Does anyone know anything about McKinsey’s Strategy & Corporate Finance practice? They seem to be relatively small. Was wondering if what types of engagements they work on, their reputation both internally and externally, culture, exit opps, etc.
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Joined an MBB ~3 months ago at a post-MBA level, but feel extremely behind (EM rewrites all my content, I’m nervously saying/typing small mistakes, etc.) and my EM is not support/very condescending to me Has anyone experienced something similar? Am I going to get PIP’d? Any advice on how to get better?
How do you pick projects/decide what practices to focus on? I'm starting soon as a Consultant and I'm trying to figure out what to do. People have suggested finding a lane/niche early and staying there, is this the play? Not sure I want to stay at the firm long, but (a) I'd like to stay long enough that I don't have to be unemployed in a few years and (b) I'm concerned about not being able to get staffed. (C) how early should you start worrying about exits?
Hi All - I desperately need help with something. I was an ex management consultant and recently lost my job. I have been getting decent number of calls but am having a lot of trouble converting them past the 2nd or 3rd round. My struggle is with structured communication, thinking on the spot, being to structure my response whilst thinking (I have ADHD - not severe though). Continued in comments
How does one work 80-90 weeks in consulting? I understand in banking when you work weekends but doing that many hours with protected weekends and light fridays seems like an exaggeration (or the weekends aren’t protected)
Who said our S&CF is relatively small… Strategy work is the bread and butter of Mckinsey. You work with every industry (Oil and gas on their restructuring through energy transition, pharmas on optimizing their product portfolio, etc) with all the rungs of the laddar (F500 and privately owned). You sometimes have overlap work with PEPI (our PE group) in helping the acquisition targets/portco optimize their operation. Don’t think S&CF’s external reputation matters bc it is mckinsey at the end of the day. Internally, it is considered one of the challenging practices (right behind PEPI) in terms of work hours and WLB, but you learn crazy a lot in short amount of time. I would say culture is relatively draconian (a lot of really intelligent hardos with a very specific way to doing things and they always expect you to deliver since the stake in strategy work is high). Exit opp is great ( seen a lot of people go to corp strategy or UMM/LMM PE)
I know this is highly variable but what would avg work life balance / hours look like within a generalist program vs. S&CF?
typically, ShaPE (public sector) > Travel (airlines hotels resorts etc) > GEM = TMT > M&S > Advanced industries > Consumer products > Financials and Insurance > S&CF > PEPI from best to worst WLB. To elaborate, ShaPE can range from 50-65 a week. For S&CF, 60-80; for PEPI, 66ish- 90. I (and nobody) can speak for exit opp because we don’t know what you want to do in the long term. In terms of “prestige”, PEPI/S&CF are best if you wanna go out to PE/VC/Corp strat; TMT are best if you wanna go out to tech. The exit opportunity is pretty self explanatory for the industry you are interested in; you gotta answer what you want for yourself, not us
It is the opposite of small. If you’re looking online, it’s likely underrepresented because work is often published under the industry instead of the S&CF practice. They work on corporate strategy, growth strategy and M&A, CEO/CFO excellence, etc. Much of it is the work McK originally built its reputation on. Culture varies since it’s such a big practice; hours are higher on average than implementation work.
easily 16 hours a day (12 hours with team, 4 hours alone when you get back to hotel). They try their best to protect the weekend. but in PEPI, S&CF, you will almost always have one weekend on your study where it’s not
Wow I assume these long hours are consistent for all MBB firms? Is there any difference between the firms? McKinsey seems to get a rep as being the toughest
Would working for the S&CF practice qualify for MBA sponsorship?