Project Staffing at McKinsey, BCG & Bain: How You Get Assigned to Projects

You've secured your consulting offer. Maybe even multiple. Congratulations. Now comes a question that most applicants are deeply curious about but rarely get a straight answer on: How do you actually get staffed on projects?

It matters — a lot. Your staffing determines which industry you work in, which city you travel to, which partner you report to, and ultimately, how fast you develop. A great project can accelerate your career by a year. A terrible one can burn you out in weeks.

In this post, we break down how staffing works at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, what really determines where you end up, and what no one tells you at recruiting events.

For a video version of this topic, check out our YouTube video here.

What is staffing?

Staffing, in consulting, means matching individual consultants with individual projects. In practice, this could look something like: you get a call or an email on Friday confirming that from Monday onwards, you'll be on a marketing project for a retailer in Chicago for the next 10 weeks.

Simple enough in theory. But how is it decided which consultant ends up where?

The staffing models: preference-based vs. top-down

Consulting firms use different approaches, and they fall on a spectrum.

On one end, there's the preference-based model, where consultants have significant input into which projects they want — and which they don't. On the other end, there's strict assignment, where a staffing coordinator or staffing team makes a top-down decision, typically in consultation with the project leadership.

McKinsey prides itself on a preference-based model. In theory, that means you can choose what you want to work on. Most offices try to honor this, though as we'll discuss later, theory and reality don't always align.

Bain tends to be more on the top-down side, where you're assigned to a project. You can still express preferences and shape your path, but the final decision is less in your hands.

BCG has used a system where you indicate your top project preferences from a list, and staffing coordinators then try to match you with one of your choices.

In practice, all three firms land somewhere in the middle. And a number of factors moderate how much influence you actually have.

In practice, all three firms land somewhere in the middle. And a number of factors moderate how much influence you actually have.

What actually determines your staffing

Regardless of the model your firm uses, four factors shape your real-world staffing experience:

1. Firm size

In a larger firm, there are simply more projects to go around, and you'll have more options to choose from. Say you work for McKinsey in New York but don't find a project that fits your interests. Maybe your ideal project starts next week in Atlanta. A large firm with a strong client base across many markets can facilitate this kind of flexibility. McKinsey, being the largest MBB firm, has the easiest time offering a preference-based system — it's partly a luxury of scale.

2. Office size

Even within a large firm, your individual office might be small. Let's say you work for McKinsey in Greece. It's a small office — probably fewer than 40 consultants. On average, there might be 5 ongoing projects keeping the office afloat. That's your selection to choose from, more or less. You could try to be staffed internationally, but there are limitations. If you speak Greek and have local client relationships, the office will want to keep you in the region to develop those clients further.

3. Your specialization

If you've focused on a specific industry or niche, your options narrow by definition. Say you're passionate about public sector work. Government projects aren't infinite — so you may have to take whatever is available. Even if you're not thrilled by the specific topic, you might end up optimizing the purchasing organization of a defense ministry simply because that's the only public sector project running at the time.

4. The business cycle

This is arguably the biggest factor of all. When business is booming, new projects start every week — sometimes more than there are consultants available. In that environment, all the power goes to the consultants. You can pick and choose. When business is slow, you take what you can get. If you're sitting "on the beach" (consulting slang for having no project and hanging out in the office) for too long, it will hurt your next performance review. In a slow market, you're not choosing projects — you're grateful to be staffed on anything at all.

The staffing black market

Now, everything we've described so far is the official process. But the official process doesn't tell the full story.

There's something we call the staffing black market. Many projects never even appear on official staffing lists. Instead, they get filled through personal connections. Partners and project managers tend to have their favorite associates and project leads. Through networking, past collaboration, and personal recommendations, a project is often fully staffed before the staffing organization even takes notice.

This black market becomes increasingly important the more senior you get. If you rely exclusively on official staffing lists and wait for the staffing coordinator to place you, you're going to miss out on the best opportunities. The really interesting projects — the ones everyone talks about — typically don't end up on any list. They're staffed through relationships.

That's why building your internal network from day one is so important. Not in a calculated, transactional way — but genuinely. Get to know partners, deliver strong work, and make yourself someone people want on their team. That's the best staffing strategy there is.

How staffing evolves throughout your career

Your staffing experience changes dramatically as you progress through the consulting ranks.

Your first project (the rookie project)

For your very first project, you don't get much choice — even at McKinsey. The firm will staff you, though they may ask for your preferences and industries you'd rather avoid. But there's no guarantee. The priority for the firm is making sure the project is suitable for a new joiner: ideally with one or two other associates on the team, a supportive project manager, and a pace that allows for learning and coaching. A high-pressure private equity due diligence where you're the only junior? Not ideal for week one.

