A brief history of McKinsey

McKinsey was founded by James O. McKinsey in Chicago in 1926. The firm’s first Partners were Andrew T. Kearney, who joined the Chicago branch in 1929, and Marvin Bower, who was hired in 1933 to manage the firm’s new branch in New York.

Kearney and Bower split the firm in 1939 following the death of James McKinsey in 1937. Kearney continued to run the firm out of Chicago as A. T. Kearney and Company, which is still in operation today as Kearney. Marvin Bower, meanwhile, teamed up with some of his fellow Partners in New York to relaunch the office there as McKinsey & Company.

Described by Harvard Business Review as “the father of modern management consulting”, Bower is credited with establishing McKinsey’s values and principles, which remain integral to the firm today. The internal publication authored by Bower, Perspectives on McKinsey – which details the firm’s methods and principles – is still given in its original form to all new joiners. Although Bower’s years of actively leading the firm spanned from 1950 to 1967, he remained a leadership figure at McKinsey until 1992.

The firm has made several acquisitions to develop its capabilities in a number of emerging areas. These include sustainability, climate change and design, as well as data science and AI, with the acquisition of QuantumBlack (now QuantumBlack AI by McKinsey) in 2015. This made McKinsey the first consulting firm to enter the AI space, and earned the firm a reputation of having a pioneering approach towards adopting new technologies. In 2023, it became the first management consulting firm to adopt generative AI as part of its consulting toolkit.

Over the years, McKinsey has developed new ways of serving its clients beyond the provision of traditional consulting services. Through ‘asset-based consulting’, the firm leverages advanced technology, proprietary data and deep expertise to deliver solutions in the areas of diagnostics, market intelligence management technology and analytics.

What is McKinsey known for?

Areas of expertise

For senior leaders at most top global organizations, McKinsey is the go-to adviser across a range of critical questions, from strategy and operations through to digital. The firm has been the pioneer of bringing the strategy consulting approach deeper into its client organization, through functional practice areas. Today, the firm’s size allows it to offer its clients unparalleled expertise in virtually every industry and function.

Controversies

As the market leader, McKinsey is subject to a great deal of scrutiny – greater, perhaps, than other top management consulting firms – and has been criticized for playing a role in a number of controversies over the years:

• The firm is said to have encouraged some of its Wall Street clients to adopt practices that contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent global recession.
• From 2004-2019, McKinsey advised Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, the drug that fueled the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States. In 2021, McKinsey paid $600 million to settle investigations into its role in promoting sales of OxyContin and helping Purdue Pharma circumvent regulation.
• Additionally, the firm has been accused of supporting authoritarian regimes by working with clients such as the Saudi Arabian monarchy, Turkey’s autocratic president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and several Chinese and Russian companies operating under sanctions.

In the wake of these headline-making stories, the inner workings of McKinsey have been the subject of a number of management consulting books, including The Firm: The Inside Story of McKinsey, The World’s Most Controversial Management Consultancy by journalist Duff McDonald.

Alumni

Known for being a ‘CEO factory’, McKinsey has many notable alumni, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Chelsea Clinton.

What is McKinsey’s culture?

The world of McKinsey can be described as one that values intellect over experience, influence over compulsion, logic over emotion, and fact over gut feel. It’s also a place that is outwardly positive and upbeat, and where very little is seen as impossible.

There are a number of other factors that make the working culture at McKinsey both unique and appealing:

McKinsey colleagues are incredibly collaborative and helpful

Despite the fierce competition to get into McKinsey, the culture inside the firm is one of collaboration and support. People are always willing to help, and often take pride in being the most helpful person in a group. If a consultant sends an email to their office, practice or cohort about a client-related question or challenge, they can expect to receive a large number of responses from their colleagues.

Everyone has a voice on a McKinsey project team; it’s not at all uncommon for a new hire to discuss a point with a senior Partner during a problem-solving session. As a result, McKinsey can feel like a very flat organization.

There’s also a real sense of people caring about each other. Decisions – such as those on project staffing – are often driven by what’s best for an individual and their development.

This culture of support and collaboration is enabled by McKinsey’s approach to promotions. Instead of limiting the number of promotions it can award, the firm promotes anyone who demonstrates the level of performance required at each stage of the consulting career path.

Feedback is integral to the culture at McKinsey

At McKinsey, feedback is used as a tool to help colleagues continually improve the way they work and raise the bar when it comes to their performance. The firm’s feedback model is one of the first things that new joiners learn.

Feedback at McKinsey is both frequent and expected. At a minimum, it will take the form of a 20-minute chat between consultant and manager every two weeks. However, it’s common for additional feedback to be provided on an ongoing basis in relation to a consultant’s day-to-day activities. This will include the client meetings they participate in, the presentation decks they prepare and the data modeling they undertake. The goal of the feedback is to help consultants learn and improve in the shortest amount of time, and to create a cohesive culture in which everyone works in a similar way.

In addition to receiving frequent ‘downward’ feedback from their manager and more senior colleagues, consultants at McKinsey are also expected and encouraged to provide upward feedback to their peers and higher-tenured colleagues.

Excellence is in McKinsey’s DNA

Given McKinsey’s enduring elite status in the consulting world, it’s no surprise that the firm sets the highest of standards in every area of its operation. The pursuit of excellence touches everything that McKinsey does, from its professionalism to the quality of the presentations it produces for clients, the rigor of its analyses, and the work ethics of its consultants.

McKinsey’s commitment to excellence is underpinned by its approach to reviewing the performance of its consultants regularly. Those who do not meet the required standards are often asked to leave the firm under its ‘up or out’ policy.

