As a PhD, you may have many questions on your mind regarding a potential career at McKinsey. This page intends to answer your most pressing ones and show you how other PhDs have found their way to McKinsey.
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Why do people with Ph.D.s come to McKinsey?
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Currently, there are more than 1,400 consultants with PhDs at McKinsey globally, and most say they came to McKinsey to broaden their horizons beyond the academic setting. As consultants, they find they can apply their problem-solving skills in new ways, work within fun and stimulating team settings, and make measurable impact more quickly and more often.
Many came from careers in basic research, where they often worked in isolation and where it can take years to achieve tangible results. As McKinsey consultants, they work through their clients’ problems in months or even weeks rather than years. To solve those problems, they work side by side with other consultants and with their clients. As in academia, the environment at McKinsey is intellectually stimulating and competitive, but it’s also ever-changing and supportive. PhDs who come to McKinsey appreciate the chance to tackle a new challenge with each engagement, and they develop personally and professionally as they go, with mentoring support, on-the-job training, and more formal learning opportunities such as mini-M.B.A. and leadership courses.
For someone who has spent years conducting research within the same field, coming to McKinsey offers the chance to branch out—to explore new industries and new ways of thinking. Many consultants with PhDs in fields such as pharmaceuticals or high-tech go on to work in those areas, but some choose to enter industries they might never have been exposed to before joining McKinsey, including media, private equity, consumer goods, and banking.
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Nidhi, Engagement Manager, New Jersey
PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |
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 "I love science, but I didn’t want to do science. Instead, I wanted to make science happen, make health care happen, make pharmaceutical drugs available to people and make pharma companies more efficient. I didn’t want to work in a lab for 20 years. I wanted to be where my impact would be greater and more immediate. I wanted to work with very smart people who would constantly challenge me and from whom I would learn so much that the growth trajectory would never flatten. McKinsey is that place."
Read Nidhi's profile |
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How will a career with McKinsey be different from what I’ve experienced in academia?
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Every McKinsey engagement demands the same types of qualities that you need to succeed in academia: strong problem-solving skills, intellectual curiosity, and the drive to achieve results. The difference is, at McKinsey you’ll be working with and presenting your findings to the leaders of the world’s most successful companies, leaders of the most influential organizations, and even heads of state. McKinsey’s clients include:
- More than 90 of the 100 leading global corporations
- Twenty-four of the top 25 global pharmaceutical companies
- Eight of the top ten U.S. managed care companies
- Governments in more than 35 countries
McKinsey consultants learn to solve problems quickly and make fast decisions, even when they don’t have all the information about a particular subject. Consultants with Ph.D.s say one of the biggest challenges—and most attractive aspects—of a career with McKinsey is this shift in thinking. In the academic setting, they grew accustomed to diving deep into a subject, often spending years gathering and analyzing data, looking at research questions from all angles, and formulating elegant, intellectually pure conclusions. At McKinsey, consultants learn to work with the most important information, whittle a problem down to its core, and offer a solution that helps a client make better decisions, even if it’s not a clear-cut, easy answer.
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Daina, Engagement Manager, New York
PhD, Chemistry |
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 "What I loved about science—and still love—is being able to problem solve and learn about a number of things. As a scientist, I was trained to understand everything I could about a subject before I started asking questions and solving problems. But at McKinsey, I learned that there are other ways of solving a problem. I can solve a problem by interacting with other people to understand the internal dynamics of an organization. I can engage the clients and ask the right questions without being a subject-matter expert. Now, I can step into insurance or banking or energy, pick apart the problem, and use my background to help with the logic of problem solving. You can’t know everything, and understanding how to engage your team and how to motivate them without knowing everything is something you learn at McKinsey."
Read Daina's profile |
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Seungheon, Associate Principal, Seoul
PhD, Physics |
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 "Doing science and doing business are both about solving the problem. But in science, you normally have unlimited time to solve a problem completely and accurately to really know the truth. In business, you have limited time, limited resources, and you have to get the best sense, not always the real answer. You have to get the best answer in the most effective and efficient way. In engineering and science, you take a bottom-up approach. You collect all the data, you analyze, and you build on that to solve the problem. But in business, you think from the top down. You need the same analytical skills as a scientist or an engineer, but the core skill you need for consultancy is judgment."
