I hear people talk about different tiers of firms and get confused (T2, Big4 being lumped together, etc.). From what I have read online (in no particular order):
Tier 1: McK, Bain, BCG
Tier 2: OW, Deloitte S&O, LEK, S&
Tier 3: EY Parthenon, Accenture Strategy, AT Kearney
Does this seem right ?
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http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/tiers-for-consulting-firms Check out the link above for a similar discussion 5 years ago. Here's how I'd do it in 2016.
In terms of prestige, B-school placement & reputation, and exit ops in the USA: Tier 1: McKinsey Tier 1.5: BCG, Bain Tier 2: Deloitte S&O, OW Tier 2.5: LEK, ATK, EY Parthenon, S&, Accenture Strat Tier 3: Big 4 MC, Accenture MC, BAH, ZS Associates, Capgemini, other boutiques etc.
Largely agree with Irrelephant except that Accenture Strategy could be slightly lower than some of the others in Tier 2.5
Tier 1: McKinsey, BCG, Bain (probably in descending order, but that's arguable) Tier 2: Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, Roland Berger, ATK, Monitor Deloitte (in US. elsewhere they're a tier lower) Tier 3: Accenture Strategy, BAH, Parthenon, Arthur D Little etc.
Does Roland Berger have any presence in the US? I've heard it's a solid firm in Europe, but never heard anything about it here.
This.
Agree, this is a good list. In case you're doing tiers in descending order, I'd place Strategy& after ATK. The big 4 cloud is slowly but surely haunting them, at least in Asia.
For others in business school, is this generally how things filtered out? We just got the first draft of our employment report, so I got to see where most of my classmates ended up. A couple things surprised me:
McKinsey had what I thought was a really wide range of talent. There are a few people going there this summer that I thought were absolute rock stars and would get to go wherever they wanted, but at the same time, there's a guy going there this summer that I felt really bad for earlier in the year because I thought he wasn't going to get a job. I don't mean like he wasn't going to get a job in consulting, I mean like I thought he would literally not get an internship. Go figure.
I didn't feel the same way about the people going to BCG and Bain-- with two exceptions, I thought they were all impressive candidates, and from the start of us casing together, I expected them to do well.
At least for our school, the handful of people that ended up at the smaller "Tier 2" firms (ATK, LEK, OW, Parthenon) were not immediately distinguishable from the MBB group. As in, you could put them all in a room together and try to guess who went where, and not be able to identify the non-MBBers.
I wouldn't say the same for the much larger next-tier firms (Deloitte, PwC, Accenture). I think you'd be able to pick them out.
Keep in mind this is based on a pretty small sample of MBA students, and is only the opinion of one wildly biased guy.
This is 100% accurate at my b-school as well.
Berger has a huge presence in Europe and Asia (particularly in China). In Germany and France they were regarded on par with MBB 10 years ago but lost their shine due to mismanagement and financial problems. Since then they are regarded solid tier 2.
It doesn't make sense to divide the tier2s into further subsegments as OW and Monitor Deloitte are not ahead of S& or ATK in any sense, their performance/ prestige slightly differs from country to country but that's it. In fact neither Monitor Deloitte is regarded as tier 3 in Germany, Accenture even lower.
Don't forget: Wernham Hogg Galweather Stearn Kaan and Assoc
Tier 1: Bain, BCG, McKinsey (You can argue that there should be sub-tiers here, but I'd argue that each one excels more so in different areas) Tier 2: Deloitte S&O, Oliver Wyman, LEK, Parthenon (LEK and Parthenon are good at PE placement) Tier 3: Strategy&, Accenture (S& seems to be in a bit of a mess with PwC) Tier 4: Others
This list is ridiculous, Accenture and Strategy& at the same level... Parthenon is Tier3, they belong to E&Y and are neither really performing recently nor were able to keep their prestige. You're not even mentioning AT Kearney...
T1: McKinsey, BCG, Bain & Co. T2: Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, A.T. Kearney, Deloitte S&O, LEK T3: Accenture Strategy, Parthenon EY, ZS Associates, Arthur D. Little, Alix Partners T4: Big 4 Consulting
lol regarding Parthenon: Why do people keep thinking we are integrated into EY strategy? We don't touch the work they do. I don't even know anyone in that division (or any division), or that EY even had that capability. Needless to say, the work we do is very different from what EY already has and we keep separate.
