a pricing-related challenge for a fictitious customer and present the results in a few slides. On site, you’ll solve a small Excel business case.”