Read Seungheon's profile |
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How can I build the business knowledge I need to be a successful consultant?
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You don’t need a business degree to succeed at McKinsey. In fact, nearly half of our consultants come from fields other than business. We value the talent and breadth of experience we gain by hiring consultants from a range of professional backgrounds, and so do our clients. McKinsey was the first consulting firm to start recruiting large numbers of consultants with advanced professional degrees outside of business. More than 1,400 of our consultants and more than 3,000 of our alumni worldwide hold PhDs, and they’ve been just as successful at McKinsey as consultants with M.B.A.s.
If you join McKinsey with a non-business advanced degree, you’ll receive a thorough grounding in the business world through our mini-M.B.A. program before you start your first consulting engagement. In this intensive, three-week course, you and about 40 other new consultants will learn the core skills in subjects such as microeconomics, accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and business strategy taught by the most highly regarded professors from the world’s top business schools.
As you build knowledge in areas such as supply and demand economics, competitive strategies, lean operations and M&A valuations, you’ll also get to know your new colleagues and have a great deal of fun. Consultants describe mini-M.B.A. as an intense, shared experience that helps them bond with other consultants from around the globe as they prepare for their new careers as McKinsey consultants. It’s the first step in building the personal network of colleagues and mentors that consultants depend on throughout their careers.
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Jeremy, Associate Principal, New York
PhD, Molecular and Cellular Biology |
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 "Mini-M.B.A. was the most valuable educational experience I’ve ever had. For three weeks, we learned business concepts from some of the best professors in the world. For instance, I learned microeconomics from a professor from Kellogg who had written a textbook used by most of the best business schools. I learned operations from a professor from Wharton. I learned finance from the dean of INSEAD. The program was very informative and helped me build a lot of confidence. And the people I met there remain some of my closest friends at McKinsey."
Read Jeremy's profile |
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Vicki, Associate Principal, New York
PhD, Bioengineering |
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 "One of my favorite training experiences was mini-M.B.A. I was there with 40 people from different walks of life and different countries, but we were all in the same position in that we didn’t know much about what it was like to work for McKinsey. We all went through that common experience of learning about business essentials, but at the same time, we got a sense of how McKinsey is truly a global firm. I was there with people from Germany, Asia, the Middle East, and people who had degrees in physics, economics, law and more. You get a sense of how diverse the firm is and how fun the people are."
Read Vicki's profile |
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What do consultants actually do?
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As a McKinsey consultant, your day-to-day responsibilities will vary depending on the industry and the client you’re working with, but one thing will remain constant: You’ll apply your critical-thinking skills to solve problems with no easy answers.
You’ll identify key issues, form hypotheses, conduct analyses, formulate recommendations, and discuss them with the client’s management. You’ll work closely with each client on-site to help implement your recommendations and get results.
For the length of the engagement, you’ll work as a member of a team with the client, doing everything from planning the strategy for a company acquisition or developing and marketing a new product to improving how an entire nation’s healthcare system works.
As you progress from engagement to engagement, you’ll be challenged to take on new responsibilities and stretch your skills. At the same time, McKinsey emphasizes the importance of work/life balance and pursuing your own passions. A career with McKinsey offers the flexibility and encouragement to follow personal priorities that academia doesn’t always provide.
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Laura, Associate Principal, New Jersey
PhD, Neuroscience |
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 "For one engagement, I created a complex model to predict the future value of all the drugs in a biotech company’s research and development pipeline. That required interviews with a lot of physicians and other experts to refine the assumptions we used to build the model.
In another engagement, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company wanted to better understand the nuances of early-stage R&D. So we conducted a series of workshops for him about what the important issues are, how key technologies work, and what heads of research are worried about across the industry. It was cool for me, having just come from working in research, to be explaining things to a CEO. He chose McKinsey because he wanted people who had worked in R&D and knew the science from an actual in-the-trenches perspective."