Not sure how you know if we're 'performing', but we've been busier than ever. Our undergrad associates place well into MM PE and other corporate strategy roles. This year, a good percentage our class that applied to BSchool is going to HBS (and several acceptances to Wharton, etc).
Not sure where you're getting your information from, but I would verify assumptions before stating them- rule #1 of consulting.
To clarify for anyone getting confused, B4 consulting is referring to the consulting parts of EY, Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG that AREN'T Parthenon, S&O, and S&.
Would appreciate some input/insight on how the respective "Big 4+Accenture" strategy consulting practices rank or compare against each other. Thanks!
US: Monitor Deloitte > S& >>>>> Accenture> KPMG > EY Europe: S& > Monitor Deloitte >>>>>>>> Accenture > KPMG >> EY
In Europe S& still beats MD but it seems is not going to last, here in Spain almost 70% of its headcount comes from legacy PwC Strategy practice, most ex-Booz consultants have gone.
My knowledge of Parthenon is mostly from before they were bought by EY, but they've historically had excellent b-school placement, probably owing in large part to the fact that their hiring is very selective. If you look on their website, their list of target schools is even more restrictive than MBB.
If you're interested in PE or Education work, Parthenon is an incredible place to me. Which is part of a broader point that beyond MBB, firms are a lot more specialized and focused on particular types of consulting.
Where is IBM GBS? It's not even ranked? I'm asking specifically for Strategy & Business Analytics Group.
As far as Technology Consulting and strategy, IBM GBS would probably be in Tier 1...But based on the criteria listed in this thread (Emphasis on pure strategy firms), IBM most likely sits in T3 along with: Accenture Strategy, Parthenon EY, ZS Associates, Arthur D. Little, Alix Partners @Communist
So a question for @dmw86" and babster
So from your comments, those with offer from "mid-market" strategy firms (ATK, LEK, OW, Parthenon) have very similar presence, and come across as just as competent as MBBers.
So what separates those getting MBB offers and those getting the tier 2 offers if they are equally as polished? Does it come down to better networking during the application process? Slightly better hard stats (GPA/GMAT)? Better at cases?
Your (and others') thoughts are appreciated.
Duplicate post
Other point worth making here is that (again, this is limited to my own observations) for the smaller strategy-focused firms (usual suspects, LEK/OW/ATK/Parthenon), I know of a couple people that actually preferred one of those firms to MBB. It's rare, but it was either for personal reasons or because of a particular practice area. On the other hand, I don't personally know of anyone going to Accenture/Deloitte/etc. from my school who didn't originally really want to go to MBB.
Great question. First, a quick caveat to my comments-- all I know is where my classmates are going, but I don't know where all their offers came from. I'd love to figure out some cross-admit statistics. Maybe that's a project for our consulting club next year.
I think it comes down to a combination of the interviewer's qualitative assessment of your personality on a given day, and some random variation in case performance. Toward the end of case prep, I had cases that I absolutely crushed, where my case partner thought I had cheated and looked at the case beforehand-- but I also had one or two cases where for whatever reason, I set up my thinking counter to what the case was about, and just got wrecked. This happens. Even pro golfers occasionally shank a ball.
There's a guy going to one of the MBB firms this summer that I think is one of the smartest guys at school, and he's got great stats and is very personable. Slam dunk applicant. He didn't get out of the first round on one of his other MBB interviews, because on the case, he (his words) "missed an extra point." I think you get the picture-- there's some random walk in the process.
As far as personality is concerned, your interviewers are making an assessment of whether or not they would like to work with you, from a pure interpersonal standpoint. Also, there's a limited number of slots they can pick. So imagine if I gathered a group of 15 of your classmates, and said "pick your 5 favorite people." Then I asked one of your other classmates to do the same thing. Would the list be the same, every time? I doubt it.
To your other points: at least in the opinion of a couple current MBB consultants I talked with in the networking process (they were very open and helpful about this), the things you mentioned (work experience, gpa, GMAT, undergrad major, networking, even which b-school you go to) are for getting you in the door for an interview. That's pretty much it. From then on, it's your interview performance as it stands alone. (I don't' 100% believe this, as I have to believe they look at the whole package when they're making a final decision, but I do believe that they weight the interview process by far the most heavily.)
