Offer Decision: Deloitte S&O (NYC) vs. EY-Parthenon (NYC)
This post is similar to another post by "disneyworld_oo" (2014). I'm reposting it in order to get updated information (2019).
I have entry-level full time offers from Deloitte S&O (commercial practice) in NYC and EY-Parthenon (general strategy) in NYC. For EY-P, I like their culture, the fact that they travel less than other consulting firms, and their robust education practice - but I'm worried about work-life balance. For Deloitte S&O, I like that they have more international offices and a well-established social impact practice within The Monitor Group - but I'm worried about office culture/their staffing model.
I'm considering a dual MBA/MPP program (with a focus on econ development/education policy) after 2-3 years of working. What would you recommend in terms of:
1) B-school placement/sponsorship
2) Office culture
3) Work-life balance
4) Type of work: strategy vs. implementation // mix of private vs. public or social sector cases
5) Exit opportunities
I think you're answering your own question. If you are interested in education, you should go for the offer that gives you the best shot at getting experience in that area. Parthenon has a huge education strategy focus and you can easily get staffed in a project like that. If you go to S&O it might take you more networking to get there.
I work at neither or EY-P and S&O but another competitor of similar notoriety. I would hands down choose EY-P. On the list of considerations you laid out, I think EY-Parthenon is much better on (4) type of work (2) office culture and (3) work/life balance.
On the note of the work, EY-P has a strong mix of investment-oriented consulting (e.g. PE due diligence, corporate development, business portfolio optimization, etc.) as well as traditional strategy consulting (e.g. revenue growth, pricing strategy, strategic initiative development and road mapping, etc). You will work on more cases at EY-P due to the prevalence of shorter, 2-6 week projects. At Deloitte, you might do similar work to the above, but you could also easily be staffed on a 6+ month operations project that is essentially implementation dressed up as something else.
On the cultural + work-life balance note, EY-P will almost certainly work you harder, which does create tension amongst project teams. However, you won't travel more than a ~once a month. As someone who travels most weeks, I cannot tell how you valuable this is from a cultural and work/life balance standpoint. Culturally, you will forge bonds with team members in your local office, as opposed to becoming close with folks you meet on travel projects, finishing the project, and then essentially never seeing them again because they're based in a separate city. Firms like Deloitte have very limited office cultures because folks travel M-Th and then often work remote Fridays (regularly going weeks or months without stepping foot in their home office). At Parthenon, there is no work from home culture and folks are in office with each other everyday, creating a tight-knit local work environment. On the work/life note, even though Deloitte will demand a bit less from you in the way of hours, being gone all week and flying home on Thursday evenings is quite difficult, espec. if traveling more than a ~1 hour plane ride.
On the other factors listed (which both boil up to overall resume cred) these firms will be about equal. Hope this helps and good luck
This was super helpful, thank you!
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