Ask me anything: Consultant at MBB

Haha true. I thought WSO may attract applicants who are more serious about it, since it's the sole purpose for why WSO exists, but will consider that!

Take this with a grain of salt, as I work in the US and my answer stems from what consultants I've spoken to in international offices have said.

You allude to this in your question, but it really depends on the office. At my MBB, it varies based on what language the clients primarily operate in, as well as what the rest of the employees at the office can speak. Not really based on the size of the market. For example, offices in some Asian countries (most prominently China & Korea), European countries (like you said, Germany, France, Italy etc.) and Latin American countries, linguistic ability is particularly important, and not being able to speak the local language may be a deal breaker. As for your 2-3 years at a T2, I think this may be different on a case by case basis. Depending on how strong your performance was, and the types of engagements they have (maybe half German, half English, while another MBB could have mostly German), there may be some wiggle room. Speaking with the recruiter or someone from the office to gauge the importance of the local language may be best before proceeding further haha.

That said, you can consider going into non-client facing roles (knowledge specialist?), in which linguistic ability may not be as important, or a nearby English speaking country.

Not quite sure my AMA applies directly to this question but in my opinion, financial services and systems related to it (credit scores, fraud protection, insurance to a certain extent). Further development of blockchain and advances in detection mechanisms amongst others might change the industry.

How long have you been at your Fintech company, and what is your role there (business dev, more analytical...)? Depending on your experiences, and whether a MBA might help, you can decide to come into different branches of consulting (BCG Gamma, McK Digital, Bain Digital Transformation etc.), or consider going into specific industry verticals from the beginning (OW, S&?).

Trying to keep things a bit general so that they can be applied and be helpful to everyone. 1. The presentation they showed us had a number like ~75% for HBS and SGSB if I remember correctly. The info slide also said that ~90%+ applicants who applied to an MBA business schools">M7 got in, so take that as you will.

2. Hotels, airlines, gyms, rental cars. Some places offer mobile plan discounts, while others might just let you expense them or give you a company phone.

3. I think my biggest time waster was trying to thoroughly read through reports I needed to craft a story, or getting stuck down the rabbit hole of browsing websites aimlessly in hopes of finding a relevant statistic. To save time on that, I've been learning to ask the knowledge/specialist team for help rather than being stubborn haha. If your company doesn't have resources like that, just get help from other analysts or your manager so that you can get things done. Chances are, someone's done it before.

4. At the beginning of the engagement, I talk to my manager/senior and let them know what my work and lifestyle is like. For example, now that my manager knows I'm more of a night owl, need 1 hour after dinner once a week to take care of personal things, and that I go to the gym right after work, they can trust me to work during the other hours that I have not carved out for myself. That said, my manager is also a pretty chill person so the "healthy boundary" that you spoke about can be more easily achieved. Being super transparent from the very start and level setting then really manages lifestyle balances going forward.

I haven't been at my MBB for long, so haven't seen too many people leave yet, nor can I give a super detailed account of what the process is like. Sorry! Though a quick search on LinkedIn shows me quite a few alumni for places like Blackstonr, KKR, Carlyle.

Not the AMA but I have been working at a boutique strategy & ops house for a few year, (compete with MBB).

In my experience, the consulting framework is quite good at solving process based issues, as internal stakeholders at multinationals (especially in FS companies) often structure many workflows/processes with no eye on efficiency or synergistic talent. An example of this would be creating workflows or new team makeups after a merger or consolidation, senior leadership does a poor job, the business case is loss-making, and they bring in consultants to find out wtf happened. Often the issues are poor resource management, hiring, misuses of acquired technology...these problems are tough to see from the inside but consultants looking at a birds eye level can catch them quicker.

Consultants have a tried and true framework for solving these issues, quantifying the efficiency savings, all while cutting through the bullshit that is corporate politics / jockeying.

Problems they don't solve well, I think human capital / performance issues. A lot of time consultants will get flak for being poor at reading company culture. fully understanding a culture takes months to years of real down and dirty work, relationship building, meetings, after hours drinks, lunch outings, etc. When consultants are brought in for a 4 month stint to fix "culture problems" or "human capital issues" i think its hard to truly understand these factors (different for every org) in such a short time. Putting a ping pong table in the break room doesnt change years of bad hiring and toxic culture, regardless of what we'll tell you.

Books that helped me - Thinking Fast and Slow, Back of the Napkin, gona get a lot of flak for this but i think Sinek's Leaders Eat Last is a decent book to understand management vs leadership.