LEK London rescinding offers for MBAs starting in September 2020
Just received a call from LEK London today rescinding their offer to start as a consultant in September 2020 (MBA cohort)... two weeks after confirming the 7th of September start date !
Not sure how this will impact their employer brand’s reputation and what is says about their current economic situation.
Did this happen to anyone else?
I'd be careful with making it something very public. Although it is a poor situation to be in, your next employer will likely not like the fact that you went all out to show what happened.
Well, based on talks with recent hires the sweatshop reputation in Europe has died down quite a bit. And whilst I don't want to start the whole MBA Associate vs Entry Level argument, if they're in a tight spot financially it makes sense to hire 1) cheaper people that you can rapidly train at entry level and 2) lateral hires coming directly from relevant companies which do the same work they do and don't need to be brought up to speed as much. If you're an MBA hire you are expensive and likely need as much training as an Analyst unless you have previously done a lot of CDD-focused consulting. Especially for their life sciences practice where industry knowledge is pretty much paramount.
An LEKer? Hey there mate.
Well reputation is a little anecdotal / subjective - from my ex colleagues I've heard nothing's changed since and so culture / Hours are the same, which is what matters. If you have better info or know of what they've changed I'd be curious to know actually
Nope, not an LEK employee but work at one of the main life sciences consulting firms on the market. From people I spoke to (including one that recently made a move from our firm to LEK) hours are 60-70h in life sciences, considering that busy periods or tight deadlines extend beyond that. No one that I know of/have spoken to recalls 80-90h being regular weeks with 100h+ weeks being common as WSO likes to mention. That's the change I was referring to. And just like LEK, in my firm we do have MBA hires, but since the life sciences teams are quite industry specific we tend to either hire promising juniors or PhD students. MBAs add little value to this specific kind of work we do compared to PhDs and cost much more than Analysts. Again, not shitting on MBAs but just reporting back practice policies.