McKinsey is committed to its values

McKinsey is fiercely committed to upholding its values. In light of the recent controversies in which the firm has been embroiled, this is perhaps more true now than ever before.

McKinsey’s values are:

• Adhere to the highest professional standards: this means putting client interests ahead those of the firm, observing high ethical standards, and preserving client confidences.
• Improve our clients’ performance significantly: this means following the firm’s ‘top-management’ approach, pursuing holistic impact, and using the firm’s global network to deliver the best results for its clients.
• Create an unrivaled environment for exceptional people: this means being non-hierarchical and inclusive, developing one another through apprenticeship and mentoring, and upholding the right to engage or dissent. If any team member believes that work is not being done in the best interests of the client, or that the firm’s values are not being upheld, they have a mandate – and responsibility – to object.

What is it like to work at McKinsey?

Here are some of the ways in which McKinsey’s culture translates into the experience of working at the firm.

McKinsey has a very international, ‘one-firm’ community

The McKinsey culture is incredibly international. While consultants are part of an office in a specific location, several different nationalities can often be represented in a single project team. There are also opportunities for consultants to work on short-term global projects and, for longer-term projects, to relocate to a new office.

As knowledge and expertise is shared openly among offices, McKinsey consultants often seek the input of industry experts in different states, countries or even continents. The firm’s training events, which are attended by consultants from around the world, provide an additional opportunity for colleagues of different backgrounds to connect and interact.

Although McKinsey’s consultants are from a wide range of locations and backgrounds, they all tend to think, talk and communicate in a similar way. Assemble a group of McKinsey colleagues from offices around the world, and they’ll immediately come together and start working naturally as a single team.

A former McKinsey consultant on our coaching team tells us: “During my time at McKinsey, I was able to serve clients across six countries out of two major hubs and three offices. I was a coach and interviewer across all these geographies and saw the consistency of McKinsey’s standard for hiring first hand. The firm’s expectations were always the same, which ensured that the quality of talent was consistently high in every location.”

McKinsey colleagues are impressive and diverse

McKinsey is a melting pot for those who have been conventionally successful, from graduates of prestigious universities like Oxford, Harvard and Yale, to alumni of Google, Goldman Sachs and the military. It’s not uncommon to come across McKinsey consultants who have been Olympic gold medallists, extremely senior members of government, or even rocket scientists.

Engineers, data scientists and UI/UX designers also feature in McKinsey’s population as a result of its recent focus on developing capabilities in areas such as digital, sustainability and AI through its expert career track.

Our research into recruitment at McKinsey, BCG and Bain (MBB) illustrates McKinsey’s commitment to hiring a diverse pool of candidates. In our analysis of MBB hiring around the world, we found that McKinsey hired the most MBA graduates with an international background. It was also the firm that hired the most candidates from outside of a country’s top university. And in our analysis of gender parity in MBB hiring, we found that McKinsey made the highest number of female hires.

McKinsey has its own language

At McKinsey, there are endless acronyms for all sorts of internal phrases. A consultant might say: “Fill out your EPR after you’re done with FLITE, but make sure your EM talks to the AP before it’s passed on to your DGL or PD.” While this language will be virtually meaningless to most people, other McKinsey consultants will be able to translate it easily.

Academic terms are another common feature of the McKinsey vernacular: a project is a ‘study’, temporary postings are ‘fellowships’, and colleagues who have been at the firm a long time are ‘higher-tenured’ than new joiners. This type of language lends something of an academic feel to working at McKinsey.

As the Myers-Briggs personality framework is widely used within the firm, consultants also tend to refer to Myers-Briggs type indicators (MBTI) in relation to themselves and others.

PowerPoint is used extensively

Although it has made efforts to move away from this recently, McKinsey has a strong bias towards using PowerPoint. Junior consultants spend hours creating decks, and McKinsey even has a full-time offshore graphics team to provide support with designing slides.

McKinsey consultants work collaboratively with clients

When it comes to the work that consultants do, the classic McKinsey approach is to collaborate with clients every step of the way: sitting in their offices, testing and refining ideas with them, and delivering interim recommendations with their input.

Because consultants co-create solutions with their clients, the final meeting usually contains very few surprises. As a result, there is rarely a single ‘big bang’ presentation at the end of a project.

The environment can be stressful

At McKinsey, consultants work long hours under a great deal of pressure and scrutiny. As a result, some can become overwhelmed, burn out, and even get sick.

In recent years, there has been a sincere attempt on the firm’s part to address this by introducing initiatives designed to improve consultants’ work-life balance. McKinsey’s ‘Take Time’ program, for example, allows consultants to take an additional 10 weeks of unpaid leave during the year.

While improvements have been made in this area, the firm’s mission to over-deliver for clients tends to make the environment at McKinsey naturally stressful, and the desire to improve work-life balance is among the reasons why many people leave consulting after two to four years.

McKinsey is both structured and fluid

While McKinsey teaches its consultants to think in a highly structured way, the organization itself is somewhat fluid. Consultants often have a say in the projects they work on, but sometimes also have to travel to work in another office with just a couple of days’ notice. Projects have managers and leading Partners, but consultants don’t have a set ‘boss’.

Rules are rarely codified and seldom enforced to the letter at McKinsey. Exceptions can always be made, and the strength and breadth of a consultant’s internal network will often determine which way something will go. It’s an organization driven by norms, values and networks, rather than regulation and process.

