Vault’s Verdict

Insiders at Oliver Wyman paint a picture of a vibrant firm culture, where ambition and entrepreneurship meet camaraderie and collegiality. They love the firm’s commitment to holding regular staff events, and they feel like their colleagues genuinely care about and want to get to know them. 

The firm’s employees also have a positive view of the firm’s career development opportunities. Although it requires taking personal ownership—and a degree of self-advocacy—the firm quickly promotes people who are up to the task and provides frequent feedback to help you understand where you should improve to get to the next level. The firm also has a strong mentorship culture.

In terms of business outlook, Oliver Wyman is doing well. Insiders say that, even in a difficult consulting market the last couple years, it has continued to grow while resisting layoffs. Altogether, it’s a strong option to consider if you’re looking for a home to build your own career.

Employee Reviews:

Firm Culture

• “We have a very informal culture. While this allows for flexibility, it can make it difficult to navigate certain opportunities.”
• “Oliver Wyman is based on entrepreneurial spirit and gives you the flexibility to pursue the clients and topics you are passionate about. It gives you the support and the tools to succeed, and your success comes with promotions and career opportunities”
• “We have a culture of super smart, humble people who take a curiosity-based approach. We have a desire to solve problems and create on-ground value while being challenged.”
• “I love the culture at Oliver Wyman. Despite being an ambitious firm with very ambitious people, the colleagues are still very nice and friendly. They really want to get to know you. Also, the firm is doing a lot to strengthen collaboration by hosting several events and enabling frequent team dinners at client sites.”

Quality of Life

• “OW actively monitors work-life balance at all levels of the organization, and it takes appropriate action to mitigate any issues. However, projects at OW are getting shorter and shorter, which tends to increase the pressure on work-life balance.”
• “Taking into account the nature of strategy consulting business, Oliver Wyman excels by offering an approach to work where the focus is efficiency and working smart to avoid endless days at the office. We also have a very deep-rooted work-life balance culture and foster employee wellness.”
• “The organization’s flat hierarchy leads to strong schedule control, even in more junior positions. The majority of partners and managers will always respect important private events and responsibilities and help you work around them.”
• “Hours can be long, but there is an active effort to reduce these and project teams generally have an open communication on these points to reduce any negative impact on consultants. It is easy to take time off, and travel requirements are generally included in work-life balance discussions at the beginning of any project.”

Career Development

• “The firm has a clear and robust performance management process, plus a general culture of developing yourself and others. As a result, you often receive constructive and actionable feedback. In addition to annual formal training, we are encouraged to do additional training on an online platform, which has a range of topics available.”
• “The firm’s promotion processes are quite clear and detailed, with a wide range of formal and informal mentors supporting you throughout the process. The firm is transitioning toward allowing more promotion cycles within each calendar year for those that are near promotion during the usual year-end cycle.”
• “You can work with anyone in your network and team across different industries and topics and clients, if the teaming makes sense and the demand is there. The toughest aspect of career development at Oliver Wyman is that you’re responsible for your own success. This means that you live with the alliances and successes you build.”
• “Wyman is clear on career paths and competence models, and the firm and gives everyone the opportunity to progress with strong and direct feedback. On the flip side, the promotion rate and pace has slowed down a lot, especially in 2024.”

Compensation

• “Salaries at the bottom levels are competitive but not fantastic. However, around your second promotion, the salary progression is steep and advantageous compared to competitors.”
• “The base salary is very good at the senior consultant level when benchmarked against other firms. However, OW advertises healthcare and pension as benefits, but makes no contribution to them. The cost is only deducted before tax, which reduces our taxable income. If I paid the costs after taxes, I could claim the same benefit from the tax authority.”
• “Maternity and paternity leave is six months, which is 50 percent more than what is required by law where I work.”
• “The firm offers a discounted rate for the on-site gym in the building, counselling when required, healthy snacks in the office, group yoga sessions, and promotes playing sports with each other. It also will sponsor almost 100 percent of the cost of your MBA.”

Community Engagement

• “Leadership pays extensive attention to diversity, inclusion, and belonging with interesting and thoughtful speakers, discussions, and ways for the entire firm to be involved in shaping a dynamic, modern workplace that gives everyone a space to grow.”
• “The company tangibly cares for DEI, providing yearly awards to employees that showcase leadership and are champions in the firm. The entrepreneurial spirit of the company also works well for this, as employees of all seniority levels feel empowered to start their own relevant initiatives, first locally but often becoming international interest or allyship groups.”
• “There are official policies incentivizing diverse hiring practices, trainings to reduce unconscious bias, and several employee-led organizations aiming to foster diversity that receive firm funding and organize events to raise awareness.”
• “We have a dedicated department that promotes initiatives and events related to DEI. We have an office DEI champion, and we definitely get the same opportunities no matter our backgrounds.”

Business Outlook

• “The market overall is kind of in a tough phase currently. However, we are doing comparatively well and working a lot on additional opportunities to grow organically and inorganically.”
• “Oliver Wyman is still small, agile and very entrepreneurial. It has proven over the past decades that it is flexible and adaptable. We have a very diversified business setup, so we are not as affected by downturns in certain industries as other consulting companies.”
• “Employee morale and trust in leadership remain high in spite of industry headwinds that have affected several competitors. The firm has made extensive efforts to alleviate capacity concerns and refrain from layoffs.”
• “The company is working hard to elevate our image and reinforce the firm in all senses. Management is working to push Oliver Wyman to become a top three consulting firm.”

Hiring Process

• “The interview process typically includes two screenings and three interview rounds. There’s a CV screening, a quantitative reasoning test, a junior manager interview, and then one to three partner interviews depending on the position.”
• “Candidates have to do one quiz and four interviews. This typically occurs within two to three weeks, and we provide feedback the day after each interview. We look for brilliant students with analytical capabilities who can explain their thinking processes.”
• The process is very thorough and led by consultants, which ensures everyone joining the firm is assessed by the people they’ll be working with. The ideal candidate should be quick-thinking, understand complex concepts, and be able to solve open-ended questions in a structured and logical way. There’s no need to be particularly knowledgeable on any kind of content.”
• “The ideal candidate is someone who has engaged with the world and can solve problems through original thought and drawing connections between ideas and diverse experiences. Time spent obsessing over the consulting industry" and various frameworks is, at best, so I prefer candidates that are pivoting to consulting and are uncoached rather than overprepared for the interview.”

Interview Questions

• “Fit interviews are very standard, with a focus on testing if the candidate has done a good due diligence on our company. For cases, there is no standard. Every interviewer has to develop their own cases.”
• “Some of the cases are somewhat unconventional. In my interview, they told me a meteorite would hit Riyadh in five days and asked me to prepare an evacuation plan.”
• “A firm has developed technology to allow mining of asteroids. How would you build the business case to assess whether or not this technology is worth using?”
• “How much cash is there sitting in ATMs in the U.K. today?”