Work life balance is sometimes non existent depending on the manager or team you are placed on for a project. Sometimes this will also incur project stacking of 3+ due to incorrect scheduling by managers that have no grasp on the work. You are not held to the same standards across the company and you do not complete the same level of work across teams. Those on Texas or Atlantic or West Coast teams will do much more than Ohio teams simply due to the companies purchasing attestations from Schellman, (ie. Ohio is mostly for 1 large client so many associates work on the projects constantly where other regions will have less resources for each project). While the time is blocked out for holidays above or vacation scheduled, you will often find that some managers will book you on projects just before your time off and still expect you to do the work while on said vacation. Managers from multiple regions also have no regard for where you are located and receiving emails or teams messages, even though it is baked into teams and outlook. You might receive something from someone in California while you are in New York at midnight simply because they do not care to schedule the email to get your attention.
As for new associates that might be joining, I would say that you can expect that those staying in Ohio will be treated better throughout all training by everyone involved in the training office. Your assigned senior buddy will be in office for you upstairs for any questions or close in the region, Training team and HR will gladly give you preferential treatment when it comes to missing trainings or not coming into the office. Others will simply have to schedule meetings during lunches or after working hours to meet with buddies as there is not much time assigned for check-ins or trainings. Speaking on buddies, you also can get very lucky and have someone very personable that knows the work you are doing and the ramp up as you progress to Senior, or you can get someone who has been in the role for a while and just wanted the extra money for being a "mentor". This person will directly be sending reports to your manager about your progress, usually just the ways you are lacking or need training and less so the good things you might be doing to help and learn. This is not region specific but it will again be easier if you do work in an easier region. I can confidently say this as someone who was a buddy to an associate and the feedback I was able to pass along.
You might also run into working with a buddy that might have less than ideal morals and fairness when it comes to audits. I've heard of others that came in with my class that they were told to pass evidence along as good enough because the senior simply did not want to verify it due to time and project constraints.
For senior associates, expect to be thrown onto projects where the prior senior has left or is leaving and you are stuck with a gap in knowledge of the client. I have been on many many projects with the prior senior having left or leaving due to the company shift in culture.
Culture shift
I would say this is something you will see plastered everywhere on Glassdoor and LinkedIn, "Schellman has a great culture". You will also notice these are either years old or from managers, leads, principals or directors that no longer engage with any real work and instead impose the culture they prefer. This is additionally made worse by the introduction of billable hours in the last year, the management will continue to harp that this will not be used for metrics and is only for accounting purposes but it simply is not the case as hours are assigned in an internal system that could be locked to changes within an amount of time. Schellman is owned by private equity and as most private equity owned businesses equally endure when there are down shifts or non-busy seasons, there will be a tightening on the neck of those lowest in the company.
Pay is okay to start but when you are on the same pay rate for 18 months and more responsibilities added, it is not enough for the project stacking and the inequality of regions.
