4 ms·

Having seen the hiring model of a lot of these companies, this shouldn't surprise anyone. A lot of Big-4/management consultancy, revolves around hiring bright

Having seen the hiring model of a lot of these companies, this shouldn't surprise anyone. A lot of Big-4/management consultancy, revolves around hiring bright young people straight out of University and sending them into large companies with, at best, a canned methodology, and access to some more experienced people to ask questions of.

oneoff786 4y ago
I do consulting. I’m always confused when people state that hiring new grads from top universities, having established frameworks, and having experienced people lead projects is a bad thing. I love hiring new grads.
- Moissanite 4y ago
  Hiring them is fine - charging thousands of dollars per day for expertise they don't actually have is where people start to have a problem.
  - mousetree 4y ago
    They’re supervised by junior partners, partners and senior partners. By supervised I mean every proposed set of work and every resulting slide is inspected with a fine tooth comb. The 23 year olds are literally just crunching whatever data the senior tells them to. Disclosure: former consultant
    - raesene9 4y ago
      I'd guess that depends on the consultancy, but I think one of the complaints customers have is that the "data crunchers" hourly rates is often quite high, sometimes higher than you'd pay for an actual expert in the field working as an independent.
      - mousetree 4y ago
        True, although the junior rates are almost a rounding error when you see the rate of a Senior Partner. Typically though a McKinsey engagement is billed for the entire project. Internally though the price is determined by the number of consultants and their internal rate
- raesene9 4y ago
  If the chargeout rates and quality of frameworks and level of oversight is right, then fine. Unfortunately..... that's often (IME ofc) not the case. The financial model and incentives for these companies is to staff with as junior people as they can get away with.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    We do fixed price contracts but in my experience the accounting works out such that the partners leading the work are incentivized to negotiate internally to get the best people they can, not maximize the margin with the cheapest folks available. I can’t say staffing as many junior people as possible resonates. Maybe at a body shop like Accenture though.
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  On a website that often complains about how difficult it is for graduates or juniors to get jobs in tech. Big 4 firms especially are well known for hiring people straight out of University. Surprising to see how people react when a company does use lots of junior staff. The difference being is that these junior staff are client facing as opposed to being behind the scenes.
NoPicklez 4y ago
As someone who works at a big 4, you're quite right. They're huge employers of University graduates, however these graduates are usually supported by seniors, managers or partners. Each piece of work has a team around it. Yes you might have junior staff coming in to ask questions, but there is always someone more senior briefing the junior and reviewing their work. The growth that a graduate experiences in the first 2 years of their career is enormous. It's also very important to distinguish between consulting and assurance services. Both within a big 4, offer very different services and offerings.
sokoloff 4y ago
We’ve used McKinsey on a couple of projects. What you describe is exactly what we saw happen and the results were as expected from bright, motivated young workers being advised and led by more experienced senior staff: quite good. The only “knock” I could see is the presentations could be a bit formulaic and slightly too polished, which is hardly damning.
- flakeoil 4y ago
  "The only “knock” I could see is the presentations..." The presentations? Is that all you got for it? Is that the only or the most important outcome? I would say that's nothing. It's the actual implementation that counts and is difficult. It's as if a consultant would present in a powerpoint how to implement a piece of software and then leave it up to you to implement it and you have to hit and solve all the road blocks along the way. And on top of it they come up with that presentation without even having implementing anything similar themselves.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    There was both technical/business project delivery and executive update/briefing presentations. The knock I cited was on the second. The project part was fine (as suggested by the characterization that the results were "quite good".)
  - jen20 4y ago
    While I get (and likely agree!) what you’re saying with regards to the likely level of this kind of presentation, my experience is that knowing what to implement is much harder than actually slinging some code. This is true both at the product and engineering level.
    - flakeoil 4y ago
      Well, I kind of agree with you at some level, but it depends on how deep you go and how detailed the plan is. If one can follow the plan step by step and when you are finished, it's a success then maybe, but according to my experience that's not the case and you always have to revisit and fine tune along the way and it's in this process one learns the right way, not at the start. And one does not need consultants for this.
mousetree 4y ago
Big 4 = accounting firms (although most also do management consulting) MBB is typically used for the big 3 consultancies (McKinsey, Bain, BCG)
- raesene9 4y ago
  Yeah I was suggesting both do it :) Big-4 do plenty of what would get classed as consultancy in areas like IT Security/Compliance, amongst others.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  The Big 4 accounting firms long ago (1999-2002) each spun off a management consulting division.
  - mousetree 4y ago
    You’re probably thinking of how Arthur Anderson spun off Anderson Consulting which became Accenture. The current Big 4 accounting firms do have management consulting divisions (not separate entities to my knowledge)

oneoff786 4y ago

I do consulting. I’m always confused when people state that hiring new grads from top universities, having established frameworks, and having experienced people lead projects is a bad thing. I love hiring new grads.

