Let me start off by saying that while at SEI, I was continually client billable and making money for our office. I was only on the bench once (unbillable) for a very short period of time. I never had a complaint about my work from clients and on more than one occasion was offered a full time role with a client if I left SEI. I say this as to not be viewed as a disgruntle past employee. These are genuine cons that pain me to admit because I loved a majority of the people that I worked with.
Leadership – I truly view the leadership of this company as a dictatorship. One that is only looking out for themselves and could really care less about the wellbeing of the consultants. They are narcissistic, greedy, clickie, and rather inappropriate. Most members of the management team see themselves as above everyone else and if you are not in the managements “circle of friends” the likelihood of you being successful at SEI is rather low. They are rude in the disguise as being funny…every instance where my wife and I had to interact with my Managing Director, my wife was asked “You seem like such a great gal, how did you end up with this loser” while other who were around were forced to laugh to stoke his ego. Once is “funny”, twice is “you’re my boss I’ll let it go”, three plus times and my wife and I start getting pissed but yet you keep doing it.
Too social – if you don’t engage 100% socially you are flagged as an outsider or “not committed”. Though I was more social than most I did see this occur to many and felt bad for them. A couple of instances where I wasn’t able to socialize due to other commitments I was advised that it was being noticed and that if you don’t “embrace” the culture than things will never work for you at the company. SEI raves about having a great work/life balance but their “life” is hanging out with one another rather than being able to enjoy your time as your own. This is truly a frat party disguised as a consulting company. Obscene amounts of drinking throughout has always been the norm and fraternization amongst co-workers is creeping into the culture.
Poor financial management - WAY TOO much money spent on social events and sports memberships/season tickets (happy hours, sporting events, parties/dinners, golf outings, baby showers). I realize having these on occasion is the cost of doing business in order to maintaining co-worker relationships when the nature of your work is at a client site. However, these are the norm rather than the exception. Yet when revenues/profits are down and stock dividends dip, MD’s start complaining that not everyone is pulling their weight and things have to change (while mentioning that they might now be able to afford their mortgage on their vacation homes). Hey, I have an idea…STOP SPENDING MONEY WHEN NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T HAVE A GOLF MEMBERSHIP TO ONE OF THE NICEST COURCES IN THE AREA OR SEASON TICKETS TO AREA TEAMS (especially when they are used mainly by MD’s & consultants for personal use rather than for business development purposes).
“Ownership” is a crock – just a revenue grabber and when you leave it takes them up to 4 years to pay you back (I have a promissory note from the company that my measly buyout will be in three annual installments with the first payment being 1 year from my last day of employment) . Board of Directors for the offices are made up entirely MD’s, Executives, Founding Owners and usually one “normal” consultant that is always someone that is in that office MD’s back pocket. If you start asking questions during quarterly meetings where you review “all” financials (and I say “all” because they only show you what they want you to see) on why financials are posted a certain way you are basically told to shut your mouth.
Threatened when you leave – When you leave you are told that they will be “nice” to you as long as you are “nice” to them. Mentioning that any rumors that they we hear about you speaking badly about them and they will bury you and take back any promises they provided when you left.
Glassdoor reviews are a crock – they are constantly brought up at biweekly staff meeting. They stress that you need to go out and put glowing reviews out there as so many candidates mention the “great” ratings they see. You will notice whenever a negative review is posted that within a few weeks there are multiple “raving” reviews from current employees (generally consultants with less than 1 year at the company as they are still being honeymooned and worried that they won’t get promoted)
Various awards/recognitions are bogus – we are given the “answers” on how best to answer the survey questions when the award nominations come out.
This isn’t Strategy Consulting – they promise during your interview process that you will be working on very high-end/strategic projects. Though there might be one (at the most two) happening at an office at any one time, those are mainly given to one of the consultants in the Managing Director’s “circle of friends”. A vast majority of the project you will be working on are simply staff aug opportunities. Nothing more, nothing less. They label themselves “rockstars” but in reality are “rockstar groupies”. Plain and simple, project management isn’t rocket science like they make you believe it to be at SEI.
