How Glamorous is Strategy Consulting? A McKinsey consultants perspective

The general public often associates strategy consulting with a jet set lifestyle. But is this actually the case? Do consultants get to enjoy this extravagant lifestyle? We shed light on this topic and give an insiders perspective.
Nov 3 / Case Interview Hub

Glamorous consulting life? Fact or Fiction?

The general public often associates strategy consulting with a jet set lifestyle:
  • Flying around first class
  • Getting driven around in fancy cars
  • Mingling with titans of business while sipping cocktails
  • Enjoying Michelin star dinners
  • Making a shitload of money
But is this actually what the lifestyle at McKinsey, BCG & Bain looks like?
We go through the following categories associated with the glamorous lifestyle and look at the pros and cons:
  • Flights
  • Hotels
  • Cabs
  • Rental cars
  • Team activities
  • Compensation and benefits
  • Exposure to senior managers
  • Working with leading companies
  • People

Flights

It’s no secret that you travel a lot as a consultant. As for your flights, you will usually fly business class if you are working at one of the MBB firms but it depends on the region. In some regions, you will only fly economy for domestic travel but intercontinental flights are always business class.
Pros:
Flying business class is of course a nice perk as you will be served food during the flight. This can range from a multi-course dinner on a long haul flight to often some mediocre stuff on short flights. But there is no denying that flying business is comfortable as you will board the plane first, have more space and also get to enjoy free drinks. One of the best perks about flying though, is that you’ll collect bonus points or miles, to level up your status with the airline. You can then use the points on private trips, for free flights or a business class upgrade when going on vacation.
Cons:
If you think that you can take your seat in business class,  just relax, and enjoy the free drinks, you are usually wrong. There are multiple reasons why the MBB firms put you in business class. And one of them is that you can work better in business class, than in economy. For example, there’s less screen-peeking, allowing you to maintain confidentiality with regards to your clients. Also, being the first on and off the aircraft gives you more time to work, and gets you to the client site faster as you don’t have to wait until the majority of people left the plane. So on most flights, you will have your laptop opened up, churning out slides and working on excel models. Yes, you will get nice food and drinks, but you won’t be chilling into the sunset. Further, air travel can also be very tedious. Flights can get cancelled and then you are stuck in a city far from home on a Thursday or Friday evening, instead of spending it with your friends and family. This happens more often than one would think. Finally, after a couple of months, even fancy business class travel becomes a routine - just like driving your car to work. It is definitely interesting and exciting at first but it loses some glamour really quickly. 

Hotels

You’ll spend many nights in hotels. We know cases of 220 nights spent in hotels in one year. That’s not the standard but you can expect 100 hotel nights and more per year - depending on where your projects are located.
Pros:
It is no secret that the hotels you stay in as a consultant are usually very nice. Think of a nice gym, a spa area, or other nice amenities. And similar to the airlines, you’ll collect bonus points for your stays at the hotels that you can later use for free nights on vacation. Figuring out the hotels with the best bonus programs is a sport among consultants. And a hint from our side: Bonvoy (the Marriott bonus program) is the best one in our opinion. And nothing beats staying at the Ritz Carlton on the Maldives for “free” spending your hotel points.
Cons:
Staying in fancy hotels is nice and the points that you collect are great. But most often, you don’t get to enjoy the fancy hotels. You will work until 10, 11 or past midnight, and won’t have time to relax in the spa or chill in a lounge. And often times, you won’t go for the nice breakfast either as you’re likely prioritising sleep over spending 30 min of your well deserved sleep on having a fancy breakfast. So in the end, as long as the bed is comfy, you can rest well, and the hotel is not too far away from the client, the hotel is usually just fine. But there is no denying that the hotel points are great.

Cabs

Cabs are a daily part of your job as you have to get from the airport to the client, to your own office, to the hotel, to dinner locations, home, etc. Most often consultants will also have their own driver in cities where their main client is located. 
Pros:
Taking a cab to get from point A to B is of course a care-free way to travel in a city that you’re not familiar with. You won’t get lost and likely save time compared to public transport. In cities you spend a lot of time in it is also likely that you have your own driver who has been driving you around in a nice car for some months or even years. He or she will likely bring you a coffee in the morning or treat you with some candy. This can be quite nice.
Cons:
The cons with cabs are similar to the ones with flights. You won’t chill in a Mercedes S class and enjoy the massage function of the seats. Well, yes you might be enjoying the massage function but you will be churning out slides and working on models while doing that. And if the driving style of your driver is rough or you are not used to it, you will get nausea. Moreover, if your consulting firm is not supporting direct expensing in Uber you might also have to collect the receipts and then expense it. And that can be many receipts after one week of commuting daily by cab.

Rental cars

Rental cars are definitely not as common as cabs but every now and then you will need one to get to a more remote client.
Pros:
If you need a rental car to get to the client, you get to pick a nice one. So driving in the latest Mercedes or BMW can be quite fun if you fancy driving or like to check out the latest model of the respective manufacturer. And similar to flights and hotels, you will get to collect points with the car rental that you can later use in your leisure time.
Cons:
The cons with rental cars are quite significant. If you need a rental car, the client is likely very far away from the airport and in a more remote area - too far for a cab ride. So you’ll drive at least an hour. In addition, you can’t work during that time - meaning that your work will pile up while you are cruising around. Further, unlike for cab rides, you will need to schedule calls in which you have to participate actively outside of your commute. Additionally, you also won’t be able to relax as you need to be focused on the road which can also be quite tiring (and dangerous) after a long day or week of work. Needing a rental car was always a red flag when picking a project for our team at Case Interview Hub. A rental care makes commuting so much more complicated and uncomfortable. So here the downsides in our opinion clearly outweigh the pros.