McKinsey is an affluent and rarefied place

At McKinsey, consultants’ lunches and dinners are usually paid for, taxis and rental cars are readily available, and there is a generous policy on hotel rooms and meals for business travel. While it’s not a culture of excess, it’s certainly one of comfort: whatever happens, consultants know they can expect everything to be taken care of.

How to answer the “why McKinsey?” question in an interview

Unlike in the fit interviews at BCG and Bain, this question isn’t a formal part of McKinsey’s Personal Experience Interview (PEI). However, articulating your reasons for applying to the firm in a clear and compelling way can certainly be helpful when it comes to creating a good impression with your interviewer.

Aim to be as specific as possible in your answer and avoid making generic statements. Having an example of how your strengths, goals or values align with the firm can be especially effective. This might be in relation to the work that McKinsey does, the types of clients it supports or its working culture.

It can also be helpful to highlight the research you have done into life at the firm, and to articulate why you have built such a positive impression.

If a career in management consulting sounds like it might be right for you, you can learn more in our complete guide to the management consulting industry. And if you’re preparing to apply to McKinsey, the resume and cover letter templates and specialized advice in our Free Resume Course will help you get your application in great shape.

A brief history of Bain

Bain & Company was founded by Bill Bain – a former BCG Partner – in Boston in 1973. With a number of former BCG consultants and clients making the move to Bain, the new firm grew quickly in the late 1970s and 1980s.

In 1984, Bain Capital – a private investment firm specializing in private equity – was founded by three Bain Partners. This group included future presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was appointed as Bain Capital’s CEO. Today, Bain Capital is completely independent from Bain & Company.

In 1991, Romney returned to Bain as interim CEO following a number of setbacks to the firm in the late 1980s. During his tenure in this position, Romney made a number of significant changes and has since been credited with saving Bain from bankruptcy. Most notably, he persuaded the firm’s founding Partners to give up $100m in equity. Today, Bain continues to be leaner than both McKinsey and BCG.

Before leaving Bain in 1992 to pursue his political career, Romney organized the election of new leadership at the firm, in the wake of Bill Bain’s departure. This resulted in the appointment of Orit Gadiesh as Chairman, a role she continues to hold today. Over the years, Gadiesh has been at the helm of a number of developments that have fuelled Bain’s growth, including relaxing the firm’s policy against working with multiple companies in the same industry.

At the turn of the century, Bain began to expand its technological capabilities. It also increased its reach in the private equity space and is now often seen as the industry’s leading advisor.

As a consequence of being smaller than its competitors, Bain is the fastest growing of the top-3 management consulting firms.

What is Bain & Company known for?

Like other top management consulting firms, Bain is known for working with the world’s largest organizations on some of their most important challenges and opportunities.

While the firm is particularly well known for its strengths in serving private equity clients, Bain also has a great deal of credibility within the field of consumer goods. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric was created by Bain’s Frederick Reichel in collaboration with the firm. Introduced by Reichel in a 2003 Harvard Business Review article, NPS measures the popularity and success of a brand by the degree to which a customer would recommend it to others. Today, NPS is used widely by consumer goods companies around the world.

Bain has several notable alumni, including Nike CEO John Donahoe, Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard, and Kevin Rollins, former CEO of Dell Inc.

What is the Bain culture?

When it comes to working at the firm, a number of factors make life as a ‘Bainie’ both unique and appealing:

‘A Bainie never lets another Bainie fail’

This motto is integral to Bain’s philosophy. Team members and other colleagues are all willing and ready to invest their time and effort in coaching and supporting one another. This collaborative culture is an important part of consultants’ professional development at Bain, and is considered to be unique to the firm.

Rapid career progression is possible

At McKinsey and BCG, consultants are expected to climb one new notch in their firm’s hierarchy at a time. Bain, on the other hand, allows high performers to climb several notches at once if they are deemed to be ready. Faster career progression is therefore available at Bain than it is at McKinsey and BCG, where some offices also require consultants to remain at each level for a specific period of time, regardless of their performance.

In addition, consultants at Bain gain managerial responsibility more quickly than they would at other firms. Those at Consultant level have a degree of oversight over Senior Associate Consultants, who, in turn, have a degree of oversight over Associate Consultants. This is significantly different from McKinsey and BCG, where team members all report to the same project leader.

While many find this prospect appealing, it presents an additional challenge for Bain’s experienced professional hires, who join the firm above entry level. These newcomers need to be prepared to start managing junior team members – who may have more consulting experience than them – shortly after joining.

Feedback is a focus

At Bain, feedback isn’t only given ‘downwards’ (from managers to team members); it’s also given ‘upwards’ (from team members to managers and sometimes even more senior colleagues) and ‘sideways’ (among peers).

The purpose of Bain’s focus on feedback is to ensure that consultants are able to constantly develop and grow their consulting skill set. Although the feedback culture can feel intense at times, it means that consultants are always aware of what they need to focus on in order to improve their performance. It also helps them to learn and develop quickly.

Results are the priority

Actions and results are the priority when it comes to delivering projects at Bain. This means that in every strategy case – no matter how ambiguous or ‘fluffy’ – consultants are expected to focus on supporting clients, taking actions and creating results.

Bain’s mission is underpinned by the concept of ‘True North’, which it describes as its “unwavering commitment to always do the right thing by our clients, people and communities”. This includes a strong focus on delivering tangible results for clients.

Fun and flexibility are important

The Bain culture is known for having a high degree of energy, and a mandate to enjoy the ride while working hard. Team events, social occasions, office parties and getaways are all an integral part of the Bain experience, allowing colleagues to connect, build relationships, and have fun. A highlight in the firm’s social calendar is the Bain World Cup, an annual sports competition that brings together thousands of employees from around the world.

