Boston Consulting Group reviews

I wish I'd realised sooner (I've given up ~6 years of my life) that the whole thing is nonsense. It is a classic case of the 'Emperors new clothes'. BCG works by convincing: Employees: to succeed at BCG is to be ‘smart and successful’ (and therefore to fail is to not be) Clients: your capabilities are substandard. You can’t possibly achieve what you want to with your own people and we (BCG) know things you don’t When you start asking yourself ‘why?’ - why am I working 90+ hours a week changing font on ppt slides and listening to rich white dudes battle it out over the right ‘turn of phrase’ at 8pm every night of the week you realise there is no point to this - unless you believe that to succeed at BCG is to succeed in life. Even if you’re good at it once you ask ‘why am I doing this’ - it’s pretty difficult to go back from… If you have a modicum of self-worth not tied to having a status badge at BCG (or what you do for a living), or if you’ve lived a 'normal' life where people have genuine problems and do work that genuinely has an impact on society (or your business) i.e. they actually DO something then it’s pretty hard to justify WHY you are doing the job at BCG. Objectively: Very long hours filled with tedious work: a) majority of work covers similar topics (strategy, cost-cutting, due diligence, COGs …) there aren’t that many problems in business b) The model works on replication: taking the latest ‘BCG thinking’ and ‘packaging this up’ for the client in question (formatting it into their slides and changing a few words) c) Pointless work (Everything is possible, not everything is practical). Great giving a client a ‘master-plan’ but 9/10 they can’t execute it because it doesn’t fit their business and we have no idea how to actually execute everything. Also, nobody cares about that cool slide you did… d)Pay vs. overall renumeration: hour for hour you won’t get paid that much and you will say goodbye to evenings and weekends. Having time off is the exception not the rule. Be prepared for very disappointed friends and family Poor leadership: a) Very little investment in people training (as a PL I got like one afternoon) and the issue perpetuates because you have nobody to learn from (so you can't learn on the job as they say) b) No requirement to prioritise team's wellbeing / what work adds value: you're not evaluated on it really. You can (and will) treat people like expendable resources because they will do anything not to get a bad review c) Partners are cults of personality. You can get away with a lot of things you should not be able to in 2021 Unease in the work you are doing: a) Poor quality for clients who are often paying 5-6 figure sums to get the same answer as their competitors b) Experienced hires are used to boost the image of the firm, but we don't really leverage their knowledge - so clients are paying for a limited viewpoint from people who have never done the work c) Some work is just unethical: Helping sovereign funds buy out public infrastructure? Cost cutting to increase share-holder profits at the expense of low-wage workers? Being paid as the ‘Levelled’ to help the government ‘Level-Up’

As noted elsewhere, there is a powerfully-entrenched long-hours culture and absolutely constant and overwhelming pressure on teams. The PTO process is supposed to address this, but in London at least, has resulted in no real changes to partner behaviour, and so PTO sessions really just turn into grumbling sessions that don't change expectations. The fact that the name was changed from its original "predictable time off" to "predictability, teaming and open communication" is a pretty good clue. There is a very wide range of partner personality types. For example, judging by what consulting staff say, 3/4 of the London energy Partners have a ruthless, critical, and driving approach to teams, as do the private equity guys, while media Partners are at the other end of the scale in terms of personality and approach. Banking partners are in the middle. Career progression can be tough, with any negative feedback or issues with individual partners magnified out of proportion. At the Principal level, one bad project can be enough to derail your career. A lot of project approaches are very theoretical, and although what ultimately goes to clients is almost invariably of high quality, what the client sees is often a fraction of the work consultants are driven to do to satisfy partner desires for a perfect solution, rather than a practical one. With the wrong partner, case team meetings can be a nightmare. Finally, it is important to manage your exit timing, keeping in mind that even Partners rarely stay longer than seven years. Consultant or P/L is likely to have the best mix of exit options that don't require a big fall in salary and give good industry exposure. At P or Partner level, industry options become far fewer, and often require a big drop in compensation. Do keep in mind that in contrast to McK, the BCG alumni and career services network is rudimentary, so you will be on your own when you start looking!