Pros
A great place to start your career and get the Big 4 stress test branded to your resume. A lot of experience across several large client's that grant you a sense of pride. Pay CAN be competitive in certain lines of service. Allows/encourages you to take the initiative and focus on your pet projects (community activism, mentoring, volunteering, etc.). A lot of young like minded people to work with, which can keep the atmosphere light and enjoyable. A great mix of culturally diverse individuals and the option to work in several countries.
Cons
The hours truly suck. Let me lay out the math to you. As an associate you are responsible for charging 90% of your hours worked to a client....taking the standard year's hours 2080 (40 hrs by 52 weeks), that 1872 hours that have to be charged to the client. However, with all the additional training and meeting times, you will likely have to work about 2,200 hours to meet that goal. If you are up for promotion, plan to work about 2,400 to 2,600 hours while you work on a lot more non-chargeable work and still have to meet your metrics. Oh and never mind the goal, I have never been under 95% since I have been here, so my yearly actual hours are around 2,500. That's about an extra 3 months of work a year. The politics. Seems like they reared their ugly head even greater this year. To quote a partner who spoke at our national training, "At the Senior Associate level, it is WHAT you know. At the Manager level, it is WHO you know. At the Director and above, it is who knows YOU."...they said it with an air of pride...that is the worst things I have ever heard anyone say, and opens the door to largely incompetent people being in charge, in an industry in which WHAT you know is of utmost importance across the entire spectrum. Adding gasoline to the flame is the new rating system. They replaced a very thorough review system with a sub par online tool, that ultimately boiled your rating and promotion down to a popularity contest. The reasons I heard was that the old system was time consuming and cumbersome. Well, in regards to peoples merit increases and promotions, I would hope there was some time involved in the decision rather than a panel of gossip mongers deciding the future of people's employment. I guess partners were just a little uneasy about conducting some actual work. To say there are many many people upset about their results because of this system is an understatement. Finally, heaven forbid you should actually be vocal about improving a process and or pointing out some flaws in other people's approach. Case in point, a conversation I had with a Director; "Don't waste time showing them where the problem is, just tell them how to fix it."...Uhm, how are we supposed to fix the problem if we don't pinpoint what the issue is. Regardless this type of stance paints a target on your back you will not be able to wash off. Managers and above with maneuver and shift blame to anyone not in their favor at the slightest chance. Senior Associates get it the worst and is the reason why they cannot keep them for very long. They say they want to promote from within, but will then pass up good employees for promotion because they have a hard on for an external hire. Flexibility is great but it will be thrown back in your face. If you have a vacation planned for a month, and don't plan to work during it, plan to get a subpar rating. Even if you schedule all meetings prior to your vacation, the client will likely cancel and then schedule one right smack dab in the middle of your cruise/ski trip/etc...and in this case the client is god, so you better find a way to take that call. Yeah, it's only an hour or so, but you will be looked down upon for your vacation, like how dare you take time off so that you actually don't get burned out or go insane from working too many hours.