Pros
I;ll be perfect blunt. This is a small but growing consultancy which does many of the same things as the Big 4. Coming from Deloitte, I know this first hand. What is nice about Focal Point is that they have eliminated almost all of the bureaucratic BS that makes Big 4 life so painful. For the most part managers really seem to care about your well being, give you opportunities to try new things (never happened at Deloitte) and know what theyre doing.. Culture wise, the firm still has some growing up to do but there have been MAJOR improvements in the past 6 months. Leadership seems to know what they want and have a plan to get there. My office is not huge but we're a very close-knit team, and we create our own culture that makes coming to work fun.. Delivery-wise, Focal Point does a lot of interesting projects. I've had more exposure to IT work, privacy work and security work than anywhere else I've worked and it's allowed me to grow as an auditor. I really hope to get more exposure to our security training practice next. Clients are comparable to Big 4. Most of my clients have been household names.. Everyone Ive interacted from the back office has been professional, caring and good at their jobs and there are direct lines of communication to them. SUCH A NICE CHANGE from Big 4. Props to the IT help desk for making life easier and not requiring me to jump through hoops to get s--- fixed. Submit a ticket and its resolved in a few hours, you can't underestimate how much productivity that saves. Theres a great PTO plan and freedom to actually use it guilt free..
Cons
Sometimes I wish there was more structure. Because teams are small there can be unclear paths to promotion. (Promotions happen frequently and fairly, but its hard to build a true "plan" to get yourself there. That is hard).. Benefits are less than Big 4. The staple benefits (health dental vision life 401k) are equal, but they dont supply onsite day care for your grandma's parakeet, if you know what I mean. Need more formal methodologies in places.. No central channel for corporation communications. Allhands calls are good, Yammer is not used enough and there are a bunch of systems that dont seem linked together. We need one place for everything..
