What is the travel and lifestyle like for consultants at McKinsey?

Your travel and lifestyle will vary depending on your role and the client engagement you are working on at any given time. However, an average McKinsey consultant travels 40 percent of the time. Sometimes travel is heavily concentrated between Monday and Thursday, and other times it is fairly infrequent. Some industries are very geographic in nature (for example, pharmaceuticals, banking, high tech), and if those industries and locations are part of your focus, you could travel less than the average consultant. Striking the right work life balance is important to sustaining a long-term consulting career, so our weekends are guarded and it is rare to work on the weekend unless you are traveling internationally.

What can I expect when starting with McKinsey?

Solid consulting skills are crucial for a successful career at McKinsey. The focus for most of your first year is on building and rounding out the core consulting skills that will be important to your longer-term success as a consultant, such as skills in structured problem solving, client communications, influencing, or analytics. All McKinsey consultants begin in a formal training program that helps to introduce these core consulting skills before working on client engagements. Once you begin client work, the staffing process is focused primarily on what will be optimal for your development. While we usually try to place you on projects that leverage some aspect of your background, we will intentionally give you opportunities to solve problems you haven’t encountered before. We have found this to be valuable in building the general problem-solving skills that will make you successful at the firm over the long term. Your first year is always a time of tremendous growth and learning, which can sometimes be a difficult adjustment. We have both formal and informal processes to help support you, such as a training program designed exclusively for experienced professional hires where you can meet McKinsey people from all over the world.

What is it like joining McKinsey as an experienced professional?

The number of experienced professional hires at McKinsey is growing, and we now have a rich community of professionals joining from many different industries and backgrounds. McKinsey’s clients value the diversity of knowledge and insight that our experienced consultants bring to engagements and it is quite common for our more experienced professionals to play a key-client-leadership role on teams.

As an experienced hire, what type of special training and development should I expect?

Training and development is a constant at McKinsey across all tenure levels, from business analyst to director. All consultants attend regular programs tailored to accommodate their specific needs and background. For example, consultants hired with more than 3 years of work experience will attend McKinsey’s experienced hire workshop within your first 9 months. This dynamic workshop is designed to give you the opportunity to identify and develop techniques for integrating successfully in McKinsey as an experienced hire. Our learning programs are broad ranging from specific knowledge building to public speaking and problem solving, as well as to personal communication and influencing skill building.

How are consultants assigned to projects?

Consultants are staffed on one study at a time. Staffing assignments are made by considering clients’ needs and the kind of work, client interaction and experience the business analyst needs to continue improving his or her skills, in addition to other factors. As this suggests, there are many elements that go into each staffing decision. In your first year, while you are able to express project preferences, you typically do not choose your own projects. When available for staffing, you have the opportunity to review a list of confirmed engagements and discuss the pros and cons of a handful of these with your professional-development manager. Final staffing assignments are made by professional development with input from both teams and individual consultants.

How is a typical client team structured?

The team is the center of McKinsey life. You’ll find that teams are made up of a diverse mix of people from many different countries as well as educational and professional backgrounds. This diversity not only makes our work enjoyable but also enables us to bring a broad range of perspectives to solving our clients’ problem. As a new consultant, you will work closely with a small team of four or five people. Every member of the team is expected to make a significant contribution. From brainstorming sessions to client presentations, your team will look to you to participate actively by voicing your opinions, challenging findings, responding to client concerns, and presenting recommendations. Everyone, from the most junior consultant to the most tenured partner, has a voice and an obligation to use it.

What can I expect at McKinsey