Which is better bcg or mckinsey

This gives consultants an opportunity to get different types of work experience. Innovation : McKinsey is a leader in innovation, having launched the McKinsey Global Institute, which studies global economic trends, Digital Labs, which helps create digital products for clients, and the McKinsey Implementation group, which focuses on doing implementation work. Industry expertise : BCG has knowledge and expertise in all industries. They are not as strong in private equity work as Bain and not as strong in government work as McKinsey, but are competitive in all other industries.

Specialization : BCG hires people into a generalist role or a specialist role. However, they also hire many people with advanced degrees. They do not hire as many people with untraditional backgrounds compared to McKinsey, but they hire more than Bain does. Culture : BCG is known to have a very academic, intellectual, and even nerdy work culture. Its culture is not as formal and serious as McKinsey and is not as fun as Bain.

Due to the regional staffing model, there are fewer opportunities for international work and travel compared to McKinsey. Support resources : BCG has a lot of support resources to help consulting teams with research, analysis, and slide making.

BCG does not have as many support resources as McKinsey, but they have more support resources than Bain. Other work opportunities : After working for two years, BCG consultants have the option to work at another company for up to one year. This is known as a secondment. BCG employees also have the option to transfer to another office, given that they meet the language requirements.

BCG has also recently pursued a strategy of moving deeper into operational work and doing more implementation.

Industry expertise : Bain has knowledge and expertise in all industries, but they are the clear leader in private equity work. Their private equity practice is three times larger than the next largest firm. Specialization : Everyone entering Bain enters as a generalist, with no specialization in any particular industry or function. You will not need to specialize until you approach the Principal or Partner level. They are very heavy at the lower levels, hiring many more people at the post-undergraduate level than at the post-MBA level.

Hiring : Bain hires the vast majority of its consultants from top undergraduate and MBA schools. While they do hire people with advanced degrees, they hire much fewer than McKinsey. Compared to the other firms, Bain makes the least number of lateral hires, which are hires from other consulting firms.

Culture : Bain stands out for its fun work culture. Employees are generally social, collegial, and they enjoy a strong sense of camaraderie. Regardless, Bain likes to have fun. Bain has an annual global soccer tournament, called the Bain World Cup, hosted in a different city each year. This basically means you need to speak your mind if you don't agree with others.

BCG consultants seem to have the least influence on their lifestyle and working hours. They're all very nice and humble people though, but not the centre of a party usually. Bain seems to control the work-life balance of their employees generally well , but their private equity practice works without a doubt the most hours of any consulting group.

They are usually characterized as the most social of the three. In terms of how their business is doing, there isn't much difference and this will largely be location dependent. McKinsey seems to have an overall strong presence, with an extra strong presence in Germany, China and India. Therefore, my view is highly subjective and describes rather my personal experience.

Small differences between the companies have already been pointed out, so there is no need to repeat them ; The key difference in the culture comes out when you compare consulting with any other industry! The decision to go for the offer from RB was driven by my gut feeling.

And now after leaving consulting I would say it was absolutely right one. During the interviews with my future employer I felt I have already been linked somehow to these people and the partner. I wished they would become my future colleagues. After half a year it became true. The company provided me everything I was striving for: steep learning curve, vibrant working environment with some most brilliant minds, international exposure in fact, I have only spend 3 months in Germany within the last 3 years between assignments in France, Benelux, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Afterwards being transfered to Dubai office and of course great renumeration package.

On the other hand, it also challenged me a lot in terms of personal commitment overnights and work over the weekend , excessive travelling around Europe and Asia and pushed me to develop my leadership skills and exploit my full potential.

My exit option was also great, therefore, I became a thankful and loyal alumni of RB. It does not significantly matter which company you will choose. You will have your consulting ups and downs with any of them! The culture may vary a lot even within the one company, i.

We have absolutely different mindset in these two CCs. While FS colleagues are more of "number freaks" that's of cource meant ironically , Automotive folks are very attached to the product car and are trully international and open minded. Couple of years later I did a transfer from our Munich to Dubai office. It was like changing an employer, because the regional cultural difference could not have been bigger ;. What I only want to say is - listen to your gut feeling during and after the interview.

