Technology big 4 consulting.. do you finish on time?

[MaximumLeeway]

So I'm in IT and looking to move. Currently in a charity, internal IT Project Manager and very flexible working but they keep piling the work on and I'm starting to burn out.

Is technology consulting any good for work life balance? The big 4 websites all say loads about flexibility, part time working, but also travel and having to be in office some of the time.

I've heard horror stories about 12-14 days and weeks spent away from home etc.. but don't know if that applies to experienced hires or just the fresh grads?

I don't want to go through the effort of applying if it's not going to be a fit. I work 4 days at present, which is 28h, and wfh 60%. I want to keep that arrangement.

I would say working for a Big4 in tech consulting isn't going to be that compatible with 9 - 5. If you're onsite at the client's office they might not be impressed with you clocking off on the dot, plus you might work weekends, late nights etc. to win pursuits and deliver projects within timelines. But working from home is very possible if you are not working away. The focus is more on billable time and not as much on location, I would say. Note more and more of the project management that can be done remotely is being offshored, so would suggest checking if the job is future proof.

It will depend on your Partner/Director and the project you get pulled into, how well resourced it is, the client and how well things are managed. Make yourself too difficult (rigid) and you'll find it hard to get onto projects because as deadlines approach everyone has to help to deliver on time and you'll possibly be seen as risky - due to your refusal to work overtime and not pulling your weight. This may result in you struggling to get your billable time up to the target you have been set - you won't get your choice of projects and you may be asked to leave for poor performance ie your billable time is below target. And that applies to everyone - grads, senior managers etc...it's not all high pressure but there are times when it really needs to be all hands on deck despite having a great team and an amazing project manager - something frequently will go wrong - everyone can't just down tools - it doesn't work that way.

I don't want to go through the effort of applying if it's not going to be a fit. I work 4 days at present, which is 28h, and wfh 60%. I want to keep that arrangement.

You're extremely unlikely to get offered that arrangement. On reality you may well be able to pull it off, but I've never heard of contracts of less that 40 hours a week. Flexibility exists within those 40 hours, but they will never commit to you always being able to WFH for 60% of that time - what if there are client meetings 3 days in a row? It think that kind of arrangement is generally only found in public / third sectors.

Big 4 is Burnout Central

In my experience (Big 4 consulting, not technology specifically), the Big 4 have to put all these things in place precisely because the underlying work isn't really compatible with flexible working as PP have said. I left before having children, but without exception those of my friends who have remained and wanted to go part time etc after having kids have also moved internally to less client-facing support roles or have found they're less attractive when projects are being staffed.

A few years out of date now, but to me it's really up-or-out if you are client facing. Either you're aiming for partner one day (in which case you're going the extra mile in terms of hours and flexibility or at the very least are only taking a temporary pause immediately post kids) or there's not really much point in staying as you'll generally get better T&Cs and true flexibility (and in my specialty better pay) in in-house roles. Saying that, consulting does have more variety and challenge and some people stay for that despite the dedication needed, particularly around deadlines. But this may have changed and it may be different on the Technology side specifically.

Oh, and the hours can be brutal! I was contracted 35 hours, but on my busiest year did 50 hours a week of chargeable work - plus all the non-chargeable bid/admin/performance related work. I was going for promotion so could have got away with less if not, but if there's a deadline to be hit, you're not going to be leaving at 5 (or will be leaving the rest of the team deep in the doo-doo if you do, which won't make you popular). Our work was seasonal and weeks where I was working until 10pm every night were not uncommon during busy season.

Consultants never finish on time and you'll also have to travel a lot to clients. I work with a lot of Big 4 consultants and DH works at a Big 4. Don't do it if you want to work in the same location every day & finish on time!

I left big 4 consulting after my second maternity leave. I was an experienced hire. This was pre covid.

My company was really keen on work life balance and where they were in control of the work load and location, they were great. Internal roles (so non consulting) were often being done part time or from home etc.

