Vault’s Verdict

Insiders at Oliver Wyman love their firms’ culture. They describe it as collaborative and impact-oriented, with a team of kind and empathetic colleagues. They also love the firm’s commitment to developing its staff, highlighting its training, international transfer opportunities, and merit-based promotion processes in their comments.

That said, working at Oliver Wyman isn’t for everyone. The firm is growing in the Asia-Pacific market, and as a result, many of its consultants have to work long hours, despite the firm’s best efforts. That said, OW’s flexible work arrangements and impactful work more than make up for long workweeks for many of its consultants. 

OW also offers a strong compensation package, with attractive base salaries and bonuses, but relatively sparse benefits aside from its generous PTO policy. If that sounds like a fit for you, this firm is definitely worth checking out.

Firm Culture

• “The people and our culture are stand-out positive features of the Firm. We work on our client's highest priority agendas, and bring smart, driven, fun people to these challenges.”
• “We do super interesting and impactful work. It’s very rewarding, but it obviously comes at the usual expense of long consulting hours, even though the firm is very focused on making them manageable.”
• “We have fun colleagues, with a big budget for social activities.”
• “Oliver Wyman is collaborative and impact-oriented, so I get a lot of support and high job satisfaction with a lot of positive feedback.”

Quality of Life

• “There are plenty of initiatives that promote a flexible work arrangement, such as a four-day workweek. However, in reality, it’s difficult to request this arrangement because it makes staffing harder. Also, staffing is not transparent about project and travel requirements.”
• “The hours are definitely long, but the firm does a fairly good job of trying to make up with it with things like recharge days and offering 25 days of annual leave. The travel requirements aren’t overburdensome, and taking time off is fairly easy, especially as a junior employee.”
• “OW intensively promotes work-life-balance, which I appreciate. They always try to protect weekends, and they provide a high number of leave days that are easy to take.”
• “I’ve had interesting projects and built long-lasting client relationships at OW. I’ve seen the world and worked across multiple geographies and cultures, helping my clients tackle their toughest problems. I enjoy a lot of freedom regarding how I spend my time at work and outside of work.”

Career Development

• “OW really cares about its employees and invests a lot of time and effort to train them. The firm shows this through the materials prepared for each training. Also, everyone has regular training every year, at every career level. However, I have felt like it’s been a struggle to get a project that matches my preferences for the last couple years.”
• “It’s truly an international organization, with cross-border projects and travel opportunities. We have people from the U.S. in our office and send people from Australia to places all over the world. International office transfers are simple.”
• “OW offers a lot of control over your career development options. I’d estimate that more than half the staff in the Singapore office who are at the associate level or above have transferred or rotated to a different office.”
• “Faster promotions are available based on your capabilities. You are not restricted by tenure.”

Compensation

• “The base compensation package is near market-leading for entry-level roles. However, salary progression tapers down and eventually lags behind competitors. Also, some fringe benefits, such as flexibility, meal allowances, or transportation reimbursement, are less than what competitors offer.”
• “Your bonus is highly correlated to the firm’s growth throughout the year. As a result, any growth during the year is reflected not just in your base salary the next year but retroactively acknowledged via bonuses.”
• “The compensation plan has a high degree of transparency, and I have a lot of control over how much I can earn in a given year. We are a public company, so you can’t buy in as a partner, but we do have the added benefit of earning MMC stock, which has been a huge benefit given its appreciation.”
• “The progression is great, and the overall package is very competitive. We have a good level fo clarity on how variable components of our compensation are determined.”

Community Engagement/DEI

• “The firm has taken a very active role in promoting inclusion and diversity, and that is part fo the core culture.”
• “Female representation is a problem, and the company knows it and is trying to improve it. We have a good range of DEI initiatives, with good employee resource groups.”
• “Consultants and partners in leaderships can openly come out and be themselves. That means a lot for the rest of the firm. In China, OW still takes on consultants who don’t speak Chinese, which is quite rare among larger players.”
• “Our company values explicitly support health and wellness, including mental health. The firm has programs we can reach out to privately, but health and wellness are also part of the firm’s everyday conversation.”

Business Outlook

• “We had no layoffs in the economic downturn, showing resiliency and adequate capacity planning. Our morale is good, and our business outlook is great.”
• “We are extremely innovative and have shown continuous growth in a volatile industry for over 40 years. Our CAGR is enviable and comes from high collaboration, innovation, a global delivery model, and expertise.”
• “The market in Indonesia has only started growing. The firm has a lot of ongoing proposals and negotiation processes that will likely succeed and add to the project pipeline, mostly in the digital space. Our office is also growing and keeps adding more personnel each year.”
• “It’s a great time to be at Oliver Wyman. Our clients have always recognized us for our outstanding partners at strong relationships at the project level. This is driving more and more brand recognition.”

Hiring Process

• “Typically, candidates go through a round of resume screening, and then move on to a HireVue assessment. The firm invites a shortlist of candidates to one or two rounds of interviews, which typically consist of two cases as well as a personal interview. The candidates learn whether they’ll receive an offer or not very soon after their interviews.”
• “The interview process is straightforward, and the callback process is also pretty quick. The firm is seeking candidates who have strong logical thinking skills, as well as those who are structured thinkers. However, at the same time, we’re also looking for people who are easy going and can work with different people given the nature of the industry.”
• “The ideal candidate is logical, numerate, able to spot trends and patterns, articulate, organized, and has a can-do, positive attitude to life and work.”
• “We look for candidates that are great problem solvers and communicators, who can share their thought process in a structured way.”

Interview Questions

• “Expect to see estimation problems, such as the number of cacti in Mexico, and business problems, like distributing cash to ATMs.”
• “Evaluate the go-go-market strategy for a retailer.”
• “Select the optimal growth strategy for a local waste management company.”
• “How much revenue could I make in a year if I opened a coffee shop in Jakarta?”