BCG London Offer
Weighing up a BCG Associate offer vs a couple other options and just wanted some insights regarding
1. WLB: What are the typical hours I can expect to work? Do BCG London do protected nights? Are people able to still go to the gym 3 days a week/have a dinner with friends on weekdays or is it only weekends that are protected?
2. Travel: How much travel is there for Associates? Is the travel mainly within UK and Europe, or are there opportunities more globally as well?
3. Culture: How ruthless is the up-or-out culture at BCG? Is this something to be worried about for Associates too?
4. Staffing model: Is the staffing on projects more in the hands of the associates or the staffing model? How important is it to strategically opt for certain projects to broaden your exposure?
5. Perks: How exactly does the Uber/free dinners work? What timings do they kick in? I've heard Bain do free Deliveroo at home as well, is this the same for BCG?
6. Preparation: I know a lot of people say there isn't much you can do to prepare for an MBB job, but is there anything specifically I can do to prepare for the technical side of things? Maybe Excel/PPT crash courses? Have some time off so will probably get bored haha
1. It will depend on the project, but I’d say typically 60ish hours a week. Monday - Thursday probably 9-10ish, Friday 9 - 5ish. I’d guess good week is 50hrs, normal is 60. Bad would be 70 or high 60s. Weekends are pretty much 100% protected. In terms of midweek dinners it depends but I wouldn’t bank on it. It would be quite reasonable though if you didn’t have a big workload, let your team know before hand and caught up any work later if you needed to.
2. Travel also varies but you have quite a lot of choice in whether you want to travel or not. Outside of UK is somewhat rare and even rarer to travel outside of Europe, main exception being Middle East (although still not common). There are also schemes in place for some medium term staffing in other offices.
3. hard to answer “how ruthless” it is, but as a new associate you don’t need to worry about it for at least the first year.
4. staffing is mostly in the hands of staffers. You can express an interest but it ultimately comes down to what’s available. As you become more senior (years in) you will begin to affiliate to certain practice areas but for the first few years you’ll be a generalist.
4. Ubers/taxis after 9pm, £35 deliveroo after 7pm but only to the office, not to home. Really good cafes within the office for free coffee, and also really good lunch and breakfast are available in the office (not free but highly subsidised).
5. Not much worth preparing for. If I were to do anything, I’d say an Excel course would be helpful but there’s also no expectation that you’ll have done that and they’ll expect to need to teach you.
Thanks a lot! This is super helpful. Just on Q1, do you get one protected night a week? I've heard of that at Bain but not sure if BCG do that as well. And if you live like an hour drive away, would they still expense the Uber?
Chiming in. Just curious if you could comment on any of these:
If you're asking for Bain, I can answer:
In terms of hours changing, I’m too junior to answer that but what DrApeman said confirms what I’ve heard from more senior people at BCG. I expect it’s similar across all MBB. Timeline to partner is likely the same as well.
For office transitions, it’s not uncommon from what I’ve seen at BCG. The Middle East is attractive in terms of comp and tax, but I haven’t seen anyone personally make the move. The US is more common but isn’t easy to do. The only established path is to do a US MBA and then you can remain in a US office. I’ve also seen some junior consultants simply make the switch to a NYC/BOS office without the MBA, but you’d really have to be a top performer for this to happen. Other less competitive offices in the US would probably be slightly easier.
In terms of protected nights, yes this is a policy. In theory you get one a week but in reality you’re probably a bit too busy for that so not like you’ll use it each week. If you particularly want a night off for some reason it’s probably ok as long as you communicate in advance, aren’t desperately needed and cover any work. I can’t say for sure but I imagine at Bain the reality of “one protected night a week” is similar.
Yes that taxi should still be covered.
For that expensed Uber/taxi after 9pm, is this only from the BCG office or can this be from client site as well?
From client site or office is both fine.
Now that we're talking details ... curious, what do London MBBs reimburse when you travel (daily food/drink expense limits)?
McK: £65/€76 per day (with some limits per time of day) for eating alone, c. 100-120 pp per dinner when eating with your team
Same limits when not abroad
For McK UK - when you travel there aren’t limits (within reason). I.e. you can expense a snack / meal as long as you’re on good terms with your Partner
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