Vault’s Verdict

For candidates who want a firm with a clear focus on strategy work that provides compensation near the top of the market, OC&C Strategy Consultants deserves an application. Entry-level pay is on par with the highest firms in consulting, and insiders feel the firm’s combination of interesting work and supportive culture make working for the firm a compelling deal.

While hours can certainly be long, especially around deadlines, the firm typically guarantees that consultants can log off early on Fridays and one other day per week, and it frowns on weekend work. Additionally, the firm takes a minimalist approach to work-related travel and a maximalist one to personal travel—many consultants choose to take their vacations in large chunks to fully rest and recharge.

Another aspect of the firm that insiders appreciate is its commitment to helping consultants achieve strong starts to their careers. New hires go through two weeks of onboarding, then as their tenure with the firm increase, travel to extended trainings in destinations such as Poland, Spain, and the UK. Every new employee receives both a buddy and mentor assignment, and promotions follow clear requirements and timelines. Insiders say the firm has seen robust growth for several years with no sign of stopping, which makes now a great time to join the firm.

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

• “Supportive and positive culture that aims to find balance in a busy job. Hours can still be long, but mechanisms in place to ensure people can find time for a life outside of work. Travel is rare, and weekend work is typically frowned upon.”
• “OC&C has a very special culture and pays real attention to work-life balance, with ‘life nights’ each week and a full suite of social initiatives to ensure the office is a fun place to come to work.”
• “Good boundaries: no work on weekends, and consistent early finishes on Fridays and one other chosen night a week. People respect those boundaries and do their best to support them. Limited/no travel is somewhat unique for consulting and helps make things more sustainable.”
• “Extremely friendly and open atmosphere, quite fast paced but highly rewarding work.”

Quality of Life

• “Hours are definitely not easy, which is universal across consulting. But OC&C makes an effort to make it more manageable by implementing policies like ‘life night’ where you get a day when you get log off at 6:30 p.m., and Fridays are encouraged to end earlier as well (typically between 5 and 6 p.m.).”
• “Lots of control over where and when you work. Also, a really strong culture of taking vacations and unpaid leave in big chunks that feel like sabbaticals. Gives us a lot of control over how we want to distribute intensity across the year and across our careers. However, hours can be intense and highly variable week-to-week and project-to-project. As the firm is growing fast and we’re typically sold-out weeks in advance, teams need to be built around who is available, which is not always ideal for scope, creating tough hours on certain engagements.”
• “I get to live in my own city with little travel (beyond 'fun travel' for away weekends/training, etc.). I find the job very satisfying and intellectually interesting. It’s very easy to take time off, and we have a great vacation allowance. But hours within the week could always be better, and there’s less protection of evenings than there used to be.”
• “Hours are typical to consulting, but I would say more emphasis is placed on work-life balance at OC&C vs, other firms. Depending on your project, you’re mostly guaranteed to have at least two nights that are lighter and that you get out earlier. Fridays are almost always lighter.”

Career Development

• “Transparent and clear system for promotion. Lots of opportunities for mentorship and coaching supported by an overall culture of ‘helping each other out,’ so it’s always easy to find information. Official training can sometimes fall behind job demands, but firm seeks ways to improve (including latest AI training)”
• “All employees are paired with a buddy (who is a half year to a full year ahead of you) and a mentor (typically one to two role levels ahead) to supplement career and personal development. The initial training for undergrad and MBA hires is two weeks long and is very robust, covering general firm/HR policies and PPT/Excel basics. There is lots of emphasis on continued personal and professional growth, and feedback sessions happen weekly which is super helpful for new hires.”
• “Promotion policies are very fair and transparent. I have transferred internationally and they were fully supportive of visa and later green card sponsorship. Informal training and mentorship is excellent, but obviously you have to build those connections yourself. Formal training is irregular as an associate partner, but good as a more junior member of the firm.”
• “New hires get two-week onboarding. Once you’re one-and-a-half years in, you have a week-long training in Poland. After promotion to the consultant level, there’s another week-long training in Spain. Prior to promotion to manager, you get another training in UK. The firm really cares about development of the consultant.”

