Poor IB Experience - Anonymous employee Stout Employee Review

Good work-life balance, automatic-ish promotions, people are great

Pay and promotions are fine--not great

Nothing worth flagging that any other firm their size has... unlimited PTO, office benefits, the usual HR excuses for not raising comp. The work can be interesting sometimes, and the work quality is generally good across the firm (though slipping as the firm continues to acqui-hire), but you can find more interesting work in finance at any other real advisory firm (I'd still definitely call Stout a valuation firm first and foremost).

Too many to list honestly.... It's Big 4 culture with none of the benefits. Your comp can be $50K off from the nearest competitor, and is very much "ceiling'd"... there is virtually no flexibility to their pay bands. Promotions are time-based (manager explained to me "you're killing it but you have a couple years to go..."), and MDs across the group have zero regard for work life balance for junior folks, even for the most insignificant/ridiculous client requests that should be pushed back on. Add all this up and you start to wonder why people work here... they don't for too long typically if they have ANY other options. So you just wind up with mediocre people who couldn't jump ship who get promoted over long time horizons who continue to amplify the awful Big 4 culture that they are adamant that they do not have.