Team activities

Team activities can literally be anything. Sport and cultural events, a night at a nice club, or just a fancy dinner.
Pros:
Team events are great and there are many pros when it comes to them. You will likely have a great time with your colleagues and you will get to try out new things - often things you would not do privately due to the high associated costs. Ever wanted to drive a race car on a track? Well, we did it with our colleagues as a team activity. Ever wanted to sit courtside at an NBA game? We did that as well. But they are not as lavish as they used to be back in the day as consulting firms are becoming more cost conscious. Nonetheless, team events are great and you will make experiences that you will remember for a long time.
Cons:
Team events are not all sunshine and rainbows - there are also some cons that come along. If you spend an afternoon or evening doing a fancy team event you will not be able to work in that time. So if you are on a busy project your work will pile up taking a toll on your lifestyle. As you can see, there is a pattern emerging in the cons. We have been in teams that would rather work than do a team dinner in order to avoid the rest of the week getting super stressful. Furhter, if you are having dinner with clients - which happens a lot - not only does your work pile up, but a dinner with a client is usually not like dinner with friends. It is much more formal and sometimes political. You have to be careful what you say so it’s more like work and less like spare time. But with clients that you are close with for a long time it can also be quite fun.

Compensation and benefits

This is often a big selling point, especially for students looking into consulting. They compare the salaries at the top firms and also across industries so that they can apply at the firms with the highest starting salary. In our opinion it is not the most important aspect.
Pros:
The compensation at MBB firms is great. As we touched upon in our section about Why to join consulting, you will be immediately in the top 5% of earners in your respective country. The career path is also very clear and if you perform well, you know that you’ll be making twice the amount you are making now in 2 years, depending on your level. In addition, there are of course nice additional benefits like a good health insurance, free food and beverages at the office, a firm car, etc.
Cons:
There are also cons that come with this great compensation package. You will work a lot - there is no denying that. And especially at analyst level, your hourly wage will be very low as you will be working 60+ hours per week - depending on the project your are on. But if you like the job and don’t mind the work-life-balance, you will be very well compensated. And once you reach higher levels the hourly wage of course increases a lot.

Exposure to senior managers

You will interact with experienced professionals on a daily basis. Not just on the client side but also internally.
Pros:
On the client side, you will work with some of the leading managers or even executives in their respective industry. Will you get to have One-on-One sessions with them at the analyst level? No, definitely not. But you will get to be in meetings with them and be able to:
  • Observe how they approach strategic decisions
  • What questions they ask
  • How they think about strategic and operational priorities
  • How they perceive market trends
  • ...
By just doing that without much active participation you will already learn a lot! And later on in your career you will grow into becoming a trusted for these senior clients.
Besides the senior clients, you will work directly with experienced project managers and partners in your team. You will learn:
  • How a partner structures a document and refines a story line
  • How she thinks about the key messages and how she positions them
  • How to navigate corporate politics at the client
  • How to communicate top down
  • ...
On top of that, you will of course learn a lot about the industry and the concrete topic you are working in.
Cons:
The list of cons on this one is relatively short. The only downside, if you can call it that, is that it’s a high pressure environment. Client executives pay huge sums when hiring consultants and expect impact right from day 1 of the project - so read-outs with senior clients can be quite tense and clients experienced in working with consultants know how to squeeze the team to get the most out of a project. In read-outs, you hope that the numbers in the analyses you prepared are correct. And that you didn’t make a mistake in a footnote or mislabelled a chart. This sounds trivial, but you don’t want to be the analyst who made the mistake in front of senior clients or in front of your senior partner.

Working with leading companies

You will get to know many different - great and not so great - companies across the globe.
Pros:
This point is closely linked to the previous one on senior clients. But not only will you learn from the people, you will also get to see how leading companies are set up:
  • How is the R&D of Apple organized?
  • How does the investment process of Goldman for equities look like?
  • How does the supply chain of NIKE work?
  • How does the pricing at State Farm work?
  • ...
You will get insights into these confidential processes and get to know a client firm inside-and-out. Later on in your consulting career when you focus on an industry, you will get to know your client companies extremely well. You will know the country heads personally, understand the strategic directive and challenges of the full company and also know the operational issues in specific divisions or regions. This also helps tremendously when exiting consulting.
Cons:
There are really no cons to this one. The only one you could consider as a con is that depending on the project situation you might not get to work for the companies you would like to. If Amazon is currently not doing projects with your consulting firm, then you obviously won’t get there. But you can definitely gain insights at another tech company and these insights will be transferable. So no real downsides here.

People

We saved the most important criteria in our opinion for last - the People. We are not talking about the seniors but the peers on your level.
Pros:
Yes, the partners are also mostly very nice and fun to be around - but what really makes the difference in your day-to-day job is the colleagues on your level. At the top consulting firms, you will work with the brightest people with very interesting life stories. A former olympic rower, a start-up founder, and a nuclear scientist sitting in a room - this could be the setup for a really bad joke but it could also be your project team. People at consulting firms have very different backgrounds but what they have in common is that they are bright and have drive. If you have a tough project with insane working hours, a difficult client, and a boring topic, it’s usually the people in your team that make the experience fun. And if people exit consulting, what they miss is usually not the long working hours, the high pressure environment, or the great compensation and benefits - it is the people they miss. All the benefits we mentioned before are great - and his might sound corny - but in the end it’s the people that make consulting a great job
Cons:
On this one, there are no cons. Will you get along with everyone? No. But that’s not different than in life in general. And the prejudice that people at consulting firms are snobbish, arrogant, or simply entitled is something we cannot really confirm. The backgrounds are diverse and the majority comes from a humble background and usually stays humble.
In the end, it’s less about the glamour and more about the people and the learning experience. A recurring theme is the high workload, but then again, the perks, the points, the miles, they will make up for it if you enjoy the job.