How long before up-or-outed?

Say you work at a consulting firm and compared to your peer group, you are somewhere in the middle in terms of work ethic and likeability. How far will this get you past the associate level at the firm before you are "up-or-outed" due to intense competition? Is it reasonable to at least be promoted to an engagement manager before this?

Interested in hearing how this might depend on the firm itself as well (McKinsey vs. Booz vs. Deloitte, etc.)

5 Comments
 

If your "peer group" is the other consultants at your firm, then being in the middle of the pack is partner-track (though slow). Up or out is not a competition-based policy; you are evaluated against a relatively objective standard. If you come out under that standard, you are warned. If you don't fix it, you're gone.

 

So in other words, what percentage of my associate class would be offered to move up to engagement manager? And of those, how many up to principal and so on...?

How exactly do you get evaluated anyways?

 

Tough to say. Average tenure is about 2 years, but the vast majority leave by choice instead of (or before) being forced out. You can probably assume 50-75% retention to Engagement Manager and then ~25% retention of those to partner.

That being said, if you really enjoy the work, don't mind the lfiestyle, and are set on becoming a partner, then you probably have an ~80% shot of making it (complete estimate)

Evaluation is an interesting process, but I don't know if the other firms do it the same way. PM me if you're very interested.

 

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