Why am I replying I have no idea. I have spent 6 years in management consulting in a top firm (BCG).
While the average quality of people I worked with in consulting tend to be higher than almost all the other place I have been (wall street, trading, hedge funds, etc). The problem isn't that they are not smart, the consultants are very smart, and very articulate as well.
Problem is that most top management have no idea how to use consultants. Consultants are notorious for putting a smart kid ("smarties") into the fire very quickly, I was just 3 months out of grad school and I was sitting in front of CIO for a wall street firm, advising him on e-commerce strategy (this is circa '96-97). Yes, I graduated top of my class, and I published a lot, but really I have no idea what I am doing, I was literally gleaming the information as I go along (it is easy when there are all the information available to me). And from my career path in consulting (fast promotions), I did extremely well.
Consultants are very good in bring in a good process and objectives, good background study and a well articulated situation analysis. But the actual implementation of the problem resolution still rests with the client, that's the inherent weakness with consultants.
Did I take advantage of the consulting situation? Of course! I learned to talk my way into practically anything, but I don't have the 5-10 years of industry experience or depth to back it up. Yes I can walk into a situation (engagement), analyze the problem and the players quickly, and come up with some intelligent to say. But am I really contributing to solving the problem? I am not so sure, since I won't be the person (nor the firm) to implement the solution anyways, that's not my problem.
Rufus
Quote from TheStudent:
I don't know why I'm going to stick my finger in the dike but here goes.
It's fashionable to gloat over the fallen mighty and its comforting to convince yourself that highly regarded groups of people are just shams and more incompetent that yourself.
Are people from McKinsey the cream of the crop? Or are they just complete dolts as many posters suggest, lucky to get into the good schools?
The truth as always lies somewhere in between. Not everyone there is impressive, but I can tell you that there are a heck of a lot more quality people in a random sample of McKinsey consultants than in a random sample of ET posters.
Never been a consultant, but I have dealt with many companies and there is a lot of regard for McKinsey within those ranks. It's okay with me if no-one believe what I say - the world is what you make of it.
Like I said, the consulting business is simple - quality people for time sharing by corporations.