Which is more important to consulting firms?

sakky
Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:05:41 +0000

Foreverzero, yeah, it’s quite difficult to advance to the manager/partner level, because they are run as ‘pyramids’, where there are fewer and fewer positions at each higher level of the hierarchy, and everybody beneath a particular level is competing to get promoted. However, I disagree about the notion that people just remain at the Consultant level. Essentially, consulting companies work on an ‘up-or-out’ system, meaning that if you’re not on track to being promoted, then you’re basically on track to be fired. Consultancies have no room for somebody who just wants to stay at one level for years at a time without trying to get promoted. Most consultants won’t get promoted, so they’re expected to leave the company. That’s really not that bad, because they can usually segue into a good corporate job somewhere. It’s well understood that most new consultants are going to be in the industry for only a few years or so, and that there are very few consultant ‘lifers’.

As far as the difficulty of obtaining these positions, it depends on the consulting company, the MBA program you’re coming from, your personal factors, etc. McKinsey is probably the most difficult of all to get into. Certain MBA programs, most notably Harvard, but also places like Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Sloan, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, etc. are also highly successful in getting their grads into consulting firms, at least relatively speaking.