I did interviews for McK for 2 years at 4+ b-schools. Here's my thoughts.
Once you pass resume screen, your "stats" basically don't matter. Neither does networking, to be honest. You won't get through if you fuck up the case no matter how much people like you.
Then it's all about the interview. McK's are like this (http://www.McKinsey.com/careers/join-us/interview-process). Both experience and case components are important.
When I think back to all the interviews I did, separation between candidates pretty much fell on two dimensions. This is a lot like gymnastics or ice skating in the Olympics.
1) Technical performance + How well did they structure the problem? Was it MECE? + Did they hear all the important details? Did they listen well? Ask the important clarifying questions? Ask for data they needed?
+ How well and how cleanly did they do the math? + Did they draw the right implications from the data?
2) Artistic impression + Did they communicate succinctly and in a structured way the whole way through or were they all over the map? + How would I feel if I were a client and this person were talking to me? Would I feel confident in them and their answers? Are they arrogant (laugh all you want - I noted it if I thought you were a dbag) + How well did they "tell the story" throughout the case? Or did they treat it like a series of unrelated questions to answer correctly? + Is this person a leader or are they an "order taker"? + Are they creative? Do they have ideas that bring in 2nd order thinking or are really solid and out of the box?
What distinguished great from good candidates was a lot of #2. At this point in the game, most people are practiced enough to get the technicals of cases done well. I didn't see many people dinged for "missing an extra point". That alone doesn't do it.
What did I did see was many candidates heavily over-indexing on #1 and thinking that will carry them into an MBB. Wrong. Many of these folks end up robotic, scripted, almost lifeless. They think that because they got the right framework, list of issues, answer to the quant question, that that is it. This is a people business. It involves storytelling, influencing, creativity to be done well. I can't emphasize that enough.
Proportionally, I would say 50% of people would weed themselves out by not getting stuff in #1 done well. 30-40% would do #1 really well and be iffy on #2. The best in that bucket were generally on the bubble. 10-20% would do really well across the board and were easy passes. Rarely was I surprised by a top person I really liked getting through then not getting an offer. Equally rare were the folks that were clear declines for me that then ended up getting Bain or BCG offers.
Addendum I feel compelled to mention that one of the things about McK that impressed me the most was the hiring process. Having seen behind the curtain, I am proud of how fair and rigorous it was. I felt a strong responsibility as an interviewer. Hell, they make you go through a full day of training to be an interviewer. There are very very clear standards, and as an interviewer I was expected to abide by those standards and to be able to support my recommendations with facts and observation.
We didn't hire bubble candidates. If people weren't sold on you, you did not pass. The bar was even higher once the AP's and Partners did 2nd rounds. There are no fluke hires. If you got/get an offer from us, you earned it and you should know that they really believe in you.
Thanks for your thoughts-- you're obviously the most qualified of anyone around here to lend your perspective. As I mentioned, my sample size is pretty darn small.
I have to push back a bit on this quote, though. We all know how filters and tests work, and there are no perfect filters or tests. At any given price (in this case price meaning the time and money spent interviewing candidates), a test has some imperfection, as well as some interplay between sensitivity and specificity.
When you say "there are no fluke hires," do you mean that each hire is made with the full confidence of the Firm, and you're disappointed when there is occasionally somebody who gets in and fails? Or do you mean that the filter is so tight that no borderline candidates make it in, even though you will pass up the occasional good candidate by doing so?
The associate dean of admissions at Fuqua, when asked how she reacted when she admitted a student that shouldn't have gotten in, said: "we don't make mistakes, we make learning opportunities." I hope you're not making a similar declaration, because I find it to be sort of disingenuous.
I think the implied assumption in having tiers for the consulting firms is not really prestige, but quality of exit opportunities. The quality of exit opportunities is definitely influenced by selectivity, quality of work, and even the current comp.