Years 1–2 (early tenure)

As an early-tenured consultant, you'll mostly follow the formal processes described above. In a preference-based system, you see the available projects and express interest. But the project team also needs to choose you — and if multiple people want the same project, the project manager will pick whoever fits best. Even in a preference-based system, you're competing against colleagues of similar tenure.

In a more top-down system, the staffing organization assigns you. Maybe the project manager gets a list of available consultants and selects the most suitable one. Either way, you have less control than you might like.

Years 3–4 (senior consultant)

This is where the formal system starts to share the stage with the black market. Many of your projects will come through connections you've built. Partners you've worked with before may request you for their next engagement, or recommend you to other partners. It's often driven by the fact that they genuinely enjoy working with you. By this point, you might also be developing a niche — maybe you're becoming known as the private equity specialist, or the person partners call for pricing cases.

Project manager

The transition from senior consultant to project manager is often seamless when it comes to staffing. By now, you're likely established in a particular industry and work with a consistent group of partners. It's increasingly rare to be thrown onto a random project outside your core focus. You might even be deeply embedded with one or two key clients — organizations you know inside out, where the partner keeps bringing you back and the client team appreciates the continuity. At this level, you've moved past the official staffing lists entirely.

Junior partner

A junior partner typically has a handful of core clients and collaborates with the same senior partners across multiple projects. You're staffed because partners trust you, or because you bring expertise that's critical to the engagement. This is also the first level where you're typically not fully dedicated to a single project. Instead, you might spend 30% of your time on one engagement and 50% on another, with the rest going to business development and internal firm activities.

Partner

At the partner level, staffing is no longer something that happens to you. Your job is to develop business — you're an industry expert with your own client relationships and a constant project pipeline. You're not waiting to be staffed. You're the one creating opportunities and staffing others.

The staffing paradox: juniors vs. seniors

If you look at these levels, an interesting dynamic emerges — a staffing paradox that plays out depending on the business cycle.

When business is booming, it's great for juniors. There are many projects to choose from, and if you're in a preference-based system, you can pick the ones that excite you most. But booming business creates the opposite problem for senior leaders: they may struggle to assemble their dream team. In the worst case, they can't even fill all the positions on a project.

This is why being a good people manager matters at the partner level. If you're known as a merciless slave driver, you might get away with it when projects are scarce. But the moment business picks up and consultants have options, you'll find that nobody wants to work for you — and your project is the one that goes understaffed.

A real-world example: the post-COVID staffing crisis

The last few years have been a perfect case study in how staffing dynamics can shift.

After COVID, the consulting industry boomed. Demand surged, projects were plentiful, and juniors had the luxury of being selective. In response, consulting firms went on a massive hiring spree to keep up with demand.

Then, in 2023, demand dried up. A record number of new joiners who had accepted offers during the boom started their jobs — just as the pipeline of new projects thinned out. The result: an oversupply of young consultants with not enough projects to go around. Many were stuck on the beach for weeks. For high-achievers used to nonstop performance, sitting in the office without meaningful work was deeply frustrating.

Even McKinsey, which has always promoted its preference-based staffing model at recruiting events, couldn't fully deliver on that promise in 2023. There were internal discussions about scaling back the model — though they ultimately didn't. But it was a telling moment: in tough times, even the most flexible staffing systems hit their limits, and you take whatever project is available.

If you want to learn more about the consulting crisis, check out our YouTube video:

Final thoughts

Staffing is a process that almost no one in consulting truly enjoys. Juniors want to pursue their interests and land exciting projects. Seniors need to assemble strong teams to deliver what they promised to clients. And sometimes, these interests don't align.

There's also a fair amount of internal salesmanship involved. When a partner describes a project as a "rockstar opportunity" requiring a "high-paced team" with a "step-up role" — read between the lines. That's often code for a tough project that nobody else wants.

The key takeaway? Build your network early. Deliver strong work. Be someone people want on their team. That matters infinitely more than any formal staffing model — because regardless of whether you're at McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, and regardless of how the system is designed on paper, relationships are ultimately what drive staffing in practice.

Want to learn more about the consulting lifestyle? Check out our posts on the up-or-out principle, why consultants leave MBB, and why consultants get fired.

Preparing for your consulting interviews? Learn the case interview essentials and check out our Case Interview Mastery course on Udemy.

Check out our YouTube video on project staffing: