serenade12:
Does anyone have any insight into MBB consulting in Korea? Do they conduct business in strictly Korean? Do they hire from US colleges and any insight into the culture?

I've heard hours are absolutely terrible.

"'In summary, people are morons and who cares. Make a shit ton of money. I've never seen a Ferrari paid for by what people think.' - ANT" -rufiolove
 
acronym:
serenade12:
Does anyone have any insight into MBB consulting in Korea? Do they conduct business in strictly Korean? Do they hire from US colleges and any insight into the culture?

I've heard hours are absolutely terrible.

This. I've heard from a korean deloitte s&o consultant that the hours are the worst compared to any other nation.
 
acronym:
serenade12:
Does anyone have any insight into MBB consulting in Korea? Do they conduct business in strictly Korean? Do they hire from US colleges and any insight into the culture?

I've heard hours are absolutely terrible.

Confirming ^^^. co-workers (MBB) had a project in Seoul as well. team barely slept.

 
  1. Not "strictly" in Korean but you will miss out if you're not at least proficient
  2. They do hire from US target or semi-target (and to a lesser extent, other schools if you're Korean and have excellent EC/grades and of course ace the interviews)
  3. I'm quoting one of MBB partners who told me here: "I cannot imagine working in South Korea. They have one of the most brutal hours in the world. It's just sad to see the men slaving away till 3AM, doze off in their chair for 3-4 hours and then up and cranking again, EVERYDAY". Go figure!

P/S: You do realize all of the MBB in Asia Pacific have brutal hours right?

My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil - JP Getty
 

interesting.

what about the travel - do they usually serve clients just within South Korea? I ask this because international consulting firms have local offices in Japan, China and they speak different languages anyway.

 
Best Response

From my experience at BCG Korea, you don't "have" to be fluent in English. You just need to be able to speak it well enough. My manager wasn't fluent by any means, but he could carry on a conversation.

Consulting in Korea is really two fold: 1) 90%+ of the projects at BCG were in Korea and probably over 60% of them were in Seoul. Only a few big companies can really afford MBB in Korea, places such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai, etc. and those place are all in Seoul. 2) Consulting in Korea (even at MBB) has more operations than strategy (probably 60-40 split). No one in Korea has this mindset of strategy>operations. At the end of the day, all the partners care about is that they're making enough to not get fired.

Korea is bull, IMO. A lot of these big companies (Samsung, LG, Hyundai) have internal consultants who have the strategy in mind and simply need the consultants to confirm this strategy. Also, of course the need for the CEO to go to the board and say "BCG said to do this...."

 

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