However, when you're client facing, there is so mud out of their control.

The pros -

You really can WFH or work anywhere. Even before covid they were totally open to working anywhere as long as work got done. We were set up for being able to do this.

There is a desire to have work life balance and you often found the older consultants were not present at 'networking' or team events. They tried to spread team events between those during work hours and those after work to accommodate this.

Cons-
They have no control over the clients. They are paying a lot of money for you and sometimes they want to see you on site working hard. I had some clients that were fine with seeing us in person rarely and some that wanted us there every day. In the early years it's hard to be picky about this. It might have changed post covid but I don't know.

The extra curricular activities. Along side the consulting role we also had to do practice and business development. At the lower grades your BD was mostly working on bids between projects. As you get more senior you need to be spending time cultivating your own clients and opportunities. PD was basically busy work for when you weren't on a project. I hated it because you could easily find yourself on a busy project and have all this extra work to do on top. When I went back full time after my first baby I found this really hard to juggle on top of client work.

Overall though, I went to consulting to fast track some of my experience. I didn't intend to make partner. I wanted to do a few years, beef up my CV and work on some things I wouldn't get to do in any other in house role.

I got that. I'm a SAHP for now, but when I go back to work I have a really strong CV with some very big names (though annoyingly I can't give the actual company names of clients) and some very meaty projects to talk about.

I've heard horror stories about 12-14 days and weeks spent away from home etc.. but don't know if that applies to experienced hires or just the fresh grads?
12 -14 hour days aren't horror stories, that's the normal way of life in those kinds of roles in those kinds of companies. As is living out of a suitcase, and doesn't just apply to grads. Although those companies I know would have allowed home working even before Covid, there isn't always a lot of time spent at home as you were often travelling or working on the client site.
I left that environment before lockdown, so am not up to date with the current situation, things might have changed. But I wouldn't say the Big 4 is the place to be to try and escape burn out.

I think the fact that you are starting to burn out already means consulting is not for you.

I would say the big four talks a good talk about flexibility and it can work, BUT you will often find that you need to work longer days on your working days. You are the clients/partners whim and it is not 9-5 when a project is heating up.

None of the big 4 my husband consulted for ever ran from 9-5. Even with the wfh component (an early adopter in the early 2000s) he wouldn’t leave his desk before 10pm. With commuting, there were often days I wouldn’t know what time he’d be back until he’d call to say which train he was on. He’d even be at his desk at home over the weekends. But that’s why the money was in excess of other IT contracts at the time; excellent money, very long hours (and it was on a daily rate too).

I’ll be honest, any IT contracting either of us have done (alone or together) has had us working until the job is done. Our last job together in 2020, we had a final project delivery for August; we don’t actually remember July that year. Like, none of it. We were clocking 100+ a week each. Fortunately, our kids are adults. I know that when our kids were smaller & he first started contracting in 1998, it wouldn’t have been possible unless I worked only within nursery/childminder hours!

Add in visits to client sites, even travel to clients abroad…I don’t think we saw him much for the first 5 years!

It‘a only now he was headhunted for a permanent job (in a wfh role) that he’s working 9-5:30. And even then, his company’s clients are worldwide so some evenings he has to log back in to talk to the clients on the western seaboard!

Contracting - great if you can be flexible or have bombproof 24/7 childcare available. Great money, but blimey, they’ll make you work for it!

I won’t even get onto running your own company/client nonpayment/insurances/90 day payment terms/IR35/home equipment costs (even now we have a work build server eating power in the office, and that’s with a permie job!)/travel/accommodation/no sick pay/no holiday pay etc.! Just to add to the contracting fun!

Flexibility just means that if you say work until midnight one day or a few days because there is a deadline, then you can basically take the next day or two off, or very easy. Obviously that depends on the type of projects you are working on.

If you are burnt out in the charity sector working part-time then stay away from any form of consulting. There are some companies in some sectors where you may be fine but that is dependent on the individual company.