M vs BB
I interview MBB consultants regularly at my company for a role that exits 2-3 years out of the undergrad role (BA/A/AC). This is something that I’ve noticed, but would love to get people’s thoughts.
The top let’s say 25% of talent from MBB is equal in caliber across firms. I’m truly impressed by how smart they are.
But what’s very clear is that the bottom 25% of McKinsey is way stronger than the bottom 25% of BCG and Bain. Does anyone know why that is? This has also been a trend that few of my other friends who do a lot of “exit opps for MBB” interviewing have noticed for folks at this level (cannot comment on quality at levels above).
Is it harder to work at McKinsey or like are their interviews harder or what’s going on? Or is it more intense? Would love insights from folks more tapped into this…
McKinsey just wins more when candidates have a choice between 2 or 3 of the MBB. Because there are only 3 clear top choices the dispersion is much clearer then what you see in banking where there are at least 6-7 arguable top options (GS JP MS CVP EVR Q)
I knew McKinsey had a stronger brand, but did not expect the difference to be this pronounced especially against BB
While I will have my team continue to hire from BCG/Bain, we might start prioritizing McKinsey tbh
This is in the U.S.; don’t know if different in other countries
Think you should look at all 3 the same still
Can’t speak for Bain but at BCG we lowered the hiring bar some ~1-3 years ago (your hiring range) to keep up with the AI/tech strategy staffing demand and to be frank, they’re duds.
Also, some time ago, interviews became fully virtual (this is changing this year) and people cheated their way in somehow.
Makes a lot of sense if that’s what happened. I mean few people I interviewed from BCG were complete bumbling morons. Couldn’t believe they were part of BCG.
McKinsey btw has a small, different issue: while their bottom quartile is so much better than BCG’s bottom quartile, I have met few who think they are gods (but the worst ego maniac I ever interviewed was from a T2 lol), but whatever, they’re sharp and get the job done well.
I honestly respect a somewhat well-earned ego than sheer incompetence.
BCG/Bain ig lowered the bar too much, and there’s a clear difference in talent showing up 1-3 years after this “lowering” as you said (once these people start exiting). Better heighten the bar or do something else real soon before more people start noticing…otherwise it’s going to be M>>BB
I have noticed that BCG has jumped more into AI/tech strategy. Friend of mine in big pharma has been at their offices before for collaboration. No slight to him but I was surprised that at his somewhat junior level, he was one of the designated point of contacts. He's a product execution guy (pretty much a senior BA masked into a more fancy appearing title) - not someone who runs product strategy.
Why are you interviewing "bottom 25%" from anywhere in the first place?
Because our pay hasn’t kept up with inflation (but still is relatively good). Plus, bottom bucket at MBB used to still be pretty good, until BB suddenly started to fall off on average over the past 1-2 years. Top performers still great at all.
Have you ever thought maybe you're interviewing duds because none of the top candidates want to work for your firm?
In his defense I think you also have to think about the pool of candidates at disposal. The bottom 16.6% is all in the hiring market, they cannot stay at the firm and thus will always be in the staffing market.
The middle 66% likely stay at the firm, these are your 3s; doing well enough to stay at the firm and keep progressing. Say your staffing market is half of these.
The top 16.6% are the ones you’ll always get the least of. These are top performers that wither plan on rising within the firm or have their eyes set on big exits (tech, AI, start-up). How much of this pie can you really take as a normal firm?
Here's my two cents as someone from one of the B's and many friends across all of the MBB.
I worked at McK and 1) is so true, even though I never even thought about that explicitly. They force you to take significant end to end ownership and throw you into the cold water early on.
Also, you learn this from watching partners. Theres just so much BSing/shenanigans in client meetings thrown out with 110% confidence independent how shaky the underlying analysis is. They also love to throw around figures and sizings and a client once told me, only McK does that so upfront (vs. BCG who likes to do more bottom up confirmation/analysis, everything at McKinsey is top down). I can think of so many absurd situations :D like I was running some completely half baked analysis in the middle of the night that I wasn‘t confident at all just for the partner to take it into the client meeting in the morning and spit out „we already looked at this, no worry we have checked this, the effect is only … - but please [insert my name] jump in if I am saying something wrong“. LMAO
I realized that I picked up on this when I did my interviews and kept just talking and throwing out bold statements even though I did not know anything because thats how I was trained, lmao.
Wrt to reporting I mean its table to stakes to report to EM from day one (and I am surprised that this is not the case at the BBs?). I say the scarier thing at MBB is that you pretty fast report to intimidating senior partners, particularly if your EM is kinda swamped and a bit more lenient in how he holds PS sessions. In my first year I had to even present in a full boardroom to a chief of strategy and CEO and CFO of a large subsidiary. The (young) partner on this study was absolutely insane in terms of WLB and intensity but she sat there side by side with me and I was impressed how she steered the conversation and backed me whenever things got a little heated.
At BCG, people report to the PL (EM equivalent) from day 1. I think Bain is the only one different because they want to give their 2nd rung people more people management.
2. Yeah the tippy-top of McKinsey is unparalleled, but they’re not who we target since our compensation is not competitive (compared to MBB exit standards). I know one super star who is now a 30 year old rockstar partner lol but if he left, he definitely could be a big shot out in the world.
Thanks for your insights. Makes sense.
I really appreciate this response. It really well contextualizes my anecdotal experience of how of the MBB people I know, McKinsey people have been the ones to generally always impress me.
Not consulting but I worked at a big name BB in M&A and the mediocrity was rife
Really wasn't what I was expecting, some questionable talent that really shouldn't have had a look-in but alas
Congrats on UBS!
Hahaha sadly not, American BB
Just anecdotally but its funny to me how generally of MBB, people at McKinsey have been the ones to generally always impress me.
Seconded
interesting observation - i think it really varies by region and strongly correlates with the harsher downsizing of mckinsey in the past years.
for the latter, McK has been harsher in kicking people than the BBs, which in turn can result in a more competent seeming sample.
having worked at both M and BBs, I am not defending the BBs, but I doubt there are noteworthy differences in the quality of consultants.
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