Choosing between McKinsey, Bain, and BCG?

acronym:

dagro:

Mck: most prestigious, biggest, greatest network, "let's do our work, and do it right" attitude
r.

Implying that BCG and Bain don't have the attitude of producing quality work? Ridiculous. If anything, compared to Bain and BCG, McKinsey is far more concerned with *who* sees the work than *what* was actually accomplished at the client.

please don't quote me out of context again.

Freeloader made some excellent points about the differences; I may duplicate a couple of thoughts but having gone through this decision two years ago I can walk you through my pro/con list.

Petergibbons had an excellent point about performance - if you are great, you will be great regardless of where you go - but I think was quite myopic in his assessment of the "typical McKinsey" consultant. Which brings me to my overarching point...

...I truly believe that more variability in culture / experience / colleagues can be explained by location/office differences within a firm than can be generalized across firms. The variability within my own firm is quite large between say San Francisco, Atlanta, and New York - you are almost joining a different firm from a day-to-day perspective. Make sure you get a good sense of the people you'll be working with - I ended up making my decision purely on a gut check about the people, as you really cannot go wrong with either choice.

However, at the highest level these are the differences I see among the two firms:

• Entry role: Bain ACs are given a good deal of responsibility around solving a component of the broader problem but the implication of a more bottom heavy pyramid is that the ceiling for branching out into more client and thought leadership early on is lower; McKinsey BAs are treated more like post-MBA hires and after proving they are capable of the basics have a higher ceiling for doing "more interesting work" [for the record client interaction comes with its own downside] - the result of this is that BAs legitimately work longer hours than ACs [to put an average 60 - 65 hour weeks for ACs and 70 - 75 hour weeks for BAs for the first year] so I suppose with great responsibility comes lack of sleep

• Culture: Again to reiterate, intra-firm location differences are the main driver - but the general view of Bain having a more relaxed, fun culture across the board is directionally correct; from interactions with folks at McKinsey, I think that "arrogance" sometimes gets thrown around rather than "socially awkward" - the firm seems to attract people that are smart in a different kind of way that often dovetails with some personality quirks - but in general I've found McKinsey people to be friendly and open

• Staffing model: This is a true difference - the regional staffing model bain has the benefit of reducing overall travel but has the diversity limitations; the global staffing model [McKinsey] creates the potential for consultants to get staffed on projects around the world - reality would say that in a two - three year tenure, a BA would not get to do more than a few international projects but if you extrapolate over a career it can have real implications; to the points earlier both firms have the ability to transfer offices for six months to a year later on

• Exit opportunities: Overall I would say no difference - if you're a high performer at either place, you will have a wealth of options; at a more granular level I would say that Bain holds a slight advantage when it comes to finance exit opportunities due to the built in P.E.G. rotation but that McKinsey holds a slight advantage for non-finance opportunities [e.g., start-ups, social/public sector, policy] - for business school I call it a complete tie

• Career path flexibility: At the time two years ago, Bain provided many more options to deviate from the typical "two years and out" path; my understanding is that McKinsey has now gone to a much more flexible model within the last year - I would pressure test this with both firms as the stakes have changed and I don't want to lead you astray

• Training and mentoring: If you ask someone at Bain they will tell you "we invest more in our people than anyone else", if you ask someone at McKinsey you will get the same answer - call it a tie because I don't think anyone has done the analysis on which is true; in general the reason that these jobs are so sought out is that you evolve in the equivalent of "dog years" - two years of mentoring / training / experience at one of these firms will put you in a much different place than two year of a "typical" career path

That's about all I've got - I would really urge you not to think of things as "typical Bain" or "typical McKinsey" because the firms really are more similar than they are different.

One last point on the operations / strategy work - strategy work sounds sexy but doing that for two full years would limit your skill building and probably make you go crazy. I still think the best work is an upfront strategy piece where you outline the problem and solution followed by a short implementation phase where you lay out the 90 day plan, start coaching client teams, work out the initial bugs, and let the client take it from there.