Career flexibility is also baked into Bain’s culture. The firm’s approach to consulting project work allows consultants to take extended leaves of absence – for a long vacation, for example, or to explore a personal interest – without it jeopardizing their career. Consultants are matched to projects based on their availability. If they’re on vacation for a while, another consultant is simply placed on the project instead.

How to answer the “why Bain?” question in an interview?

The question “why Bain?” – which interviewers use to understand a candidate’s motivation for applying to the firm – is a formal element of Bain’s fit interview. If you’re in the process of applying to join Bain, it’s vital to spend some time considering how you will answer this question as part of your interview preparation.

Aim to be as specific as possible in your answer and avoid making generic statements. Having an example of how your strengths, goals or values align with the firm can be especially effective. This might be in relation to the work that Bain does, the types of clients it supports, or its culture.

It can also be helpful to highlight the research you have done into life at the firm, and to articulate why you have built such a positive impression.

A brief history of BCG

BCG was founded as part of The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company in 1963 by Bruce D. Henderson, one of the ‘Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century’, according to Harvard Business Review.

The firm was officially named Boston Consulting Group in 1969 to reflect Henderson’s collegial approach to leadership. In 1975, BCG purchased the firm from The Boston Company through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and became an independent entity.

By 1987, BCG had developed practice areas in four industry sectors: financial services, consumer products and retail, health care, and ‘high tech’. It had two functional areas: operational efficiency and mergers and acquisitions.

In 2000, the firm added IT architecture expertise to its capabilities, with the launch of BCG Platinion in Germany. Since then, BCG has continued to invest heavily in developing its digital and AI capabilities, launching BCG Digital Ventures in 2014, BCG GAMMA in 2015 and BCG X (which incorporates BCG Digital Ventures) in 2022.

More recently, BCG has focused on expanding its environmental expertise, launching a dedicated Climate Change and Sustainability practice in 2021. The firm served COP27 the following year as the climate change conference’s exclusive consulting partner.

Fueled by its growing technology capabilities – and likely benefiting from the misfortunes of McKinsey, which has been embroiled in a number of controversies – BCG has experienced significant growth in recent years.

What is BCG known for?

Like other top management consulting firms, BCG is known for working with the world’s largest organizations on some of their most important challenges and opportunities.

In 1970, it created and popularized the Growth Share Matrix, a framework that helps large corporations decide how to allocate cash among their business units. In 1988, BCG introduced the concept of time-based competition, which views time as the basis of strategy, rather than simply a resource.

Notable BCG alumni include former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Grammy award-winning musician John Legend. Bill Bain, the founder of top consulting firm Bain & Co, was a Partner at BCG.

What is the BCG culture?

When it comes to working at the firm, there are a number of factors that make life at BCG both unique and appealing:

Five ‘purpose pillars’ are fundamental to the firm’s culture

BCG places purpose at the heart of everything it does. Structured around the following five pillars, this emphasis on purpose has a strong bearing on the experience of being a consultant at BCG:

• Bring insight to light: “… by challenging traditional thinking and ways of operating, and bringing new perspectives to the toughest problems”.
• Drive inspired impact: “….by looking beyond the next deadline to the next decade and…collaborating closely with our clients to enable and energize their organizations”. A former BCG consultant on our coaching team tells us: “BCG strives for a very collaborative approach to working with clients, not only to get their buy in, but to develop the best solution together”.
• Conquer complexity: “…by discovering unique sources of competitive advantage and hidden truths in dynamic, complex systems”. Our coach adds: “BCG consultants are encouraged to think like entrepreneurs, take ownership of projects and seek innovative solutions. This entrepreneurial spirit is seen as essential for tackling complex business challenges”.
• Lead with integrity: “…by confronting the hard issues, staying true to our values and stating our views candidly and directly”.
• Grow by growing others: “…enabling our clients, colleagues, and the broader community to build success and achieve their full potential”. Our coach tells us: “At BCG, colleagues at every level are incredibly collaborative and helpful; even Senior Partners take the time to explain things clearly and comprehensively”.

Individuality is encouraged

BCG is a place where individuality is promoted and people are never pressured to conform with either colleagues or clients. Many former or current BCG consultants report that there is no single ‘BCG way of working’ or ‘BCG way of being’.

Another former BCG consultant on our coaching team tells us: “Because diverse perspectives are valued, every member of a BCG project team is encouraged and expected to have their own perspective on the problem, and to share it in case team meetings”.

Reflecting on her experience at BCG, our other coach recalls: “In my interviews everyone was so interested in me as a person: who I was and what was driving me, rather than simply what was written on my CV. Later on, as a BCG recruiter, many of my discussions about candidates revolved around their cultural fit with the firm and their ability to have an impact on BCG and help to make it a better company.”

This focus on individuality is underpinned by BCG’s global program ‘PTO’ (predictability, teaming and open communication), which is designed to help case teams both optimize for collaboration and set aside ‘protected time’ for individuals. The program is described by the firm as “a flagship example of BCG’s constant pursuit of better ways to work”.

Like other top consulting firms, BCG has a strong commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, both through its hiring practices and its community affiliation initiatives.

Feedback is focused on strengths

Introduced in 2016, BCG’s strengths-based approach to feedback involves focusing on an individual’s strengths, rather than their weaknesses.

According to a 2017 Harvard Business Review article, this initiative resulted from research showing that 63% of BCG consultants felt that feedback focused too heavily on areas for development. To address this issue, training and tools were introduced to enable managers to ground personal development in an individual’s differentiating strengths by creating a strengths inventory and linking each strength to a specific area for development.