Compensation

• “Entry-level associate consultant pay is very competitive and on par with elite firms.”
• “Transparency and fairness is great (i.e., no negotiations, each grade is paid the same). Salary progression could be smoother, with less plateaus and big jumps.”
• “Pretty good all things considered. I would love to see it keep up with MBB, but it’s still close.”
• “Employees receive an annual $800 allowance that can be used to reimburse health and wellness expenses, such as gym memberships, fitness classes, or hobby-related equipment.”

Inclusion

• “Constant conversation. Often looking for ways to accommodate or meet people where they are and bring underrepresented groups along.”
• “We do a good job with inclusion. A lot of very active and visible internal networks and organizations across a wide variety of diversity dimensions (women’s network, ethnic and cultural diversity network, LGBTQ+ network, and many others). Also, crucially, we are seeing the senior roles get much more diverse over time. Lots of women promoted to partner in the global firm recently, for example.”
• “Very open to people from all backgrounds and have affinity groups for underrepresented groups. Have worked with lots of people from different backgrounds in my time at the firm so far, including veterans, LGBTQ+, different ethnic and religious backgrounds, etc.”
• “We are a very inclusive firm and encourage, welcome, and support people from all backgrounds.”

Business Outlook

• “We’re growing extremely fast, ahead of market, and hiring aggressively. There is an overall atmosphere of success and ambition. Feels like we’re really winning as a challenger and new player in the U.S. market, which creates a lot of pride and excitement. For those of us who’ve been with the firm for a long time, it’s been very rewarding to see us grow and to feel we have contributed to that.”
• “Showing great growth in the U.S. I’m very confident that the firm will continue to scale in the short and long term.”
• “Employees are very smart and hardworking. Partners are very personable with good relationships and clients. Industry as a whole seems resilient. Lack of innovation in coding faster solutions is a weak point that hinders my outlook on the firm’s success. Well positioned in a specific part of the market.”
• “Great firm, growing firm, and very busy. Could lean more heavily into AI/technology. Responsive leadership to drop in morale earlier in the year driven by high utilization.”

Hiring Process

• “Resume with cover letter, math test. Two 30-minute first-round interviews (case studies) plus two 45-minute second-round interviews (again, case studies). The firm provides an ‘interview buddy’ in between who helps provide feedback from the first round.”
• “The ideal candidate is curious, enthusiastic, willing to learn and make mistakes, and extremely sharp.”
• “The process is very smooth. We’re looking for smart, hardworking, personable individuals with high EQ who get along well with others and work very strongly in collaborative environments and as leaders in their respective workstreams. Critical thinking is very important as well, as our job is to solve business problems..”
• “We look for clear logical reasoning, intellectual curiosity, creativity, as well as an ability to react and respond to steers from the interviewer and come to an answer collaboratively. Our interviews are Socratic, with a lot of Q&A and back-and-forth and challenge. We want to see people who thrive in that dynamic.”

Interview Questions

• “Case interviews span market entry, M&A, product launch, and more esoteric situations, business and otherwise.”
• “Size the market, diagnose revenue decline, ideate growth strategies, segment customers and competitive landscape, tie everything together into a coherent strategy.”
• “Interviews generally include very few behavioral questions. First-round case interviews are structured, while second-round cases tend to be more conversational and less formal in format.”
• “All interviews are case study-based, with an interview based on the interviewers own project experience.”

Uppers

• “The clients and work that we do is, in my opinion, much more interesting than most other firms.”
• “Strong comp, interesting work, active culture to make work-life balance manageable. No travel!”
• “Small-office culture, expected firm growth, narrow focus on strategy/diligence and very interesting sectors.”
• “The culture, the friends I have here, the intellectual enjoyment I get from the job, and my pro bono work.”

Downers

• “Intensity and variability of working hours.”
• “Doesn’t have as much name recognition as big firms.”
• “Growth outpacing level and mix of delivery capacity at times.”
• “Longer hours in line with the industry.”