5 ms·
A little unrelated to this whole thing, which does hit me a bit personally since my cousin back in Iowa died of opioid-related dependency issues, but I have int
by remarkEon 2y ago
A little unrelated to this whole thing, which does hit me a bit personally since my cousin back in Iowa died of opioid-related dependency issues, but I have interviewed a lot of consultants over the years for various roles and they are without question the most consistently bad interviews. It's funny, when I was in business school years ago (please forgive me) getting a job at McKinsey or BCG was more or less the crème de la crème of post-MBA gigs. Now, when I interview these people it's so transparent that yeah they're very smart, but they literally know nothing. They've spent years cycling in and out of "client engagements", so they can give you a 30k foot view of what's going on, on a dozen different things, but when you try to dig into the details there's not a lot there.
I'm probably casting a wide net since my sample size is large, and I'm sure there are great consultants at these places who have spent more than a few months on something, and could do good work in tech or hardware. But so far for me it's something like 1/70.
Maybe I'm just that asshole interviewer.
- dcreater 2y agoI'm so proud of my decision making when I was younger to avoid this path though it was considered an elite path
- dmd 2y agoI am grateful for McKinsey and BCG because when I dropped out of my postdoc in 2009 and was looking for a job, I went to probably 20 or 30 of their lunch events at Wharton where I absolutely stuffed myself and my pockets, despite having no intention whatsoever of joining them.
- beepboopboop 2y ago> and my pockets Do they give money out at these lunches??
- dmd 2y agoNo I mean I literally stuffed my coat pockets with food! Sandwiches, fruit, cheese especially.
- rightbyte 2y agoMcKinsey is sweatshop but with good pay. The work conditions are atrocious and they grind through naive young people like Verdun. Some people have argued on HN that the consultants are cya and political support for things the management class allready know they want. That seem about right.
- eichi 2y ago>> consultants are cya and political support for things the management class allready know they want. That seem about right. That is the most valuable job in virtually every profitable industries including tech.
- jncfhnb 2y agoIt varies tremendously. Imo the people who have sweatshop experiences bring it upon themselves mostly.
- jfengel 2y agoI've always been unclear on this. Various careers are famed for extremely long hours, but I don't know just what it is they do for all that time. Consultants, financeers, etc. I know that I have only so much brain power to spend a day. I can work longer, but at best you're going to get more grind, not quality. I keep wondering if these consultants could accomplish as much in fewer hours if they weren't so intent on being the one who puts in so many hours. I know almost nothing about what they do so I'm just guessing. But I find it hard to square so much effort with results that don't seem to merit it.
- jncfhnb 2y agoI am a McKinsey consultant, and I tend to think the people putting in those insane hours are shooting themselves in the foot. It is easier to work longer hours when a hotel takes care of everything for you, but if you’re bragging about how little sleep you get you’re just teetering on the edge of burnout and American Psycho neuroticism.
- 2y ago
- mdorazio 2y agoI've also interviewed many consultants over the years. It strongly depends on what you are interviewing them for. If you want people with deep industry expertise and a strong fit for a fairly narrow role, then yes of course the consulting kids are going to suck. If you want people who can learn quickly and look more broadly than a specific department to do things like strategic or financial planning then consultants can be a good fit.
- xyzzy123 2y agoThese kinds of consultants have the same issue as LLMs: they say the maximally plausible thing without knowing (or necessarily caring) if what they are saying is actually true. I don't think strategy advice is worth much unless it's coming from people who stuck around and lived with the consequences (i.e, tested their ideas against reality).
- remarkEon 2y ago>and look more broadly than a specific department to do things like strategic or financial planning then consultants can be a good fit. I disagree with this, but I definitely understand your argument. I just don't see how someone who oscillates back and forth from various clients, even if they're all in the same industry, can get enough deep background to be able to coherently make recommendations about business strategy.
- rr808 2y ago> It's funny, when I was in business school years ago (please forgive me) getting a job at McKinsey or BCG was more or less the crème de la crème of post-MBA gigs. Still is though right? Just now you have enough experience to be wise enough to know what is important.