FatPurple

Washington Technology recently released their list of the 2010 top 100 Government Technology Contractors. They are ranked based on related revenue from IT products and services, systems integration, telecommunications, professional services and engineering services. These contracts total more than $130 billion. Lockheed Martin retains the top spot again this year.

Two notable upward moves on the list are Deloitte LLP  from 51st to 18th – due largely to their acquisition of Bearing Point, and ICF International from 99th to 66th – due in part to their acquisition of Macro International.

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Climbing the Consulting Company Corporate Ladder – A Comparison

I find it interesting to see the different attitudes companies have on disclosing their corporate hierarchies and career paths to outsiders. Larger organizations tend to be more open with their corporate ladder structure. And consulting companies perhaps more so than other large companies. In many cases a corresponding salary range and status can be directly assigned to the position levels; which makes this type of information even more valuable for job candidates.

With the emergence of websites like Glassdoor.com, Vault.com, Indeed.com, Salary.com, and numerous others, it’s much easier to get a picture of what these position titles equate to in average salary and bonuses.

Here’s how the career paths (aka corporate ladders) of these consulting companies stack up.

I found it interesting to see how these companies are presenting their career paths on their websites. Here’s a breakdown.

McKinsey & Company Career Path

McKinsey & Company has one of the strongest online corporate ladders.  It gives nice brief position descriptions and allows you to select from three types of candidates to see the likely career path and starting point.

McKinsey & Company Career Path

Accenture Career Paths

The Accenture website makes it difficult to track down this information, so I can’t really give them high praise for that. However, I like how they define the different paths for the associated career types – consulting, enterprise, services, and solutions. It would be great if all companies offered up estimated years in a position, e.g. 2-3 years as an Analyst before moving to Consultant, like Accenture does for the consulting career path.

Bain & Company Career Path

Bain does a great job of outlining their positions and career path. You can hover over each of the candidate types to see the likely starting position(s), and click on any of the positions on the career path to read more about that position.

Boston Consulting Group Career Path

Nothing special about Boston Consulting Groups career path (road to success) presentation, but at least they have one on their website. You can click on each position to read more about the role.

Booz Allen & Hamilton Career Path

There’s nothing interactive of special about Booz Allen’s career path presentation, but again, at least they have one on their website.

Booze & Company Career Path

Booz & Company’s presentation of their career path is average. Better than some. You can hover over the candidate types (undergrad, MBA, experienced) to see the likely starting position.  Position descriptions could use some more meat.

Deloitte Consulting Career Path

Deloitte doesn’t display their different career paths in any type of graphical presentation, but there is reference on their site to the most common Human Capital (consulting) career path:  Analyst – Consultant - Senior Consultant - Manager – Senior Manager – Principal/ Director

Capgemini Consulting Services Career Path

Capgemini offers decent descriptions of the roles but nothing specific about advancement criteria or typical timeframes.
Typical career path: Analyst or Consultant – Project Lead – Senior Manager – Director or Vice President

Sapient and Razorfish Career Paths

I also checked out Sapient and Razorfish but neither offered career path information. It’s unfortunate because that would be very interesting to see for digital consulting firms. Perhaps they are just too small (relative to the other companies discussed) to have published career paths. I suspect if any of the big Web shops ever does disclose and present this information on their website, others will soon follow suit.

Who do you think presents the best career path? What other companies should I look at for part two of Consulting Company Career Paths?

Based on Vault’s 2010 Prestige Ratings

There’s no real surprise here at the top of the list. McKinsey once again lands in the top spot – as they do on most consulting rankings (e.g. management consulting) based on prestige. The rest of the top 15 is made up mainly of firms that have huge stakes in U.S. Federal Government contracting. I’m a bit surprised to see Accenture below Gartner, but their scores were very close, so it’s splitting hairs at that point. Sapient is the only true Web consulting/interactive firm to make the list. Curiously Razorfish – which based on the last data I saw – outpaces Sapient in total revenue making it the larget interactive agency/firm.