> Juniors are getting fired if they don't have a project for 3 months

When I worked for Accenture, I got benched for an entire summer. It was great. At the time the only resource to find a new project was this spreadsheet uploaded to Sharepoint, and there was 0 pressure from my HR rep to actually look for a new role.

I eventually found a new job and quit, but I always wondered what would have happened if I just stayed on the bench while working at the 2nd job.

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DarkNova6 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How long was that ago? I haven't seen any spreadsheet like this, but the internal tools aren't exactly the best (Accenture is too expensive to work for Accenture, haha).

But the bench also provided great opportunities to do actual good trainings, certifications and upskilling of all kinds. But the company stopped investing into its future long ago. It's just about short term gains for those on top.

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lesuorac 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> but the internal tools aren't exactly the best (Accenture is too expensive to work for Accenture, haha).

I've always found this part to be so crazy. It's seems like both a politically bad idea to not dogfood your own stuff and just also a bad business sense to not get "free" testers using the products.

Like, if you're buying a car and you ask the salesman which of these Subaru's they'd be and they respond with I'd go elsewhere and buy a Ford. Why would you buy one of their cars?

	▲	d1sxeyes 17 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Having worked for a company of a similar profile, I can perhaps explain: the only folks working on internal tools are those who are so weak that they can’t be placed on a customer account as a billable resource… which is not a particularly high bar.
	▲	rjsw 18 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I have done several projects for Ford, one measure of the status of their employees was how many trial Ford cars they got at any one time, the most senior people that I knew were on three.

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waltbosz 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> How long was that ago?

2009

> But the bench also provided great opportunities to do actual good trainings, certifications and upskilling of all kinds.

I did spend some of the time studying new developer skills. But on my own, Accenture didn't have any learning resources for that all they had was all management training stuff.

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fhd2 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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 18 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		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 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		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.
	▲	pjmlp 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		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.