The ultimate guide to getting a job at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or Accenture, according to 3 headhunters for these top management consulting firms
- One of the reasons why landing a job at one of the top management consulting firms - which include McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Company, and Accenture - is so difficult is because top MBA programs feed into these companies. They're also highly ranked as great places to work.
- Business Insider spoke with three veteran headhunters who've worked closely with these firms and candidates applying to these firms to get their advice.
- They suggested that aspiring management consultants leverage business school connections for ins or partner with a search firm that specializes in placing candidates in these kinds of roles.
- They also recommend keeping an eye out for hiring trends and specialized practices where your skills could be relevant. For example, BCG has launched BCG GAMMA to address the data science challenges of their clients and BCG Digital Ventures to help larger organizations with launching companies with similar operating models to those seen in the VC world.
- Finally, don't underestimate the power of a strong resume and good interview prep skills, especially when it comes to case interviews, which are very popular in the space.
- Click here for more BI Prime stories.
The top management consulting firms - which include McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Company, and Accenture - are notoriously tough to break into.
One issue that makes landing jobs at these firms so cutthroat is that a significant percentage of Ivy League grads are competing for them. Harvard University's student newspaper The Harvard Crimson, for example, identified consulting as the field in which the largest percentage of Harvard's graduating seniors were entering - accounting for 18% of the class of 2019 - and this has been a consistent trend with past classes.
As challenging as these top firms may be to get into, that doesn't stop people from coveting a spot. McKinsey, BCG, and other top firms routinely appear on lists of the most attractive US employers, and there are far fewer openings in these organizations than there are interested candidates.
"Breaking into one of the big consulting firms can be challenging," explained Portia Kibble Smith, an executive recruiter at Karat who has four decades of corporate experience, 30 years of which have been on the recruitment side. "It's an 'exclusive' group of companies that accept less than 1% of job applications and recruit from the top MBA programs in the world."
Business Insider asked Smith and two other recruiters for management consulting on their top tips for breaking into the ranks of McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Here's what they told us.
Know where they goThe top management consulting firms recruit from the top schools, so understanding this reality and leveraging key university contacts at these destinations can give you an inroad.
The business school publication Poets & Quants provided a listing of eight schools - including London Business School, Columbia Business School, and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern - that are feeder schools to McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. (INSEAD was the top supplier of talent to these firms.)
"Companies like Accenture and McKinsey are going to Harvard, and Wharton, and the University of Chicago to recruit, so having a relationship with someone in career services or on the alumni board can be a huge door opener," said Smith.
If you don't have that direct access to an Ivy League insider, an alternative is to leverage an executive search firm's connections, targeting a search firm that already has a strong relationship with the company you hope to join.
"Accenture works with both internal and external recruiters to host networking events that they use to fill their pipelines," said Smith, who developed an exclusive event series for Accenture called "Corner Office Connection" in New York, San Jose, Washington DC, Chicago, and Dallas. The goal of the event was to get her clients in front of the Accenture partners.
"I'd draw from my network of the top MBA schools, HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities), and the candidates who have expressed interest and put them in front of the right partners," said Smith.
One way to find a search firm to work with, Smith explained, is by asking your network who they know at one of the consulting firms.
"I've had people reach out to take me out for coffee or set up exploratory meetings to share their interest in working at Accenture - and those meetings often led to invitations to the networking events with the consulting firm they're seeking out," she said. You can also use LinkedIn to see if you can engage someone at one of your preferred firms.
Think about your end goalAtta Tarki is the founder and CEO of ECA (formerly Ex-Consultants Agency), a specialized executive search firm with its roots in management consulting that places top-tier management consultants into permanent and project-based opportunities. According to Tarki, who is also the author of the upcoming book, "Evidence-Based Recruiting: How to Build a Company of Star Performers Through Systematic and Repeatable Hiring Practices," 10 out of ECA's 11 managing directors are former consultants themselves, with experience at firms that include McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture.
Tarki stressed the importance of determining your goals on the front end so that you can strategically position yourself for specific consulting firms rather than approaching all firms in a uniform way.
"As with all career paths, before you start walking down a specific road, take a moment to pause and ask yourself where you want this road to lead," Tarki said.
For example, he explained, "If you want to switch to private equity in a few years, Bain ... would be [a] great place to target." He added that there can also be large differences between offices at consulting firms.
"Do your homework and target the office that gives you the biggest opportunity to build the skills you want," said Tarki. He suggested that if you want to work with consumer retail projects, it's wise to target Bain's San Francisco office, but if you want to work with utilities, then it's better to apply to their Los Angeles office.
Time it rightWhether you're hoping to apply for a job at a strategic consulting firm as an undergraduate or graduate can also make a difference, according to Tarki, who pointed out that some firms hire much more heavily at the undergrad level than others.
"Bain ... [has] a pyramid staffing model with most of their new hires joining them out of undergrad," explained Tarki. "BCG and McKinsey have more of a diamond staffing model, so they hire more postgraduate students. It'd be unwise to just apply at BCG and McKinsey if you are an undergrad since they don't hire as many people at this level."