Your first impression is always the right one! Every major consulting company is a very good choice to start your career after colleague. Bear in mind, the I as your interviewer during the interview also want to make a good impression on you and want you to succeed and join our team;.

Hi, as a current BCGer, I absolutely love the company. They invest heavily in your development, really work to staff you on amazing cases, and truly want to see you succeed.

That being said, Guennael is right in that everyone thinks their companies are best, so I'm sure it's likely the same at McKinsey and Bain as well. Based on my experiences in various large corporations, McKinsey is the most prestigious to the layman, and will best set you on track for C-suite backed by research.

However, you should try networking around with folks in these different firms to find the best fit in terms of culture and WLB. Yes, there is a difference in the location of the office when it comes to how companies compare, but even when it comes to how companies fare compared to the same company elsewhere.

What I could share is my experience in the UAE. Feel free to DM me for more information, but generally speaking, the UAE clients is mainly public sector driven ministries, government entities, leadership offices.

Bain focus more on private sector clients. McKinsey is a balance between the two. Bain has a relatively smaller office. BCG and Mckinsey are larger in size. The only way to determine this as an outsider is to network with as many people as possible. And I highly suggest visiting friends that work at these firms and hang out with them after hours. Perhaps take a tour of the office and meet people there. I prefer to leave this answer to MBB alumnus and current employees.

I have not worked in any of these firms. I currently work for Kearney. Hello there, All 3 firms are equally incredible place to work and would provide invaluable experiences to their consulants, boosting their future career prospects. All these firms also expand rapidly, acquiring new business lines. Hence, looking at these territories are also advisable should it be of your interest.

In terms of knolwedge development, particularly for internal repository, McKinsey is leading on these which I personally found very helpful , but the 2 firms are making an effort to address this area. Hope it helps. It's really hard to summary the differences between these 3 offices but I will tray to address your points focusing on Italian market :.

All of them are excellent offices and place to work , but you should try to understand which office is closer to your personality, also looking around and knowing people working there during the interviews. One aspect that you should consider is also the MBA policies , that are quite different between them.

Ready for one, ready for all. To add on top of previous comments, in a nutshell: ask for a day in each of them to see how they make you feel. If you are talking about MBB I would always go for better cultural fit. I think there is very little difference between top consulting firms elsewhere. My impression is that the culture will depend also in the office to which you are applying.

To be honest I think very few people will have to make that choice given how low offer rates are at these firms. If you have the priviledge of getting offers from more than one MBB then I would suggest talking directly to people at these firms to get some insider tips.

That's the one question not to ask and that no consultant in any of the three consultancies is supposed to answer at least in NAR. The reason being that each consultancy belief is that they deliver value in a unique way and therefore there is no need to be drag into a comparison that can turn in a non flattering for any of the parties involved very quickly. Good suggestion on trying to switch question focus on to what specific office. With the exceptions of friends working there and the industry focus while keeping the door open to the fact that if you are a fresh graduate you are going to be a generalist I would not use the other reasons because they are not strong enough to tie you to an office.

More strong reasons are: lived in city before, have family there, SO, etc. Arguments may be:. First of all, If you are talking about BIG 3 firms - I see no real cultural difference for the following reasons:. Second and the most important: Marketing does not equal culture. Some of them mey be better with marketing tools, some use more appealing selling points, but at the end of the day the culture is pretty much the same. Finally, the average career in a Firm is 2 years. I believe in such a short period minor differences in culture are less important.

Can you clarify whether you're asking how to approach this question if you get it in an interview or if you're just trying to gather information on differences e. Because I've never seen the first case at all, if it's the second and then it would a completely legitimate question the main differences vs.

In terms of workload, in McKinsey they work in both long-term and short-term projects. An employee can also choose how, where and with whom to work. It's all a bit different in Bain and BCG: the new employee is only allowed to work on projects that last 6 months or more. The specialization of the companies should also be mentioned, as Bain hires for media, entertainment, agriculture, etc. The corporate culture is also different, e.

BCG is considered the best place for mothers, in BCG was awarded the th out of best companies for work. Bain is known as a secretive company. In addition, Bain is one of the first companies to take the bachelors. I'm not sure what you mean by better culture. For me the personal fit is more important than the name of the company. For me a "better" culture means that the personal fit between you and the company's culture is better.