This shift has changed how professional development is talked about at BCG, fostering a supportive environment in which consultants are developed and stretched in a positive way. It has also contributed to an 18% reduction in the number of senior managers who think that feedback at BCG centers excessively on development areas.

Meanwhile, this approach has helped BCG consultants leverage their strengths in order to address their weaknesses and accelerate their development.

Collaboration and fun are valued

BCG aims to foster an open and collaborative environment, and to break down barriers between cohorts, levels of seniority, and consulting and non-consulting staff. To this end, it provides a vast range of opportunities for colleagues to get to know one another, from monthly drinks to a variety of other social events, including annual ski trips.

How to answer the “why BCG?” question in a fit interview

The question “why BCG?” – which interviewers use to understand a candidate’s motivation for applying to the firm – is a formal element of the firm’s fit interview. If you’re in the process of applying to join BCG, it’s vital to spend some time considering how you will answer this question as part of your interview preparation.

Aim to be as specific as possible in your answer and avoid making generic statements. Having an example of how your unique strengths, goals or values align with the firm can be especially effective. This might be in relation to the work that BCG does, the types of clients it supports or its culture.

It can also be helpful to highlight the research you have done into life at the firm, and to articulate why you have built such a positive impression.

What are the Big-4 consulting firms?

‘The Big 4’ refers to four global professional services firms:

• EY (Ernst & Young)
• PwC
• Deloitte
• KPMG

The Big 4 are all large and incredibly complex organizations, each with between a quarter and half a million employees globally. Having begun as accounting firms, they have all expanded to provide a vast range of other specialized services, including tax, audit, compliance and consulting.

The Big 4’s consulting services span across a vast range of disciplines, covered by a number of teams with remits that often overlap. While the boundaries between these teams can be blurry, most of their work can be categorized into the following core areas:

Implementation and transformation

Implementation and transformation consultants deliver projects in response to “help me do it” requests from clients, rather than “what should I do?” questions. These consultants are not generalists; they are specialized in a particular sector from the outset.

Projects can last more than a year and often involve implementing new processes, complying with a new regulation or reorganizing a company from top to bottom. Some of this work, such as implementing a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, inevitably involves technology considerations.

Technology

A growing area for all four firms, technology consulting involves harnessing technological solutions and innovations to help businesses transform their business models, become more efficient, improve their services and capture new opportunities.

Data science and analytics are an increasingly important part of the Big 4’s technology consulting portfolio. These disciplines are often covered by a dedicated team.

Transaction services and deals

In this area, each firm blends its accounting and consulting expertise to provide specialized advice to the C-Suite and financial investors on merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities. This is where the Big-4 firms do some of their most notable work; it’s also where they charge their highest fees.

Historically, transaction services teams focused on financial due diligence projects and employed a high number of accountants. However, these teams now routinely deliver operational and commercial due diligence projects. As a result, they are sometimes merged with the firms’ strategy teams.

Strategy

The Big 4’s strategy consulting services are those that are most closely aligned with the services of McKinsey, BCG and Bain. Focused on helping business leaders solve their most complex and critical problems, the strategy teams of the Big 4 are small, elite units. They each employ only a few thousand consultants globally.

The majority of the Big 4’s strategy units originated through the acquisition of boutique consulting firms in the 2010s, and are now established consulting brands in their own right. They are:

• EY Parthenon: the result of EY’s acquisition of The Parthenon Group
• Monitor Deloitte: the result of Deloitte’s acquisition of Monitor
• Strategy&: the result of PwC’s acquisition of Booz & Company
• KPMG’s Global Strategy Group (GSG)

Consultants in both sets of firms work in similar ways

There are a number of similarities between the work that consultants do in the strategy teams of the Big 4 and the work that management consultants do at McKinsey, BCG and Bain. In both sets of firms, consultants contribute to client projects that span multiple sectors, industries and locations, working closely with C-suite executives and other senior stakeholders.

The projects tend to be quite short, lasting anything from two weeks to six months. This means that consultants move from project to project throughout the year, gaining a great deal of experience along the way.

In the strategy units of the Big 4, and at McKinsey, BCG and Bain, all consultants typically begin as generalists, working across a variety of industries and sectors and only specializing later in their careers. As a result, the work that they do is naturally varied.

However, because of the Big 4’s expertise in transaction services, their strategy teams in some locations do more due diligence work than MBB.

Strategy projects help the Big 4 source other types of work

The Big 4 entered the field of strategy consulting largely because the firms saw it as a way to source other types of work from clients early in the decision-making process. Once the firms have helped to craft a strategy, they can then help to implement it through the vast range of services they provide, such as technology consulting, implementation and transformation consulting, and transaction services.

Consequently, there is pressure for Partners of the strategy units of the Big 4 to cross-sell the firms’ other services to clients and identify additional business that their strategy projects could generate. At McKinsey, BCG and Bain, where the focus is purely on strategy work, there is no requirement for Partners to do this.

The Big 4 are less nimble than McKinsey, BCG and Bain

The Big 4 have very deep relationships among the top echelons of the world’s largest organizations, with each practice area often represented by multiple Partners.

This means that the Big 4’s strategy teams generally enjoy the same access to the C-Suite as McKinsey, BCG and Bain. It also means that strategy projects sometimes originate naturally from another project led elsewhere in the firm (e.g. a due diligence project led by the transaction services team).

