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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What are the most common M/SM failure modes post-MBB? Curious as to your thoughts - for smart people with good education, but still relatively new in career and domain expertise, what have you seen as the most common failure modes post-MBB? I'm looking for my next thing, and while I can clearly see the benefits of me (Bain M/SM) over an A or an SA as an IC, I'm having a hard time seeing myself leading a team without the leadership support at MBB (APs, Ps etc.).
I've received an offer to join Bain's ACI class next summer, and with nothing to do for the next year, I'm looking for ways to best prepare for the internship and maximize my chances at a return offer. I know there's a week-long training at the start, but I feel like that won't cover everything I need to know, nor provide me enough time to practice the skills I learn over the week. For former interns or current full-time employees, how would you recommend I best use this time?
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?