Not traveling a lot?

Bain people travel significantly less than McKinsey people, where traveling every week is standard (though some projects are in-town)

Bullshit, they all travel the same.

My friend at Bain confirmed this - they actually travel less than normal consulting jobs. That said, you're still on the road a few days a week and it isn't much better.

Once I read an article on LEK. The person was talking about their goal of keeping the best talent at the firm by trying to come up with individual travel plans, which means trying to reduce the travel as much as possible. You could make a search on them and maybe also on Marakon.

If you work at MBB you travel when they need you to travel. Completely dependant on the needs of the client. I don't see Bain telling a client to give McKinsey a call if they want an associate in their office 4 or 5 days a week for a month because they don't travel that much.

To the OP, there are more specialized consulting shops like FTI and Alvarez & Marsal often travel less than general management consultants.

Ideating...

Bain guys travel less. Maybe its because I'm only familiar with the PE practice, but maybe not. The McKinsey model is 3 nights, 4 days a week - Bain is an average of 1-2 days, 1 night a week for at least the two big NE offices.

Bain does travel less... they have a different engagement model. It's definitely a trade off - sure hotels and airports suck, but dialing in to meetings, and never getting face to face time with a client sucks as well.

I've heard from friends at Monitor that they travel less, but this is much more anecdotal.

"...never getting face to face time with a client sucks as well"

I don't know why that would suck...having to be on site is one of the worst things possible. Dialing in is much, much preferable. I mean, after working all day, at least you have the chance to see a significant other or friends rather than going to a hotel (which, for someone who's single or doesn't go out quite that much, might be just as good or better).

I don't know if I get this 1-night a week model. So Bainies spend 2 days a week at the client site?

Seems like it would be difficult for a wide range of engagement types.

big unit - Agree with you completely about how horrible being away from home is. But from a professional perspective, I absolutely hate dialing in to meetings, and really like the face to face contact. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned (or inexperienced), but I felt like I contribute a lot more and learn a lot more when I'm physically present for meetings.

Narrator - I think we're talking about things on average -- there are definitely Bain cases where they travel 3 nights, but when possible, they minimize travel (often doing 0 days/week on client site).

Narrator, they go to the client site for like major meetings and for specific reasons, but other then that they don't travel. So on average its closer to 1-2 days/1 night a week while for McK its 3-4 days/3 nights a week on average. Of course, McK has studies which don't require to travel and I'm sure Bain has some more travel-intensive studies, but on average Bain is less. This is based on my personal experiences and what I've heard/learned over the interview/recruitment process.

What about places like Deloitte, PwC? Is their amount of travel right up there with McK?

Ok... at different points on this board, people have said that Mckinsey, Monitor, Bain, BCG and Parthenon all travel the least out of any consulting firm because of some ascribed humanity that simply isn't there.

On average, it's all the same shit. True, Bain PEG in NYC probably will not travel or McK NJ Pharma will not travel, etc. but by and large it averages out to the same.

If you're looking for less travel...you might want to look internaly at companies. Oftentimes, companies have internal-consultants (persay), that work for the company and move throughout business areas on various improvement assignments. Usually, similarly to MCK and Bain, they are referred to as business analysts. These roles are often within Operations, Project Management, etc, and offer similiar compensation to consulting companies.

If you're looking for less travel...you might want to look internaly at companies. Oftentimes, companies have internal-consultants (persay), that work for the company and move throughout business areas on various improvement assignments. Usually, similarly to MCK and Bain, they are referred to as business analysts. These roles are often within Operations, Project Management, etc, and offer similiar compensation to consulting companies.

if your firm is doing well, then expect to travel a lot.