My tier system would be 4-fold: Tier 1: MBB (selective, sizable, higher pay) Tier 2: LEK, Parthenon, Deloitte, ATK. Strategy & (selective smaller firms, high pay) Tier 3: PwC, OW, ACN, ZS, Alix Partners (selective specialized firms, and some larger ones, average pay) Tier 4: KPMG, EY, Capgemini, IBM. FTI, Navigant ( any large firm doing consulting, OK pay) Tier 5: smaller consulting firms (not selective, low pay)
With the quality of exit opportunities in mind, would you rank these tiers the same if trying to break into PE out of consulting?
I would assume MBB has the best exit opportunities for whatever you would want to do (including PE), but do you all see people consistently going into PE out of any of the non MBB firms? More specifically, tracks that these firms might have that people jump to PE from?
Thanks for all the great info thus far.
It would be similar. However to go to PE it is a not as easy as people are making it sound like, even if you were at an MBB. The quality of your experience there will matter a lot, not counting relationships, schools you went to etc.
Also, we need to be clear on what you'll do at the PE firm. Associate roles are different than VPs, and more different to Directors and up. For a PE firm seeking an Associate they want strong financial analysis/due diligence skills. As you go further up, you need management skills (project and people), and to a point sector expertise (MDs, PhDs are valued at this level)
MBBs are better for Associate/Analyst roles, but VPs and up I think your sector expertise is more valued, as well as your management skills (niche firms fit in nicely, as well as MBBs). Tier 4/5s would have a hard time getting their resume looked at.
If you are bent on going to Private Equity, your best bet is to start as a PE analyst out of undergrad, if that does not work banking and investment management are fine proxy jobs. If you really want to do consulting, go to an MBB then try to work on due diligence engagements. If you are not lucky to be in any of these positions, look at Corp Development/ M&A for F100, or think of it long-term with getting an MBA and try the process again.
Hope this helps.
Listing OW as third tier behind Deloitte, ATK, etc is a total joke
Private Equity from Non-MBB is almost impossible, checked out most major PE funds and team information which is available online and found that 5-7:1 is the ratio between bankers and consultants in most funds (expect funds such as Golden Gate Capital or Bain Capital etc.). Thereof, 99% come from either McKinsey, Bain or BCG, surprisingly Bain was not much ahead of the other ones, McKinsey places unsurprisingly very well.
Other consultants in those funds had consulting backgrounds from LEK or Big4 experience (in UK there are quite a lot with this background). Found one or two consultants from AT Kearney and one from Berger, but the former two switched to Ibanking (after their ATK stints) after getting their MBAs and thus are not representative.
The situation described above is only representative for large, upper mid market funds. Guess smaller and lower mid market funds have more individual and diverse backgrounds.
So I have a serious question regarding Huron and I've already research WSO. I know it's not a top tier firm by any means but i have a friend in the following situation: Offer from Huron to work in bankruptcy & turnaround consulting group
What are the exit possibilities from this type of role? He's interested in private equity. Also interested in attending a top 10 business school. Does anyone have any color on Huron's R&T group? I'd really appreciate any insight anyone has.
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Also interested in info on PA. Head it's a niche but strong shop.
True, OW is on the same level as LEK, Strategy&, AT Kearney, Monitor Deloitte and Berger. Their regional footprint varies though.
This is for Holland.
Tier 1: MBB (McKinsey a bit more selective) Tier 2: OW, S&, RB, ATK Tier 3: Monitor Deloitte (slight edge), EY Strategy, Accenture Strategy Tier 4: KPMG Strategy
Monitor Deloitte in the US is much more prestigious than the European (Dutch) one. PwC and EY are also bigger than them in terms of revenue here in Holland and they pay below market, especially compared to the Tier 2 firms. That's why they lose quite some talent and can't grow into the Tier 2 category.
And everybody just shits on KPMG. They told me during an interview that they were losing quite some strategy projects to the other big 4.
Can confirm this ranking for France and Spain, but with a small change. Accenture Strategy is definitely Tier 2.
Can confirm the ranking above for GSA (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), UK and France.
This would be my list, as of 2018 in the European market: In terms of salary, prestige, B-school placement, and exit ops...
Tier 1: McKinsey, BCG, Bain
Tier 2: ATK, OW, Accenture Strat, Ronald Berger
Tier 3: Monitor, Strategy&, Arthur D Little, Big 4 MC, Accenture MC, Big 4 MC, other boutiques, etc.
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