I quit the grad program because I was benched for most of the time
tl;dr I quit after 1 year because I was barely utilised and was stuck on the bench doing bd work.
I joined the graduate program in Australia 1 year after the PwC tax scandal. I ended up in the Infrastructure Advisory team. Prior to induction day, I was asked to get a security clearance and managed to get it done ahead of time.
On induction day, I found out that my coach is a consultant. After speaking with him, he wanted to have our coaching catchups occur once a month. I didn't realise how abnormal this was until I spoke with other grads. Their coaches were managers or in a more senior position, and they had weekly coaching catchups. It turned out that having a consultant coach a grad is a bad idea because he did not have the influence to get my name on billable work or on bids.
For the first 3.5 months, I was told that I won't be utilised because there was not enough work available. I found that to be quite odd because the other grad on my team was put on a project in the first few weeks. I also noticed that other grads had projects lined up for them before their first day or were utilised within their first month. Initially, I didn't mind because I had a lot of onboarding activities to do, had to attend a lot of grad workshops and help the team out with bids.
3.5 months into the role, the first coach quit and then I had a senior consultant as the new coach. I then finally got utilised onto a project based in Melbourne. I was keen to start. After the first client meeting, I was tasked to upload the meeting minutes into our shared folder. I made a mistake and accidentally misspelt one of the names of the stakeholders. Rightfully so, I got told off by the manager and coach for making a careless mistake. I was then lectured on how that it has a negative impact on the client's perception of the firm. A few weeks later, the partner took me off the project to "keep the profit margin".
I then spent a few more months on the bench, there mostly silence on when I would be utilised again or if my name was put on any bids. There were moments when I was told that my name was removed from a bid because I did not have the "right experience". I was also rejected because the director preferred to utilise another grad who had been utilised since day 1. I then noticed that all the business development work in our team would be handed off to me. I found it odd that I was the only one doing business development work while everyone else was fully utilised.
I was then utilised on a project where they needed extra support to get a report completed. I spent a month working late nights to help get the project milestone over the line. I barely got any acknowledgement for my efforts except from my buddy and coach.
1 month later, the senior consultant told me that she can't coach me anymore because she was overwhelmed by her workload. In 7 months, I ended up on my 3rd coach who was a manager. She also struggled to find billable work for me. I was then meant to be onboarded onto another project but then the manager resigned and did not tell me.
I then spent another month on the bench doing bids and other business development work. I wasn't utilised again for another month until a consultant resigned. He specifically asked me to replace him on the project he was on. I then spent a month helping get the project milestones completed on time. Afterwards, I was off boarded due to client needs.
I then spent time on the bench again doing bids and business development work. I was about to be onboarded onto another project until the director told me that I did not have the relevant experience and rejected me. I found this to be frustrating because I had previous job experience in procurement and I was unable to get experience due to not having "the right experience".
I remember during a workshop about business case development, the director running it asked me to provide an example of a business case. I then said in front of 100+ people that I could not provide an example as I had never worked on a business case. I then started tearing up after the workshop. I was so frustrated that I had spent over 1 year in the firm and had barely gained any experience. Meanwhile all the other grads were fully utilised and gained a wide range of experience across different projects.
The last straw for me was when I was the only grad to not be promoted to consultant because by then, my utilisation had dropped below 14% and senior leadership deemed me too inexperienced for promotion. I was so upset because I tried my best but was not given the same opportunities as other grads because of my perceived "lack of experience". I did not think it was fair that my name would be rejected or not considered for bids but other grads were considered instead. There were grads who had never worked in an office job before but were still utilised.
I even people from other teams thought my situation was unfair. Even a partner from another team had asked me what on earth my coach and team was doing. She said that she would find it unacceptable if a grad on her team was getting benched. I am so pissed at senior leadership for excluding me from projects in favour of overworking their experienced consultants. and trying to leech every cent out of their clients. I ended up resigning and cited lack of utilisation when asked why I was leaving.
I think the lengthy bench time damaged my reputation in the team and directors did not want to onboard me onto projects as they perceived me as useless. I did not think it was fair that I was pigeon holed into doing business development work. How am I supposed to get experience if I am constantly being rejected for not having "the right experience"?