Vault’s Verdict

When it comes to economic and litigation consulting, the concept of a strong brand name is relatively. Within the industry, for example, NERA is one of the most best-known, most highly respected brands imaginable. Beyond the companies that rely in its services, however, the name recognition tails off rapidly.

None of which impacts the company as a place to work. While our response count from NERA reflected very comments this year, we know it from previous years as a place with an academic feel, a collegial working environment, and where a positive work-life balance is entirely attainable.

Where the brand recognition may come in, however, is further through your career—industry exits may be harder to come by. However, applicants should know that those seeking entry to advanced degree programs at the most prestigious universities and colleges have a distinct advantage with not just NERA’s name on their application, but the firm’s wide network of contacts throughout academia. Couple that with its reputation for top-tier work, and you have an extremely attractive proposition for those with the economic chops to cut it at the firm.

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

• “Knowledge of the industry.”
• “NERA is an industry leader that regularly advises clients on the most interesting economics problems.”
• “We maintain a high intellectual standard for our outputs and new joiners who can meet this standard are given plenty of opportunity to take ownership of their work.”

Quality of Life

• "Best aspects: Flexible working hours and dedicated leaders. Worst aspects: Working hours could be long from time to time."
• "Best: seniors respect the importance of life outside of work and model good work-life balance by e.g. prioritising time with their families and taking time off. It is easy to take time off—requests are almost never rejected. Worst: there is no formal time in lieu system and so you need to hit your billable hours target even in quiet weeks."

Career Development

• "Best aspects: exposure to a broad range of industries and client. Worst aspects: lack of transparency in promotion policy."
• "Best: There is a very strong culture of informal mentoring.  Senior colleagues consistently make the time to train, guide, and advise junior colleagues, and are very open and willing to share their insights. Worst: There is inconsistency across teams in the promotion process and the mechanism by which performance affects compensation and promotion lacks transparency."

Community Engagement

• “The challenge for economic consulting is earlier in the pipeline.  Our intake reflects the makeup of economics masters degree programmes.  The firm could maybe do more to proactively encourage students from diverse backgrounds earlier in the pipeline to consider economics.”

Business Outlook

• "Best: strong client base. Many repeat clients with good relationships with firm seniors. Worst: We don't do as much thought leadership as other firms—possibly a negative side effect of being kept busy with work for repeat clients!”
• “NERA has the right expertise to be called upon when a client requires economics experts.”
• “Old fashioned and somewhat behind the curve in ‘soft’ aspects such as marketing, branding, presentation of outputs.”
• "Very strong sector-specific capabilities (e.g., energy and infrastructure) and accordingly positive outlook.”

Hiring Process

• “NERA is looking for strong economics knowledge, flexibility to adapt academic studies to real cases and excellent communication, both oral and written.”
• “The ideal candidate (at a junior level) is a solid economist who can think through the case studies effectively."

Interview Questions

• “We use standardised test and case study questions to ensure comparability across applicants to limit the risk of unconscious bias. Therefore we do not share our interview questions.”