The reason is that better culture usually refers to a culture that seems preferable to you. Generally, I'd go for the company with the better personal fit, because I expect that it is easier to thrive there.

Given that you agree with me that a better culture is directly related to the personal fit, I'd go for the better culture. But networking and recruiting events really help. Also during the recruiting day, there is a reason why you meet a bunch of different interviewers - this is also for you to get a feel for the company. At my old firm there were always a couple of juniors that joined the lunch break to mingle and ease the tension for the interviewees. They were not part of the "official" recruiting team, so the conversations with them were a bit more "off the record".

Also, most consulting firms offer recruiting events that go on for two or three days to even a week. During those you can definitely get a good feel for the company. And last, but not least, there's a good old thing called the internet. There's so many forums and places like prep lounge etc.. After a bit of time you see some general patterns emerging - Roland Berger being tougher, McKinsey being a bit nerdier etc.. Of course don't take that information as gospel, but it gives some good indications what to check out during an interview.

I would maybe add that it also depends a little bit on the country: Bain for example is relatively small in Germany, compared to their presence in the US. However, sometimes the stereotypical consultant varies within one company even from practice group to practice group e. I networked with a lot of the MBB's and they ultimately said the same thing about why they choose their respective firms - the people.

At the end of the day, the MBB does the same thing, they consult. The group would examine how the company carries on its marketing campaign through email and SMS and suggest steps to improve its digital marketing outreach and launch a more effective app, for example.

McKinsey Digital has engineers, product managers, and data scientists on its staff who can provide the infrastructure and technology to implement recommendations made by McKinsey consultants. Teaming up with consultants to transform client organizations, the knowledge professionals come up with ideas for new business engagements, build new data banks, and create proprietary assets.

Knowledge Centers provide knowledge management, cutting-edge expertise and research, custom analytics, and diagnostics and benchmarking. The Knowledge Network deploys researchers, analysts, economists, and even historians and meteorologists. They come from different backgrounds other than traditional business graduates and are a tight-knit and outgoing group that finds time for social interactions.

At MBB, consultants get to work with top executives on a daily basis, while at the Big 4, the most frequent interactions are with middle-management representatives of clients, and meetings with the top bosses are rare and confined to important presentations.

Moreover, MBB allow a lot of independence, with the expectation that the consultant would be able handle a project, while at the Big 4, there could be supervision, with a manager making suggestions and providing support.

MBB are a much tougher taskmaster than the Big 4 for consultants, and they work long hours, which affects their family and social relationships. The Big 4 treat their clients much more softly, compared with MBB.

If one takes into account only the annual salary, MBB do a little better. But there is no significant difference with the Big 4 when you calculate the per-hour wage, because of the shorter hours at the latter. Of course, because MBB have bigger budgets for everything, they have better perks, more lavish company events, and more money for travel.

But the choice of MBB or Big 4 for job aspirants should be influenced by individual skillset, interests, and personality type. At the Big 4, the entry level years designations at all four firms is analyst, though, at Deloitte, it can also be associate.

Some other titles are as follows. Follow us:. That is factually not true. Amazing article! So apt for every MBB aspirer. If so what are the basic requirements? Chandru: While their bulk of hires come from the elite bschools, MBB recruit from a wide range of backgrounds. You can visit their website to find out the current opportunities they have. Some of them might require very specialised qualifications and experience.

Can you share any official page on the Deloitte site where they mention the designation hierarchy? Happy to update the table, if we can find an authentic source. Source: Me, I work at Deloitte! I had been in consulting for 20 years Google, ex-McK, ex-Accenture.

Traditional Strategy Consulting is dying and will be finished in the next 10 years. I joined Accenture out of business school and spent 7 years with them.

Additionally, BearingPoint had a relationship with Yale School of Management for continuing education. Selection process MBB start their recruitment cycle in the fall, targeting MBAs and undergrads at top schools, for their new batch of recruits for the next fall. Read: How I got a consulting job without an MBA degree McKinsey looks for personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, problem-solving skills, and leadership qualities in its candidates.

Read: How I got into BCG and what I did in my consulting job Bain also looks to assessing problem-solving skills, leadership skills, results delivery in previous positions, and passion and entrepreneurial drive.