Moissanite 4y ago
Hiring them is fine - charging thousands of dollars per day for expertise they don't actually have is where people start to have a problem.
- mousetree 4y ago
  They’re supervised by junior partners, partners and senior partners. By supervised I mean every proposed set of work and every resulting slide is inspected with a fine tooth comb. The 23 year olds are literally just crunching whatever data the senior tells them to. Disclosure: former consultant
  - raesene9 4y ago
    I'd guess that depends on the consultancy, but I think one of the complaints customers have is that the "data crunchers" hourly rates is often quite high, sometimes higher than you'd pay for an actual expert in the field working as an independent.
    - mousetree 4y ago
      True, although the junior rates are almost a rounding error when you see the rate of a Senior Partner. Typically though a McKinsey engagement is billed for the entire project. Internally though the price is determined by the number of consultants and their internal rate
raesene9 4y ago
If the chargeout rates and quality of frameworks and level of oversight is right, then fine. Unfortunately..... that's often (IME ofc) not the case. The financial model and incentives for these companies is to staff with as junior people as they can get away with.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  We do fixed price contracts but in my experience the accounting works out such that the partners leading the work are incentivized to negotiate internally to get the best people they can, not maximize the margin with the cheapest folks available. I can’t say staffing as many junior people as possible resonates. Maybe at a body shop like Accenture though.
NoPicklez 4y ago
On a website that often complains about how difficult it is for graduates or juniors to get jobs in tech. Big 4 firms especially are well known for hiring people straight out of University. Surprising to see how people react when a company does use lots of junior staff. The difference being is that these junior staff are client facing as opposed to being behind the scenes.

NoPicklez 4y ago

As someone who works at a big 4, you're quite right. They're huge employers of University graduates, however these graduates are usually supported by seniors, managers or partners. Each piece of work has a team around it. Yes you might have junior staff coming in to ask questions, but there is always someone more senior briefing the junior and reviewing their work. The growth that a graduate experiences in the first 2 years of their career is enormous. It's also very important to distinguish between consulting and assurance services. Both within a big 4, offer very different services and offerings.

sokoloff 4y ago

We’ve used McKinsey on a couple of projects. What you describe is exactly what we saw happen and the results were as expected from bright, motivated young workers being advised and led by more experienced senior staff: quite good. The only “knock” I could see is the presentations could be a bit formulaic and slightly too polished, which is hardly damning.

flakeoil 4y ago
"The only “knock” I could see is the presentations..." The presentations? Is that all you got for it? Is that the only or the most important outcome? I would say that's nothing. It's the actual implementation that counts and is difficult. It's as if a consultant would present in a powerpoint how to implement a piece of software and then leave it up to you to implement it and you have to hit and solve all the road blocks along the way. And on top of it they come up with that presentation without even having implementing anything similar themselves.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  There was both technical/business project delivery and executive update/briefing presentations. The knock I cited was on the second. The project part was fine (as suggested by the characterization that the results were "quite good".)
- jen20 4y ago
  While I get (and likely agree!) what you’re saying with regards to the likely level of this kind of presentation, my experience is that knowing what to implement is much harder than actually slinging some code. This is true both at the product and engineering level.
  - flakeoil 4y ago
    Well, I kind of agree with you at some level, but it depends on how deep you go and how detailed the plan is. If one can follow the plan step by step and when you are finished, it's a success then maybe, but according to my experience that's not the case and you always have to revisit and fine tune along the way and it's in this process one learns the right way, not at the start. And one does not need consultants for this.

mousetree 4y ago

Big 4 = accounting firms (although most also do management consulting) MBB is typically used for the big 3 consultancies (McKinsey, Bain, BCG)

raesene9 4y ago
Yeah I was suggesting both do it :) Big-4 do plenty of what would get classed as consultancy in areas like IT Security/Compliance, amongst others.
TuringNYC 4y ago
The Big 4 accounting firms long ago (1999-2002) each spun off a management consulting division.
- mousetree 4y ago
  You’re probably thinking of how Arthur Anderson spun off Anderson Consulting which became Accenture. The current Big 4 accounting firms do have management consulting divisions (not separate entities to my knowledge)