Accenture: An insider guide - Gymkhana

Training
Accenture provides technical and managerial skills development. At the entry
level, employees in the consulting workforce can expect at least 300 hours of
core training during their first 5 years. The training enables consultants to build
a common corporate culture, and the firm sees it as a competitive advantage.
So do other firms. Insiders report that Accenture analysts are often recruited by
competitors in part because of the thorough training they receive at Accenture.
A key component is a 2-week visit to the Accenture facility in the Chicago
suburb of St. Charles, Illinois. Analysts used to attend classes at the corporate
campus shortly after they started work. Recently the firm shifted the schedule,
and it now sends new recruits to St. Charles once they have several months of
on-the-job experience.
“It makes a lot more sense,” says one insider. “I would have been able to get a
lot more experience from St. Charles after a year than right off the chute . . .
also, it’s expensive for the firm to do it at the front end.”
But Accenture won’t throw you into a big project cold. Most analysts start with
a week’s orientation, followed by 2 weeks of guidance on skills necessary for
interacting with a client and working on the project. Training helps consultants
develop critical skills such as leadership, value creation, relationship building,
business and technology acumen, selling, and methodology. But it also teaches
hands-on skills such as programming languages used in the debugging and data
analysis that occurs in so many of Accenture’s projects.
The Workplace
In training and thereafter, they are instructed on how to think, act, and speak
like an Accenture consultant. As a result, people in Accenture all use a uniform
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