Public Consulting Group Employee Reviews for CTO

"Worst Company for IT Personnel"

What do you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"Only the people and the downtown Boston location. The flexibility was good, too."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Skip this company if you are an IT person. You will be more dissatisfied than at any place you have ever worked. A whimsical compensation system means the business decides whether or not you earn an annual raise or a bonus, not the IT leadership. It's a constant fight to get IT training approved just to keep pace with the marketplace. You will never get into PCG's MBA program regardless of what they tell you because they rate the IT people at the bottom of the list. The practice areas will overwork you, typically 50-70 hours a week, and under-pay you. But the business people will take all the rewards for the work you put in. The weekly PCG newsletter never makes mention of the IT staff ... I have two years worth of them, and they only recognize the business people. There are better companies out there that truly appreciate IT people. Go find them! PCG is NOT one of them."

What don't you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"An EEOC/ADA filing has been completed supported by a ream of company emails alleging wrongful/unlawful termination. PCG will be required to report this open charge on every RFP response they submit until it is satisfactorily resolved one way or another. Preliminary analysis by the EEOC suggests there is merit in the case, and it falls under the laws they defend. I intend to be very public about the materials (email content) and the circumstances involving PCG so everyone knows what happened. This company thinks they can act with impunity. That ride is over. Let's see what happens when the light of day is introduced to the shroud of secrecy."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Dig in for the long haul ... I am very patient."

"No support and no growth opportunities"

What do you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"the company allows a lot of free reign to control your schedule. people come and go as they please. the tradeoff is the company turnover is like a turnstile."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"do not bother. you will regret having joined this company."

What don't you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"all of the practice areas are run differently. there are no two areas that are run the same way. none of the pay and bonuses are managed the same. the CTOs are compensated differently. every team involves competition between managers and this is counterproductive to the company as a whole. the people suffer."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"stop trying to run IT. bring the right people in and let them run it. if you cannot get out of the way then be prepared to reap the results. education has already farmed business development out to a third party company, and the managers are trying to get involved in IT. this has been disasterous. continuing on this path will provide more of the same disasterous results. you can only buy so many companies to hide poor sales performance. our practice area keeps every revenue dollar and won't share it with any other practice area. even if they have provided much of the work."

"Stacked Against IT"

What do you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"There are a lot of talented, hard-working people at PCG. They typically work 50-70 hours a week. The environment allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of time off, flex hours, remote work, etc."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"If you are an IT person ... Run away! Run away quickly! You will never be adequately rewarded, you will be overworked and underpaid while the business people are handsomely rewarded at your expense. You will almost certainly never get selected for the MBA program because of the way they rate IT at the bottom."

What don't you like about working at Public Consulting Group?

"This is a company that is structured for and run for the benefit of sales. There is a pervasive culture among the senior leadership (including the principals) that is decidedly anti-Information Technology. IT personnel are viewed as second class citizens at PCG. An example of this is the much-touted MBA program. The selection process for the MBA program virtually ensures that no IT personnel will be selected by weighting the business side more heavily than all technology. Don't come to this company with hopes of the MBA program if you are an IT resource. It won't happen.Senior leadership bristles at IT leadership that stands up for their people. They profess to support a climate that allows for diversity of voices, but the truth is that as long as the voices agree with them they are fine. Otherwise, a form of hazing and ostracizing occurs. HR, as many of the other reviews noted, is absent in this process. I went to HR many times, and they are the stooge of the company. Egregious problems are overlooked.The IT infrastructure at PCG is the most backwards I have witnessed in many years in the industry. Senior leadership refuses to invest in the infrastructure believing that it has no bearing on the production of sales. The problem is that PCG has had several major outages in the last six months that have impacted all of the clients, including the statewide contracts. The IT cost reduction approach that PCG has followed over the last five years is at a critical juncture. Key systems cannot support the organization as it exists right now. There are major issues with hosting, storage, information security, virtualization, networking, VPN, disaster recovery, continuity of operations, testing, process documentation, separation of duties, identity management, etc.While PCG works their staff long hours especially the IT staff, typically 60-70 hours, the company accounting system will only allow you to enter 40 hours per week maximum into the system. So if you put in a 70 hour week, you can only enter 40 into the accounting system. Then the company President wants to do over- and under-utilization of staff based on these phony work numbers. Staffing and bonus decisions are made by PCG based on this voodoo accounting which may run into problems with the US Department of Labor. I won't even touch on the unfair expense reimbursement practices for the business managers, and those for everyone else.This is an exceptionally poorly run company. None of the managers work collaboratively. The structure of the organization is to pay the managers tremendous amounts of money, and they will trample everyone else in the company, including the IT leadership, to make their numbers. This greed is encouraged, and there is no recognition that IT is the grease that makes PCG's wheels turn. The philosophy of the principals is to continue to take their money out of the business rather than re-invest it into the infrastructure of the company. Does this indicate they are looking to unload it Who knows. One thing is certain - PCG does not value their people. I had to fight to invest in IT people. I had to fight to overcome the pervasive attitude of second class citizenship for IT. I had to fight for equality in the MBA program (only got one IT person accepted). In the end, PCG silenced my voice rather than listen any longer. Not encouraging as a place that professes to want to change."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Fish or cut bait. Deal with the hard truths before you appear in the newspapers. Your foolhardy lack of investment in critical infrastructure has taken you to the cusp of disaster. You've listened for too long to the wrong people."