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Bain already released their plans for a virtual summer after McKinsey with no mention of giving full time jobs, so that opens the door to BCG also not doing it.
Hmmm will be interesting to see what BCG does; from a purely competitive point of view, feels like there's very little reason not to do what McK did because: 1) They usually give 90-95% return offers anyway; giving 100% doesn't feel like a huge deal, especially given that the internships will now be virtual and they may need to give more anyway. 2) Not doing what McK did imposes risk of current interns leaving for McK or being less likely to take return offers.
3) MBB are directly competing - Bain's perception in comparison to McK will doubtlessly suffer due to this decision; as someone who decided between MBBs a distinction between how the firms treated employees during this crisis would almost certainly influence my decision would I need to make it again.
As for why Bain did what it did, they announced the same day as McK - with the decision made before they heard what McK was doing. That's a different situation to be in than BCG who will certianly know what McK and Bain did. Moreover, I wouldn't be so sure Bain will not shift to include the caveats that the internship is opt-in and/or that full-time offers are guaranteed, especially given the risk that BCG/McK both make it such
I think you’re exaggerating. In this environment, when many firms give out automatic FT offers, it can become very easy to feel entitled to it like it’s some sort of compensation for the stress everyone is undoubtedly having during such a crisis. But you should look at it more sober.
I guess most firms give out automatic FT offers because either: - it’s very hard for interns to work remotely (for instance, IB where, e.g., it is crucial that you have stable access to databases like Bloomberg, FactSet etc. which is difficult when WFH); or - much of the project pipeline has dried out or is uncertain, so there is no choice but to cancel internships and give out FT offers
I assume you are at either Bain or BCG given your comment. Think about it this way. These are companies that typically do their very best to make interns happy. If they switch to virtual and do not give the automatic option to not attend/get FT offer, they will have thought about this very hard—
Consulting is an industry where it is (comparably) easy to switch to WFH. Also, I assume that MBB don’t have any issues with not finding a project for their interns. Why would it warrant an automatic FT offer if the above-mentioned reasons do not apply and you could easily do the same work as pre-COVID from home? You will certainly get the same infrastructure, mobile internet plan, compensation, etc. And I’m 100% sure if there’s any other issue (e.g., you have to care about sick family, you live in a rural area with no connection at all, etc.) you’d just have to call them and they’ll find a solution for you.
If I were you, I would be see the positive aspects in this. For instance, Bain is known for their intense scrutiny of cultural fit. In that way, I can understand that they don’t give out automatic FT offers because, even if ultimately 90% get return offers anyway, cultural fit is something you can only test with personal interaction—and I think it would be really positive for you (if you’re at Bain) and the firm, if you end up working there knowing that almost everyone at Bain ended up there because they enjoyed working with each other. And perhaps it’s a good learning experience as well to WFH; for all we know, there might be more waves of this darn virus coming.
Look, I don’t know why McK chose to give out automatic FT offers / optional internship. I also don’t know why Bain chose to go ahead with virtual internship. I don’t even know whether both are true. But I’m pretty sure that this decision does not justify saying that one firm cares for their employees more than another.
Also do keep in mind that automatically hiring ~10% more this summer means that you also have to get rid of that excess capacity somewhere else, and I bet that this will happen also through firing existing low performers and not only through decreasing direct FT hires this fall. So, even perhaps rather small in case of MBB, there is a trade-off whether you want to assuage current employees that they’ll not be laid off during a crisis, or interns that they’ll be hired.
You make some strong points but I think there are a few dimensions on which I'm not sure I agree with your analysis: I'd love to hear your thoughts because it's clear you have insight.
I don't think the two reasons you mentioned, 1. Much of the project pipeline drying out and 2. It being very hard for interns to work remotely are the only reasons that automatic FT offers are the only ones: I think there's many other reasons, including first and foremost, 1. increased difficulty in providing a great experience (i.e. McK can't do intern training in CA, BCG can't do sick dinners/ intern retreats, etc). that make it harder for the firms to sell themselves - as you indicated, this is crucial to the firms 2. increased difficulty in onboarding 3. increased difficulty in evaluating interns 4. increased difficulty in finding cultural fit (both for interns and for fulltime employees) and yes 5. competitive dynamics - there's no doubt that Bain interns must feel a little bit cheated in comarison to McK interns - for MBB these competitive dynamics doubtlessly matter.
There are many more reasons and probably even more compelling reasons than the 5 that came immediately to mind, but all this is to say that there are many other reasons to give guaranteed FT.
