ACN>Boutique pro's and con's?

Can anyone advise on the potential pitfalls of moving to a boutique?

I work at Acn at analyst level and have been offered a slot at a boutique doing strategy consulting.

depends what are you doing at acn and wat boutique firm is this?

I'd rather not name the boutique on here but it's a small niche player. I work in project management at Acn so this would be a step up in quality of work but i'd be going to a niche player with a lack of 'brand' in the wider marketplace.

You're going to have to name them to get any kind of meaningful response.

I work for a small boutique and have worked for a big company too.

Pros:

- Much more interesting work

- Get to know people better / stable teams

- More control over your own diary

- Less travel

- More varied work

- Get to deal with real people (not 6 management layers removed from the client)

- Partners with big egos don't last unless they have a darn good reason to justify their ego

- Great work-life balance

- You learn useful skills as opposed to being a generalist / small cog in a big machine

Cons:

- Less pay

- Bad bonuses

- More personal environment makes it more difficult to ask for raises or move on to another job (hard to explain, but you feel like a traitor for doing that and get nowhere anyway)

- When politics get bad, there's no escape

- Being judged by fools who don't look beyond brand names and don't understand that people from small firms can actually be BETTER than those from larger ones (shock horror)

Mr S. Kint are you still in the low paying job?

If so what are you waiting for? Your false sense of loyalty is damaging, not only to you personally (worrying about finances, possible moonlighting) but also professionally as it indicates you're incapable of identifying when a transaction is no longer economically viable (your skills/experience are potentially worth more than you're being paid).

You're letting emotion get in the way of an economic transaction. In some cases, emotion can be benefical in a transaction; however, in this case it's not.

Do you think senior Bear Sterns employees were holding on to some form of loyalty after being acquired by JP Morgan? I doubt it. They have either jumped ship, will be soon or being transferred/collecting severance payment.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant proportion of employees at financial institutions have recently updated their CVs.

Pull your finger out Mr. Kint!

http://corporatewhore.blog.com

Hello Corporate Whore,

Yes I'm still in the low paying job. I think I'm starting to realise that the reason I'm begrudgingly accepting the situation is because I thankfully have quite a good work-life balance and I don't think I could bear to go back into the punishing kind of consultancy lifestyle that you describe so well in your blog (love the blog by the way). I once had a well paying job but was an 'up or out' victim after a couple of years. In a way, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I earn a lot less now, but whenever I think about how under-paid I am, I try and visualise those Sunday morning stints putting together pointless case studies or quals slides in the office, or those 8pm Friday night meetings to discuss the work we would be doing over the weekend. That always puts things in perspective for me. I just wish I earnt a little more than I do, without having to go the full way and diving head-first back into the unforgiving 'top end' consultancy lifestyle. Just another £1K a month would make me completely content with the deal - enough so I don't have to worry about the mortgage so much and utility bills. But, I guess my subconscious thoughts are starting to crystallise in my mind and I'm now beginning to realise there's a reason why I haven't jumped ship - that reason being that I'd rather worry about the mortgage and utility bills than worry about holding down a relationship whilst being told at 8pm on a Friday night that I'll be working in a dreary Munich office basement all weekend.

Is that true that as a general rule boutiques pay less?

from my opinion - yes

90% pays less (10-35%)

10% is equal pay - especially in strategy

I work for a niche consultancy doing performance management consulting and I am able to agree to the post of Mr S. Kint by 100%.

Life is too short to throw away your best years for dull ppt/excel stuff to support big egos.