However, a drawback of the depths of these relationships is that decisions and initiatives often have to be vetted by multiple Partners, who are all protective of their practice areas and the relationships they have with each client.

As a result, the strategy units of the Big 4 can be less nimble and entrepreneurial than McKinsey, BCG and Bain, where the input of fewer internal stakeholders is required when proposing new initiatives.

The ‘talent quality gap’ between consultants at the Big 4 and MBB is narrowing

As newer entrants to the strategy consulting market, the Big 4 have historically been open to applications from candidates from a broader range of academic and professional backgrounds. This has led to a perception that there is a ‘talent quality gap’ between consultants from each set of firms.

However, our research into the top routes into McKinsey, BCG and Bain reveals an emerging trend of consultants moving from the strategy teams of the Big 4 into the top 3. There is also movement in the other direction, with some MBB consultants choosing to move to the strategy teams of the Big 4. At EY-Parthenon there are over 160 Partners with McKinsey, BCG or Bain experience.

This indicates that the gap that was once perceived to exist between the quality of talent within the two sets of firms is narrowing.

The compensation is less generous at the Big 4 than it is at McKinsey, BCG and Bain

As the top-3 management consulting firms in the world, McKinsey, BCG and Bain charge clients around twice as much per day as the strategy units of the Big 4. This is reflected in the compensation that consultants at the two sets of firms can expect to receive. Salaries at the Big 4 are naturally lower than salaries at McKinsey, BCG and Bain; a Partner at a Big-4 firm is likely to make 30-40% less than a Partner at a top-3 firm.

In some Big-4 strategy teams, a healthy work-life balance is more achievable than it is at MBB

It’s well known that achieving a healthy work-life balance can be challenging for consultants at McKinsey, BCG and Bain. In no small part this is due to the long hours they’re required to work.

In the strategy units of the Big 4, work-life balance for consultants differs between firms and locations. Consultants in some offices are able to work fewer hours than MBB consultants and therefore enjoy a better work-life balance. However, this is not true of all Big-4 strategy teams. In fact, the offices that are most exposed to due diligence projects tend to work the same long hours as MBB consultants.

As at McKinsey, BCG and Bain, weekend work is both rare and frowned upon in all of the Big-4 strategy units.

Consultants are under less pressure to perform in the strategy units of the Big 4

MBB consultants are under a huge amount of pressure to meet or exceed performance expectations at all times. This is cemented in the firms’ use of an ‘up or out’ policy, under which consultants who are deemed not to have met their firm’s expectations at the end of a performance review are asked to leave.

By contrast, the strategy teams of the Big 4 only very rarely have an up or out policy in place. This naturally reduces the pressure that their consultants are under on a day-to-day basis.

In addition, there is less competition to join the strategy units of the Big 4 than there is to join McKinsey, BCG or Bain. This generally makes it easier for consultants in the Big-4 strategy teams to meet their firms’ performance expectations.

Consultants can expect less rapid career progression at the Big 4 than at McKinsey, BCG or Bain

Big-4 firms have less of an imperative than MBB to offer their consultants rapid career progression. Because the top-3 firms compete with other highly attractive employers to hire the most talented and driven individuals, they need to make swift career progression part of their value proposition from the outset.

In the strategy team of a Big-4 firm, it can take a new consultant 15 years or more to make Partner. At McKinsey, BCG or Bain, a new consultant could expect to progress to this level in around nine years.

MBB consultants have greater access to attractive exit opportunities

Because they do similar work and have a similar set of skills, consultants from both sets of firms are able to pursue a range of exit opportunities from consulting.

However, consultants from the top-3 firms tend to be employers’ first choice. MBB consultants have all made it through a famously rigorous selection process and have earned a prestigious organization’s seal of approval. This is a strong signal of talent to future employers.

In addition, the top-3 consulting firms tend to have greater exposure to attractive exit opportunities. McKinsey, BCG and Bain all have internal career centers and job boards where alumni can publicize job opportunities to existing consultants. The Big 4, on the other hand, don’t provide this kind of support.

The Big 4 approach recruitment in a similar way to MBB

The strategy teams of the Big 4 and McKinsey, BCG and Bain all base their approach to recruitment on case interviews. While there are some subtle differences to be expected among individual firms – some Big-4 strategy teams may be more likely to give you a written case to take home, for example – their approach to recruitment is largely very similar.

McKinsey & Company

Founded in Chicago by James O. McKinsey in 1926, McKinsey has held the reputation of being the industry leader for many decades. Unparalleled in its reach and prestige, McKinsey is the largest of the top management consulting firms, with over 45,000 employees in over 130 cities globally. The firm’s worldwide revenue for 2022 was $15b.

McKinsey’s size allows it to offer its clients deep expertise in virtually all industries and functions. For senior leaders at most top global organizations, McKinsey is the go-to adviser across a range of critical questions, from strategy and operations through to digital.

Known for being a ‘CEO factory’, McKinsey has many notable alumni, such as Google’s Sundar Pichai, former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Chelsea Clinton.

As the market leader, McKinsey is often subject to a great deal of scrutiny. Over the years the firm has been criticized for its role in many controversies, including the 2008 financial crisis and the opioid epidemic in the United States, and for its work for authoritarian governments.

Take a look at our article on McKinsey’s working culture to learn more about life at the firm.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

BCG is a smaller management consulting firm than McKinsey but is growing a little faster, and with 30,000 employees, it’s a clear challenger. Similar to McKinsey, BCG covers most industries and geographies, with a presence in over 50 countries and 100 cities. The firm’s worldwide revenue for 2022 was $11.7b.

