Consulting Best Firms to Work For and Best Small Firms to Work For FAQs
Q: What is the Best Firms to Work For?
A: Consulting magazine's annual ranking of the profession's Best Firms to Work For and the Best Small Firms to Work For.
Q: How does it work?
A: The rankings are based on responses to survey questions taken by a firm's own consultants. The questions cover six areas of employee satisfaction: Culture, Career Development, Work/Life balance, Client Engagement, Compensation & Benefits and Firm Leadership. Scores are measured against all qualifying firms. In all, 40 firms are on the list each year, 20 Best Firms to Work For and 20 Best Small Firms to Work For. Complete rankings are published in the September issue of Consulting magazine.
Q: What's the difference between a Best Firm and a Best Small Firm?
A: Best Small Firms are firms between 20 and 250 billable consultants (not support staff/employees). Best Firms have 251 or more billable consultants.
Q: What if my firm has less than 20 consultants?
A: Firms with less than 20 billable consultants do not qualify.
Q: How does my firm qualify for the ranking?
A: Qualification is based on the number of completed surveys per firm. For most firms, we recommend at least 10 percent of billable consultants complete the survey. However, we do need a minimum of 20 completed surveys for a Small Firm to qualify and a minimum of 50 for a large firm to qualify. In some cases, that means more than 10 percent would need to complete the survey. (For instance, a 300-person firm would need 50, not 30, completed surveys to qualify.)
Q: Does qualifying mean I make the ranking list?
A: No. Qualifying means you have enough responses to be judged against all other qualifying firms. Many qualifying firms do no make the final ranking. In all, 40 firms are on the list each year, 20 Best Firms to Work For and 20 Best Small Firms to Work For. Complete rankings are published in the September issue of Consulting magazine.
Q: What about the ranking in other categories?
A: We also publish Top 10 lists in the six categories the survey measures, as well as Top 5 firms by Service Lines.
Q: What if our results aren't very good. Do you publish a list of participating firms?
A: No. If your scores are low and do not appear on any of the lists we publish, no one will know, unless the firm appeared in one of the Top 10 category charts we publish. And that’s a good thing!
Q: How do I know if my firm has qualified?
A: You can check in with us periodically here and we'll let you know if you've qualified or how many more completed surveys you need to qualify.
Q: How many firms participate in the survey?
A: Typically, we get between 12,000 and 15,000 completed surveys representing more than 300 consulting firms. About half of those firms qualify.
Q: What if we make the final list?
A: Congratulations! We’ll publish an article about the firm and its ranking in Consulting magazine. Here are links to past coverage of the award and gala.
https://www.consultingmag-digital.com/consultingmag/august_september_2019?pg=1#pg1
https://www.consultingmag-digital.com/consultingmag/october_2019?pg=20#pg20