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Quite true |
| Date Posted: |
03/08/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
You are naive to think that, tho I can understand that you probably heard this from your career counselor and from your coworkers who heard this from their co-workers and from each other. If you hear it enough, it becomes a mantra and everyone starts repeating it to each other.
As far as getting training is concerned, if you read the original post, you will see that the problem is, despite whatever area the poster received training in, before he came to ACN, they seem to ignore it and want to put him wherever he is needed most by ACN. Of course, once you get to ACN, your opportunity for any training comes to an end, as we all know. So there won't be any opportunity to build skills of your choice by going to a class or two -- nor will there be any time to take a class in the evening or on weekends at your own expense, especially if you are staffed out of town.
SMGRs aren't going to help you. They want to get promoted to middle management (SE level), so they will do whatever they need for their own success. Also, they think on a project to project basis. Since the staff, including the junior managers (SMGR) and middle managers (1st level SEs) that you work with change from project to project, their goal is for you to complete the current project at hand and nothing more. They don't care about where that project fits within your own, personal, progression of work experiences.
Re: ACN career
2 to 5 years (if that many)at an employer does not consitute a "career."
Re: say what you want to do
Unless you say that what you want to do is whatever is best for ACN, you will categorized as "not a team player." Having personal "wants" and goals is considered selfish within the ACN culture. Once you are here for a while, you will understand this.
Try not to fall for the rumors and spin that comes from the internal PR and from the more junior employees (less than 3 or 4 years experience) who want to believe the mythology (ACN is a management consulting firm -- myth. ACN has training -- myth. ACN is interested in your career -- myth. You move from an IT career at ACN into some non-IT work out in industry, like financial analysis, engineering, management consulting, investment banking -- super myth. ACN is just Andersen Consulting with a name change -- that a very popular, and dangerous, myth).
I hope you will take what I say seriously and not participate in perpetuating these myths and internal urban legends. Good luck.
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It may seem "logical" that if you let people know what you want, they will tend to help you get it here. Once you have a little experience with ACN, you see that it doesn't work.
By the way, the original poster was talking about the short-term, not the medium, let alone the long-term. He was recruited into ACN with certain previous experience and certain expectations. He immediately got staffed doing something that is a very, very poor match for his skills and his career goals. If he were to stay on at ACN, his resume and skills would start to transform into those skills and experience areas that ACN wanted him in. Within 2 or 3 years it might be too late find work in his old areas of expertise and interests.
It is true that, once you are here for a while, you get a little bit of flexibility in where you get staffed, but it's still limited and it's still very hard to get staffed in areas other than the areas you've been working in for ACN in the recent past. So it may appear that some people are getting their interests and skills matched with engagement staffing, this only applies in situations where there is a match between personal interests and where Accenture has already been using you.
As far as "training" is concerned. It's hard to schedule your PTO time to correspond to the times you want to take a class. Project scheduling dictates this. It's not a good career move to tell your supervisor that you need time off at particular, unchangeable, time for your own personal reasons. In addition, there is the expense of taking a class. ACN doesn't have any tuition reimbursement.
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