BCG is known for creating and popularizing the ‘growth-share matrix,’ which is a framework that helps large corporations decide how to allocate cash among their business units for the greatest growth.

Notable BCG alumni include former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Grammy award-winning musician John Legend.

Take a look at our article on BCG’s working culture to learn more about life at the firm.

Bain & Company

Founded by Bill Bain, a former BCG partner, Bain & Company covers an array of industries. Along with McKinsey and BCG, it is known as one of the world’s top-3 management consulting firms. With only 15,000 employees, Bain is the smallest, but all three firms are of a similar pedigree and are considered to be in a league apart from other top firms. The firm’s worldwide revenue for 2021 was $5.8b.

Bain is well known for its strengths in serving financial services and private equity clients. It even has a spin-off firm in this space, Bain Capital.

The firm also has a lot of credibility within the field of consumer goods. It invented the widely-used Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures the popularity and success of a brand by the degree to which a customer would recommend it to a friend or family member.

Notable Bain alumni include Nike CEO John Donahoe, former US presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard.

Take a look at our article on Bain’s working culture to learn more about life at the firm.

Kearney

Strategy consulting firm Kearney was founded by Andrew Thomas Kearney, a historic leader within the management consulting industry.

When McKinsey’s first two partners split the firm in 1939, Kearney continued to run the firm out of Chicago as A.T. Kearney and Company. Meanwhile, Marvin Bower took over the New York office and retained the name McKinsey & Company.

A.T. Kearney was sold to the technology consulting firm EDS in 1995, but became independent again in 2005 and has been recovering since.

Today, Kearney is relatively small, with over 4,000 employees working across multiple industries in over 40 countries. The firm has a particular strength in operations work. Its worldwide revenue for 2022 was $1.6b.

Oliver Wyman

Oliver Wyman has over 6,000 employees worldwide, with offices in more than 70 cities in 30 countries. The firm’s worldwide revenue for 2022 was $2.8b.

The management consulting firm is best known for client work within banking and financial services, where its depth of expertise is rivaled only by McKinsey. It’s said that Oliver Wyman serves more than 80% of the world’s largest 100 financial institutions.

Unlike the other top-10 consulting firms, Oliver Wyman is not entirely owned by its partners; it’s a subsidiary of Marsh McLennan.

Take a look at our article on Oliver Wyman’s working culture to learn more about life at the firm.

Roland Berger

The strategy consulting firm Roland Berger is German in origin and prides itself on being the only leading global consultancy firm with non-Anglo-Saxon roots. It has over 50 offices and 3,000 employees globally, with headquarters in Munich. The firm’s worldwide revenue for 2022 was 870m euros.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its heritage, Roland Berger has a strength in serving clients in industrials and heavy industries.

L.E.K. Consulting

With over 1,000 employees worldwide, L.E.K. Consulting is much smaller than the other top consulting firms. It covers a number of industries, however, and is well regarded within life sciences, media and private equity, where it’s known for its due diligence work.

Strategy& (PwC)

Strategy& is the global strategy business of PwC, a ‘Big-4’ accounting firm. Acquired in 2014, Strategy& was originally Booz & Company. To date, it is the biggest management consulting firm to have been acquired by a Big-4 accounting firm.

In its early days as part of the larger strategy consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, Booz and Company was credited with coining the concepts of the supply chain and supply chain management.

Today, as Strategy&, the firm has 75 offices worldwide and over 3,000 employees.

EY-Parthenon

EY (previously known as Ernst & Young) is another Big-4 accounting firm. In 2014 it acquired The Parthenon Group, a global strategy consultancy, to bolster its consulting operations.

This illustrated a shift in EY’s focus towards strategy consulting, and saw the firm enter into competition in a space that had traditionally been held by McKinsey, BCG and Bain (collectively known as ‘MBB’).

Notably, EY has over 160 Partners with experience at McKinsey, BCG or Bain – significantly more than at any other Big-4 firm – who work in a variety of practice areas.

If a career in management or strategy consulting sounds like it might be right for you, you can learn more in our complete guide to the management consulting industry. And if you’re preparing to apply to one of the top-10 consulting firms, the resume and cover letter templates and specialized advice in our Free Resume Course will help you get your application into great shape.

How MBB firms support female candidates

As part of their strategic efforts towards achieving gender parity, McKinsey, Bain and BCG all have initiatives designed to support and nurture female candidates who are preparing to make an application. These programs include:

• McKinsey’s Next Generation Women Leaders. This initiative gives female candidates in the APAC and EMEA regions the chance to network with McKinsey consultants and recruiters. The initiative also provides participants with learning sessions and an interview preparation program.
• BCG’s ASPIRE Women’s Workshop. This is a 3-day professional development event for university students in EMEA and South America. It involves a mix of inspiring keynotes, masterclasses, case workshops, fun activities and networking.
• Bain’s Connecting & Resourcing Empowered Women (CREW). This initiative allows second-year female undergraduates in the US to network and receive individual and group coaching. CREW also provides participants with the opportunity to interview for Bain’s summer Associate Consultant Internship (ACI) position.

Gender parity in hiring among the top-3 consulting firms

Our research indicates that the impact of these initiatives is starting to be seen at McKinsey, BCG and Bain. In the period covered by our analysis, the three firms achieved an average of 42% female hiring. While McKinsey came the closest to achieving gender parity, with 44% female hires, the difference among the firms was small, with 41% female hiring at both BCG and Bain.