Read Laura's profile |
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Minjung, Associate, Seoul
PhD, Polymers and Chemistry |
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 "Basically, the McKinsey way is human. If you just send a client some information or some books, it’s not only cold, but they won’t really understand what kind of knowledge you have. But, if you go to the client and talk with them, they begin to trust you—even if what you’re telling them is difficult to hear. That human connection and openness is important at McKinsey. We work together with clients, as thinking partners, and that’s what makes an engagement successful."
Read Minjung's profile |
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What opportunities for professional growth and development does McKinsey offer?
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McKinsey promotes consultants based on their potential, and there are no restrictions on the number of people we promote or elect to partner. Our mentorship model and emphasis on support create a culture in which every member of the firm feels invested in each other’s success.
You’ll be constantly challenged to broaden your skill set and step into leadership positions. The environment can be intense, but you won’t be competing with other consultants. You’ll be pushing yourself to take on new responsibilities, understand new industries, help your colleagues, and work with top-caliber clients from around the globe. Through mentoring relationships, you’ll learn from others’ experiences and apply what you’ve learned in client engagements. You’ll also build knowledge in formal training programs such as these:
- Basic Consulting Readiness – a one-week "boot camp" to learn the basic day-to-day skills required to be effective on your first day on an enagement
- Initial Leadership Workshop – a two-week course to learn about your own skills and how to use them more effectively to lead teams and clients
- Engagement Management Basics – a one-week course to learn the basics of managing a McKinsey engagement
- Engagement Leadership Workshop – a one-week course to refine your team and client leadership skills
- Client Leadership Workshop – a one-week course to refine your skills in counseling senior business executives
- Communications Skills Workshop – a one-week course to improve your communications skills
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Stephen, Associate Principal, Stamford
PhD, Physics |
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 "In the office I joined, many people had backgrounds similar to my own. Out of about 70 consultants, I think 15 of them were PhDs. I felt that if they were successful here, I would probably find someone like me, who knows the challenges I would face making the transition and would be able to guide me.
Everybody from the most senior-level partner down to my fellow associate who had a bit more experience under his belt gave me suggestions. The engagement manager and other associates gave me very tactical advice about consulting tools or ways of managing my day. It was a cascade of mentorship. I felt like the entire team was taking responsibility for my development and my progress. They all took time out of what was otherwise an intense project to help me get better."
Read Stephen's profile |
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Joining McKinsey would be a major career change for me. How can I ensure my success in the long term?
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Consultants with advanced professional degrees outside of business are elected to partner at McKinsey just as often as consultants with M.B.A.s. Currently, more than a third of McKinsey’s 1,200 partners worldwide hold advanced professional degrees.
We want you to succeed, and we’ll support your growth with formal training and development programs to continually strengthen business and leadership skills. Our apprenticeship model ensures you’ll always have experienced consultants to turn to for advice or insight. Expectations are high—McKinsey consultants handle some of the most sensitive, critical issues faced by the world’s top organizations—but they’re also clear. You’ll know your responsibilities before beginning each client engagement, and when you need help, you can turn to one of your fellow consultants or one of the 19,000 McKinsey alumni worldwide—more than 3,000 of whom came to McKinsey with PhDs.
You’ll grow with each engagement, but you’ll be the one directing that growth. We understand that not everyone wants to become a partner. If you find another opportunity that interests you, we’ll support you as you pursue it. You’ll take the skills and knowledge you built at McKinsey with you into your chosen field, and you’ll stay connected as part of the global McKinsey alumni network.
On average, consultants with PhDs who have moved on from McKinsey stayed with the firm for about four years. They now work in more than nearly 60 countries and in a wide variety of areas, including these:
- Academia
- Asset management
- Education
- Energy
- Healthcare payors and providers
- High tech
- Information technology
- Investment and wholesale banking
- Medical devices and diagnostics
- Private equity
- Pharmaceuticals
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Stephen, Associate Principal, Stamford
PhD, Physics |
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"McKinsey has a track record for taking the risk of bringing on someone without a business background, developing them, providing them the proper mentorship and the proper training, and really creating a supportive environment. They aren’t trying to ‘churn and burn’ individuals; they are actually trying to develop and keep them and eventually make them into partners or send them out into the broader business world as alumni."
Read Stephen's profile |
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