Generally, it seems as if Bain’s career path is the longest but more on that at a big When Do Most Consultants Leave Consulting? The First “Exit Path” Is About Two Years After Grad School In this case, you likely would have to spend an additional six months or year in the BA role and it might come with the title “Senior Business Analyst.” At McKinsey and BCG this is more of an exception than the rule.Īt Bain, this third year is more of a norm and often people spend a full year in Bain’s famous private equity practice (not to be confused with Bain Capital, but the firms do overlap a lot on the companies they work with). If you really wanted to jump from Business Analyst to Associate at McKinsey for example, that is definitely a possible path if you are a top performer. Grad school is not a requirement but more of an accepted norm because so many people follow that path. Most people go to grad school because they want the experience AND the firms often promise to reimburse anyone who returns to the firm. In the US, it’s mostly two years and two years separated by grad school. For example, in Germany, there are often “fellow” positions that combine some form of Academic work with project-based work. This often has to do with different educational timelines and labor requirements. However, there is a lot of variation, especially across the globe. For the post-undergraduate and post-graduate roles, the average time in tenure is about two years. The tenure in role is most defined at the earliest points in the career path. Each Role Is About Two Years (and at Bain it’s three) It’s no surprise that places like McKinsey have much stronger cultures than other mid-tier firms that hire people at the senior level from a wide range of places. This means they deeply understand how the firm works, how it makes money, and the different types of skills needed. Most partner and senior leaders started at the entry-level (either out of undergrad or after grad school) and have worked in every single job on the career ladder. While consulting firms get a lot of flak for hiring young people without any experience, this is actually the bread and butter of what makes these top firms so strong. These numbers are always going up but the ratio is probably still somewhat the same. For example, when I was in the Boston office of Boston Consulting Group, it seemed like there were 8-9 entry-level “associates” each year compared to 30-50 “consultants” (or more). While all of these firms hire at the entry level, competition for these spots is much fiercer than it is for spots out of grad school. Strategy Consulting Firms Hire Entry-Level Consultants, But Typically Less Than Grad School Hires It’s often the case that the junior team members fresh out of college are able to adapt a lot easier than the seasoned expert. The thing that makes this work is that the consulting process in these firms is a completely different way of working than you find in other industries. in neuroscience who is 36, an industry expert that’s 40, and a new grad consultant who’s fresh out of college. So you might have a project where the Partner is 35 and is overseeing a project leader who is 28 in charge of three junior colleagues: a Ph.D. No matter how much experience someone has (sometimes it’s only 1-2 years, other times it’s 10-15 years), everyone starts at the same level. While this used to mean mostly MBAs, all of these firms now hire PhDs, law grads, and people from other disciplines. Most of that hiring still happens at the grad-school level. This meant they needed to hire younger people and train them. As the scale and ambition of these firms increased, they needed more people to do the work and needed to develop internal pipelines of future partners. In the early days, top consulting firms were led by people who had careers in other industries and specific expertise. The Analyst and Associate Levels: Early-Career In Strategy Consulting In terms of responsibilities and time in role, the roles at the top three consulting firms (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) are very similar. What’s the difference between an “associate consultant,” “business analyst,” or “associate”? Short answer: not much.
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