Working for McKinsey is inspiring
For me, working at McKinsey means constantly improving my professional skills at every level. At the beginning of their careers, consultants develop a range of expertise, working with companies from different industries, learning to see the whole picture, and finding solutions. In time, you can choose to specialize. When consultants become associate principals, for instance, they start to devote more time to mentoring and coaching others, building client relationships, and implementing new projects in familiar areas. This is very inspiring. At the same time, there’s always room to grow in a new functional discipline or to lead interesting projects in unfamiliar industries.
“For me, working at McKinsey means constantly improving my professional skills at every level: there’s always room to grow in a new functional discipline or to lead interesting projects in unfamiliar industries.”
There are physicists, doctors, and lawyers among us
Our consultants have different experiences and educational backgrounds. We have arts graduates, physicists, mathematicians, doctors, and lawyers. This facilitates teamwork. If a team is composed of people with different skills and strengths, each member views the problem from a different perspective, which helps generate positive results. It’s important to have a keen and agile mind. Working with unique and talented peers with the right values is a delight. I always learn from my colleagues and discover something new and useful.
We’re independent and objective in our conclusions, and our independence is appreciated
All McKinsey projects are uniquely interesting. In one CIS country we were asked to help prepare the ground for a new law. We identified experts in the field and pulled together a team of senior lawyers, international organization members, deputies, and members of the government. We then hosted working sessions to help the participants come up with a good law. McKinsey consultants share common values, including the principle that our professional independence should be absolute. This made us the right people for the task. The team members knew that we were able to organize the work in a way that would produce impartial fact-based decisions. This was a big factor in the success of the initiative.
We help solve versatile issues
McKinsey is prepared to tackle the toughest challenges. Our work in education in Russia is a good example. We work with governments on a variety of different issues–from combating illiteracy to building innovative systems in education. We also work with universities and schools and actively address this practice area in Russia, which I consider very important and interesting. The problems are very complicated, covering syllabus content, teacher and headmaster training, development, and evaluation systems, and introducing an education-management system. An approach to the development of Russia’s education system needs to be unique, so we have to think of truly nonstandard, innovative solutions.