Tarki continued that if you're a potential grad student whose goal is to get into consulting, it's smart to look into which consulting firms hire from which schools and how many people they have hired from those schools in the past few years before you apply to business school. Most leading business schools share this information on their annual placement reports.
If you didn't get into consulting straight out of college, Tarki warned that it will be much harder to get in later. "Most firms do over 95% of their hiring straight out of university programs," he said. This is where understanding the differentiation between the firms can pay off, since some firms are more amenable to this situation than others by offering special opportunities for those who are already in the working world.
"Some companies, like McKinsey, have a specific experienced hire program," said Tarki. "These programs are often set up to strengthen their presence in a specific set of industries or around certain topics. Reach out to them and understand what they are looking for and see if you can gain the experiences they are looking for."
Understand industry hiring trends at each firm"Tech has been gaining in popularity among business school students and the war for talent is generally intensifying, which poses a new challenge for consulting firms," noted Tarki. "We have noticed that more consulting firms are expanding beyond MBA degrees and into other advanced degrees to fill their post-graduate classes."
With this in mind, Tarki shared that McKinsey has been at the forefront of this change, as "they have most aggressively recruited from law schools, PhD programs, and even med schools." He added that BCG and Bain have been "lagging slightly behind on this front."
He noted that this creates an opportunity for some applicants, since fewer people from law school apply to McKinsey than apply from MBA programs. "Technically you have less competition if you are in one of the more specialized pools they recruit from," he said.
A number of consulting firms have in the past few years also launched specialized practices. Tarki pointed out that BCG has launched BCG GAMMA to address the data science challenges of their clients and BCG Digital Ventures to help larger organizations with launching companies with similar operating models to those seen in the VC world.
"Since these entities are new and few existing employees have the required skills, we have seen these divisions targeting more experienced hires," concluded Tarki.
Keep boosting your resumeSmith added that, particularly based on her experience placing candidates at Accenture, the process takes patience. Not many candidates come out of the gate having everything they need to get noticed by a firm like McKinsey, so you should be prepared to layer new professional experiences into your repertoire to give yourself the right pedigree.
"It may take a year or two to get your background right - but it's worth the wait," she said. "Over the years, there were candidates that I recruited who weren't ready for their desired role at the time, but we successfully worked on their experience - on getting the right portfolio of projects and serving as a team leader on projects - which are all things that Accenture looks for."
Highlight that you're a "triple threat" and lean on international opportunitiesCaroline Stokes, CEO of FORWARD, a talent agency and executive search firm, mentioned that breaking into McKinsey requires what she described as a "triple threat": a solid education, specialist experience, and exposure to an international career.
Stokes offered two different examples of how two candidates successfully acquired this trio of requirements.
"[The first was a] pharmaceutical expert and business analyst [who] completed an MBA to break into McKinsey in Sydney," she said. "He started life, his career, and his educational journey in India, then obtained an MBA at INSEAD to land the job."
The second example that Stokes shared was a data science expert in predictive analytics across telecommunications, aviation, and transportation who also taught at a university before joining McKinsey.
Stokes added that candidates can leverage the international piece of the tripod by keeping in mind that McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture have offices worldwide. "So supposing you can't get into a top-tier British or American university and are granted a place to do an MBA at INSEAD, you could start communications with various international [consulting] offices where the opportunities will be just as exciting and rewarding."
Prepare for case interviewsEven after clearing all of these hurdles, it's just the start, according to Smith. The headhunter pointed out that Accenture and McKinsey require candidates to take and ace a series of technical interviews, quantitative tests, behavioral interviews, and case interviews. (Bain and BCG also require case interviews.)
Case interviews in particular - which involve analyzing and solving a particular business problem in about 30 minutes - require significant preparation. IGotAnOffer, which specializes in interview prep to help candidates get into McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, provides some basics about case interviews, such as this and this. The site notes that the objective of a case interview is to "recreate the conditions you will face in a real consulting project so that your interviewer can get an idea of how you will perform on the job."
"For each of these, focus on getting to your recommendation and being really clear," said Smith. "Preparation for these is important, and I definitely recommend practicing the case interview with someone who is a current consultant, especially if this is your first one."
You can see samples of case interviews for McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture here.
Ask smart questions in the interviewSmith emphasized that the last place candidates can further differentiate themselves is by asking smart questions at the end of the interview.
"All of these companies are going to leave a few minutes for questions, and it's not something everyone is prepared for," said Smith. "Come up with smart questions that show you're engaged beyond the job description they posted online and can highlight one of your strengths."
For instance, if you've talked about how you're a results-oriented consultant and provided strong examples with data to back them up in the interview, Smith advised asking a clarifying question about how they measure success on a given account that you're interested in.
Smith leaves would-be management consultants with the following advice:
"If you're not at one of the top firms today, working for another firm and making a name for yourself is a good way to leverage your experiences," she said. "But the most important step a candidate can take is creating some kind of personal connection at the company they want."