Which McKinsey Office to Choose?

Hi fellow monkeys,

I was lucky enough to receive a McKinsey offer today after roughly two years of pursuit. I am now faced with one of the most major decisions: which office to choose out of New York, DC, Chicago or Silicon Valley?

Would love to pick your brains. My priorities are as followed: (1) good career development opportunities, (2) good office culture, (3) Low tax rate & costs of living, (4) Standards of living

 
Best Response

Note: I am not at all familiar with McKinsey's presence in any of these areas.

I would imagine your career development will be dependent on your performance on the projects you are assigned, so that one would probably be up to you where ever you go.

The culture, someone else should speak on, but I can't imagine they will be hugely different across offices, it would probably depend on your particular staffings.

Chicago is easily (IMO) the best bet as far as cost of living, especially compared to DC/NY/SV. I love Chicago, although I have never lived there. You may not enjoy living in the Midwest, but Chicago is a beautiful city and it was a lot cleaner than I expected it to be. That would probably be my choice, but I have no interest in Silicon Valley. DC would be my second choice, but it's also incredibly expensive.

 

Thanks for your reply!

I agree that Chicago is a great city, I loved it when I visited for a week. Nice inner city and clean streets. But the weather is a big turn-off. DC was, in my head, my first choice, then Chicago second.

 

I see, is your offer for a non-generalist role then? Also, Chicago will have the lowest CoL out of the 4 but I think you should focus on what you want to do at McK and get out of it in terms of next steps/ exit opps more!

 

Congrats! Couple things to think about:

What industries are u most interested in? Predictably, work in SF will be tech heavy while NYC and CHI will have lots of financial services projects. Same goes for public sector opportunities in DC. Although McK prides itself on the global staffing model and is less geographically targeted than Bain, they still organize around "office" or region e.g., west coast and your access to the partners selling the projects of interest will be better in specific offices

How much do you care about office "prestige"? Though the differences are relatively marginal, NYC and Silicon Valley will definitely have an edge reputation-wise over the other two

Last, and not to be forgotten, which location is best for retaining a healthy work/life balance? The consulting lifestyle is hard as it is, and it helps to be close to friends/family.

Good luck

 

Thanks everyone for pitching in! I have made my decision after weighing your opinions. I will keep my choice confidential but I can surely say all comments were helpful to my thought process!

 

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