As for some of your other points, particularly around the tradeoff between fullime employees and interns, I think there's a third category here we aren't considering, i.e. fulltime hiring. Given that the ratio of interns:fulltime hires: current analysts is probably somewhere in the range of 1:1.5:5, a delta of what is at most 10% in terms of interns who have fulltime offers who otherwise would not only really requires a reduction of 3% in the other categories - doesn't feel like a huge deal to me. That's not even to mention that I would assume that given internships are remote, more interns than normal will be given fulltime offers anyway. And furthermore, that all these analsysts are super cheap to begin with so who is to say that MBB would need to axe anyone anyway. I doubt the 5%, if that, influx in BAs and Associates at McKinsey because they gave all interns a fulltime offer, will really affect their bottom line.
As for the positive aspects of this, I don't think giving fulltime offers is mutually exclusive with interns reeping the positive benefits you mentioned. McKinsey is giving people the option to do the internship if they want and thus to evaluate the culture/learn should they want to (with a fulltime offer in hand). For anyone interning at Bain right now, it's clear that McK incoming interns get basically all the important positives they get, with the huge plus of a fulltime offer in hand, a big weight off their shoulders to say the least, in an extremely stressful time for all of us.
I think from the firm's perspectives, just evaluating McK's decision vs Bain's decision - McK clearly a) gained a long-term reputational edge - which is doubtlessly valuable and b) left its interns more satisfied - also something these firms clearly value at the cost of maybe a 5% increase in BAs/Associates - probably not a huge deal, ultimately, given how cheap these BAs/Associates are in the grand scheme of things.
Good for you that you're going to McKinsey but literally no one cares about this. If you want to talk reputation start first with actual potentially damaging events and take a tally (e.g. insider trading, corruption, support of authoritarian regimes and what not). That hasn't turned the dial significantly it seems, so why would a decision on whether to give interns free offers for a year do?
Not even at McKinsey next summer.
As the comment below from an incoming Bainee demonstrates, morale of the incoming Bain interns are definitely significantly lower than that of incoming McKinsey interns. That's hundreds of potential interns.
You'd be lying to yourself if you think that at MBAs and undergrads across the country that people would not now be more likely to take McK over Bain given the precedent of this summer than they were before.
I know for me, as someone who chose BCG over McK, that such information certainly would have made me think twice about choosing BCG over McK because of "culture."
I still think that putting so much weight on automatic FT offers is more than a bit shallow. I mean almost all reasons mentioned above by mbbthrowaway why a virtual internship is supposedly futile and automatic FT offers the logic consequence is a bit too simple for me—
There are plenty regular FT hires at MBB that will be virtually onboarded over the course of the next months and I’m sure MBB are prepared well to do this smoothly and as enjoyable with class events etc. as possible. And also, without doubt, their entire corporate culture and mode of work (incl. review, events, communication, etc.) will keep on functioning well. I mean, this situation is probably going to stay for some time, if not going to repeat itself again rather sooner than later; it’s pretty much our new normal now.
In that respect, I do understand that, if a firm has succeeded in transitioning to WFH and fully virtual, they'd also be looking to involve their interns (and prospective FT hires) into the whole virtual experience. In my opinion, having interns go through the whole virtual experience is the logic and prudent consequence of this probably being a new normal in the near-/mid-term. And as said, I can’t imagine that Bain would not do everything they can to help in case any intern is having trouble doing virtual this summer.
Again—without knowing the reasons behind McK’s and Bain’s decision respectively. I don’t think that almost anyone who has been able to get an internship at MBB is in such a despicable position, even in this crisis, that automatic FT offers would be reflective of whether an employer cares for them or not.
Seriously... saying that automatic FT offers are some sort of make-or-break indicator of how caring a corporate culture is, is imho really too short-sighted and too shallow. If that is really determining whether to choose McK or Bain or BCG (or or PwC or Deloitte or LEK...)... that’s a bit too much of discounting all other indicators of culture and a bit too much inflating the chance of 100% FT offer instead of 90% FT offer for my taste.
How about you all go ahead with the Bain or whatever non-McK internship you have and if after that you say that the experience was s*** and the culture is trash, then, by all means, go to McK. But calling that shot based on these darn FT offers only...yeah, I don’t know.
I think that you are overestimating the value people place on experience at this time. Obviously the experiences you talk about are cool but it's not the auto FT offers that took those experiences away, it's a pandemic. So like I don't see the logic of your argument? People are losing out on far more than the internship experience during this time and having the security of a full-time job post-grad is valuable. Especially when there is a freaking pandemic, record high unemployment numbers and an impeding economic depression whose resolution is dependent on the controlling of an infectious disease by a President who doesn't grasp middle school biology... the future looks bleak so it's a bit starry-eyed to talk about the "loss of the experience". Also, people be acting like FT hires aren't a thing. Those people make the decision without having the intern experinece so it's not anything novel. In fact, more people join consulting without having an intern experience.