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Boston Consulting – “Excellent company, case experience varies”
Pros
Smart, dedicated, interesting and driven people
Mixture of work and cases
Opportunity for some broad skills development
Cons
Some cases very poorly managed and supported
Managerial skills take a back seat to excel/powerpoint skills so it's just luck if you have a good manager
There is almost no work life balance - expect to be working pretty much all the time and not sleeping much during the week. When a team's consistent long hours do get raised as an issue partners/principles will assume the team is being inefficient. Hence there is pressure to under-report hours
Often the internal politics of BCG is more difficult to manage than client relationships. Partners will put consultants who they know and like on their teams. Getting on the right side of the partners is cricital, if you have a personality clash or tension with a partner it will be very hard. Similarly, you have to learn who the partner's favourites are.
Advice to Senior Management
Up or out forces people to concentrate on their individual skills rather than management skills - need greater emphasis on how to manage teams.