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I'm sorry, what? I run an agency (still figuring the space out), but just so I get that part: They asked a junior to "find a project" from a spreadsheet? Don't

by fhd2 1y ago

I'm sorry, what? I run an agency (still figuring the space out), but just so I get that part: They asked a junior to "find a project" from a spreadsheet? Don't they pair juniors up with seniors in existing projects? Before I'd "bench" anyone, I'd do that without charging for them, so they learn and can do realised billable hours later down the line. I'd feel so weird getting benched. I didn't know that was a thing anyone did frankly.

dmoy 1y ago
Benching is very common in any firm like Accenture, yea. It does seem weird from the outside I agree. It can also depend on the person, skillset, etc. Some people will never get benched just because they don't have any or enough other people with equivalent skills, so there's constant demand. (edit: skillset, not skillet, obviously your bench rate does not depend on your cookware)
daxfohl 1y ago
My experience was 25 years ago, but back then we analysts and consultants were making around 50-60K and they were charging clients 5-15 times that when we were staffed. So I'm sure having a good buffer of people waiting and ready to go was well worth it. Even during the dotcom crash, they didn't lay anyone off IIRC. Instead they offered up to a couple years unpaid leave with benefits and guarantees of a job afterwards.
- waltbosz 1y ago
  I always viewed Accenture's main business was signing contracts, second to delivering a good product. I figured, they couldn't sign a contract without having people ready to staff it. I met a ton of people who were hired onto the bench and sat for months either without a project (just because they had skills that would be needed for future projects), or they had a project but were waiting for the project to start. I say second to delivering a good project: My job was application support. Half of my team was offshore, and they had very little actual technical skill, they just learned the problems that may occur with the software we supported. But they couldn't go off script and debug problems that we didn't already know how to solve.
  - daxfohl 1y ago
    Oh, absolutely. The only real career path they have terminates at partner, which is basically sales. There is formally an option to stay technical, but people will look at you funny and you're not going to grow or get paid much compared to an actual tech company.
pjmlp 1y ago
You can't do that in most projects without breaking security guidelines. There are contracts signed and NDAs for everyone that has access to customer systems. Although I also do conceed many offshoring companies forget about that, until someone that wasn't supposed to exist on the project does something that ends up on an escalation. It is very common in consulting and agencies, when not getting enough projects.

by fhd2 1y ago

dmoy 1y ago

Benching is very common in any firm like Accenture, yea. It does seem weird from the outside I agree. It can also depend on the person, skillset, etc. Some people will never get benched just because they don't have any or enough other people with equivalent skills, so there's constant demand. (edit: skillset, not skillet, obviously your bench rate does not depend on your cookware)

daxfohl 1y ago

My experience was 25 years ago, but back then we analysts and consultants were making around 50-60K and they were charging clients 5-15 times that when we were staffed. So I'm sure having a good buffer of people waiting and ready to go was well worth it. Even during the dotcom crash, they didn't lay anyone off IIRC. Instead they offered up to a couple years unpaid leave with benefits and guarantees of a job afterwards.

waltbosz 1y ago
I always viewed Accenture's main business was signing contracts, second to delivering a good product. I figured, they couldn't sign a contract without having people ready to staff it. I met a ton of people who were hired onto the bench and sat for months either without a project (just because they had skills that would be needed for future projects), or they had a project but were waiting for the project to start. I say second to delivering a good project: My job was application support. Half of my team was offshore, and they had very little actual technical skill, they just learned the problems that may occur with the software we supported. But they couldn't go off script and debug problems that we didn't already know how to solve.
- daxfohl 1y ago
  Oh, absolutely. The only real career path they have terminates at partner, which is basically sales. There is formally an option to stay technical, but people will look at you funny and you're not going to grow or get paid much compared to an actual tech company.

pjmlp 1y ago

You can't do that in most projects without breaking security guidelines. There are contracts signed and NDAs for everyone that has access to customer systems. Although I also do conceed many offshoring companies forget about that, until someone that wasn't supposed to exist on the project does something that ends up on an escalation. It is very common in consulting and agencies, when not getting enough projects.