Gender parity in hiring across MBB recruitment channels

McKinsey, BCG and Bain all hire candidates from the following recruitment channels:

• Pre-experience student hires (with a bachelor’s degree or a non-MBA master’s degree) are recruited out of university or shortly after. They typically have no more than two years of experience and are hired into entry-level roles (i.e. Business Analysts at McKinsey, Associates at BCG and Associate Consultants at Bain).
• MBA hires are graduates of a one or two-year MBA program. They typically have some work experience, gained before their MBAs, and are hired into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
• Experienced hires are from other employers and typically have two to eight years of experience. Those with less are hired into pre-MBA roles (i.e. Senior Business Analysts at McKinsey, 2nd year Associate Consultants at Bain and Senior Associates at BCG). Those with significant experience are hired into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey or Consultants at BCG and Bain).
• Advanced degree hires are hired during or soon (not more than two years) after their PhD or medical school programs. In the US, they’re typically hired into post-MBA roles, (i.e. Associates at McKinsey or Consultants at BCG and Bain). In some locations, they’re hired into senior pre-MBA roles (i.e. Junior Associates at McKinsey, 2nd year Associate Consultants at Bain and Senior Associates at BCG).

As the chart below illustrates, there is a marked difference in gender parity in hiring among these channels.

Pre-experienced student hiring is the recruitment channel that came the closest to achieving gender parity in our analysis, with 45% female hires. Other channels have much further to go. This is particularly true of MBA hiring, where only 38% of all hires were women. However, it’s worth noting that there is currently an inherent gender disparity in the MBA candidate pool. The female intake of Columbia Business School’s 2022 MBA program was 44%, while a typical class profile at INSEAD is only 38% female.

Gender parity in MBB hiring across different locations

Gender parity in hiring differs among geographies

As the chart below illustrates, we observed some big differences in the gender parity in hiring in each of the global MBB locations included in our analysis.

While none of the locations achieved true gender parity in hiring, some came close. In Switzerland and Canada, 47% of all MBB hires were women, while in the UK it was 46%.

Other locations have further to go. In France, for example, only 40% of MBB hires were women. In the World Economic Forum’s 2022 gender gap report, France is ranked 15th in the world – above the UK, the US and Canada – for dimensions including economic opportunities and education. We therefore might have expected to see a higher percentage of female hiring at MBB firms in France.

However, when we look at the educational programs that the candidates who make it to McKinsey, BCG and Bain in France attended, we see an inherent gender disparity in the candidate pool. HEC Paris was the source of the highest percentage of pre-experienced student and MBA hires at MBB firms in France. In the 2022 class of its Master in Management course, women only accounted for 45% of the student population. Meanwhile, just 34% of the school’s MBA graduates in 2022 were female.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the location that was furthest away from achieving gender parity in our analysis was the Middle East, with only 32% female hiring. The World Economic Forum’s gender gap report illustrates greater disparity there; the United Arab Emirates was ranked the highest of all the countries in the Middle East, in only the 68th position. The gender disparity in MBB hiring in this part of the world may also be reflective of a broader reality about the inclusion of women in the workplace. In addition, it may point to the comparative difficulty these offices are likely to have in attracting international female candidates.

Gender parity in hiring in the US differs among offices

While country-level figures might suggest that MBB firms in some locations are close to achieving gender parity, office-level figures sometimes tell a different story. In the US, 42% of MBB firms’ total hires were female. However, there are notable differences in gender parity among the firms’ offices in different parts of the country, as the chart below illustrates.

MBB firms in the North-East (i.e. Boston, New York, Washington DC) came closer to achieving gender parity than the national average of 42%, with 47%, 46% and 43% female hiring respectively.

However, MBB firms’ offices in the South (i.e. Dallas & Houston and Atlanta), were further away from achieving gender parity than both the US as a whole (42%) and France (40%), with only 36% and 33% female hiring respectively.

As the firms’ recruitment efforts are consistent across the US, this data could indicate that top female candidates are more drawn to management consulting careers in some parts of the country than others.

What the results mean for gender parity within the firms

Our analysis shows that McKinsey, Bain and BCG’s efforts towards achieving gender parity are generating some tangible results.

The three firms averaged 42% female hiring, while the population of their pre-experienced student hire channel was 45% female. And while some MBB locations – such as France and the Middle East – have further to go, the UK, Switzerland and Canada are all very close to achieving a balanced population of male and female hires.

When it comes to achieving true gender parity within the ranks of top consulting firms, however, hiring is only part of the picture. The management consulting industry may no longer be entirely dominated by men but the experience of being a woman at McKinsey, Bain or BCG is not without its challenges, even today.

The firms all have initiatives in place to address this. McKinsey Women, Women@BCG and Womxn at Bain (WAB) are designed to help female consultants find mentorship, support and guidance from one another.

While this is a good foundation to build on, the firms need to continue nurturing and supporting female consultants to ensure that they stand the same chance as men of being retained and promoted. Only then will the firms achieve the ultimate goal of true gender parity at every level, with an equal balance of male and female Partners.

What’s next if you’re looking to join a top consulting firm

If you’re looking to join a top consulting firm like McKinsey, BCG or Bain, CaseCoach has resources to guide you all the way through the process, from crafting your resume to preparing for your final interviews.

Our Free Resume Course provides resume and cover letter templates and specialized advice for students, MBAs and experienced professionals.

The Interview Prep Course contains all the material you need to ace your case and fit interview, including video lectures, sample interviews, case material and practice tools.

Our team of coaches includes former consultants and interviewers with McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. They are available to deliver case and fit interview coaching and mock interviews in a realistic setting to put your preparation to the test, providing personal feedback and practical advice to help you ace your interviews.