Management Consulting Guide 2022: McKinsey, BCG or PwC!? :-)
What you'll learn
- Read these learning objectives from the left...
- ...to the right :-) :
- Decide / validate if you (really) want to become a consultant by taking the interactive YOUinConsulting job test and deriving an individual test result for you
- Find out how well your personal dreams and expectations about a consulting career meet the reality of consulting life
- Discover which consulting myths are true and which are not
- Benefit from deep consulting industry insights for the rest of your consulting career!
- Learn what consultants actually do, what services consulting firms offer and how they organize their expertise
- Explore the consulting industry landscape with a) its key players (tier one and tier two consulting firms)...
- …and b) its challengers (such as boutique consulting firms, inhouse consulting firms and smaller and medium-sized companies)
- Learn about attractive employers beyond McKinsey, BCG and Bain (“MBB”)
- Understand the differences between the MBB consulting firms and the Big Four companies (Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG) to decide for yourself: Who is the leader?
- Familiarize yourself with three key megatrends that are shaking up the industry and that you need to be aware of early in your career!
- Understand your individual consulting career path and the roles you may adopt as a consultant...
- ...from Junior/Senior Consultant to Project Manager/Junior Partner to (Senior) Partner of a consulting firm as well as the many support roles
- Experience how consulting life will feel for yourself through “consulting meditations”...
- ...where you are guided through a series of truthful consulting project reports that showcase both the light and shadow of consulting life for you
- Gain truthful and authentic first-class insights to your consulting career & life from a former McKinsey consultant who is there to both help AND entertain you!
- Enjoy 3 ½ hours of top quality content and that each lecture is different – first-class advice, but delivered to you in various and highly entertaining manners!
Requirements
- Apart from curiosity about consulting, no previous knowledge is assumed or required.
Description
Welcome to YOUnConsulting!
1. Whom is this course for?
This course is a must-watch course for YOU if you are
An undergraduate or postgraduate student who wants to explore or firmly pursues a management consulting career as your primary career option
A young professional (i.e., with some initial work experience) who considers switching to a management consulting career
A knowledge multiplier or intermediary who serves or frequently deals with consultants for professional reasons and benefits from gaining a deeper understanding of a consultant’s life and challenges
Eager to obtain top-quality career advice from an ex-McKinsey consultant and consulting expert
2. Who is your instructor?
My name is Dr “Jack” Jörg Leib. I am a consulting enthusiast, who spent five years as a consultant and project manager with the world’s leading management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, and since then has been serving as an independent management adviser.
Prior to joining McKinsey, I interned with several reputable consulting firms such as Roland Berger and EY. I have attended recruiting events of all the major tier 1 and tier 2 consulting firms and interviewed with all of them. And to this date, I am very passionate about my industry, doing a lot of research about it and build on a strong network of fellow consultants at these leading consulting firms – to bring the best insights to YOU.
As part of the YOUinConsulting project, I regularly educate, inspire and coach young candidates and experienced professionals about their successful entry, rise and exit as a consultant. Besides offering first-class content as you would expect it from a former McKinsey consultant, I place great value on well-structured didactics as well as a highly entertaining and creative delivery style. Let us be professional AND have fun!
3. What’s in it for you?
Summary
By completion of this course, you will know whether or not a consulting career REALLY is the right fit for YOU, taking into account both your professional career aspirations as well as the impact on your private life. Furthermore, you will learn what consulting truly is about (beyond the hype, and behind the scenes!), explore the consulting industry landscape and its key players even beyond McKinsey, BCG and Bain, and understand how everyday consulting life may feel for YOU. Put in a nutshell, you will understand consulting and surely benefit from my insider insights for the rest of your consulting career.
At the same time, you can be sure to receive authentic and truthful insights to the consulting industry, benefiting from my insider knowledge as a former McKinsey consultant, current independent management adviser and consulting industry expert. Last but not least, I have put my heart and soul into this course to make sure you do not only take the right decisions for yourself, but also feel entertained and have fun throughout this course... See for yourself! ;-)
This course is organized in three parts:
PART A: Decide if you REALLY want to become a consultant
Chances are high that you are taking this course because you consider becoming a consultant and/or want to validate whether management consulting is the perfect career choice for you.
This is great! However, I am also aware that there is a lot of hype and brainwash around my industry. Therefore, I first want to help you ensure that you pursue a consulting career for the right reasons!
For this purpose, I have designed the interactive YOUinConsulting job test. At the beginning of this test, I I will ask you to rank your personal motivation factors to become a consultant. For each of these consulting myths, I will then reveal for you if they are true or false, and ultimately you receive an individual test result telling you how well your dreams and expectations about a consulting career meet the reality of consulting life.
While I want to pick you up from where you currently stand – an emotional idea about consulting that attracts you to become a consultant – I make sure that even while taking this test, you already gain lots of surprising insider insights about our industry that I promise will benefit you for the rest of your consulting career!
For the specific topics that I am going to cover as part of the YOUinConsulting job test, please refer to the course curriculum.
PART B: Understand what consulting truly is about
After these emotional highlights featuring your personal consulting career and life, in this second part I offer you a throrough introduction to the consulting industry. I will start by laying out for you in simple terms what consultants actually get hired for, what services consulting firms offer and how they organize it.
Since I reckon that you will probably love to work for McKinsey, BCG or Bain, I then deep-dive into the strategy consulting market. After presenting to you some surprising facts & figures, I will share my opinion on key players (tier one and tier two companies) as well as challengers (boutique consulting firms, inhouse consulting firms and smaller and medium-sized consulting firms), and will also devote special dedication to the Big Four companies (Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG). You will be able to understand commonalities and differences across these players and get further ideas on attractive employers even beyond McKinsey, BCG and Bain.
Furthermore, I reveal three megatrends to you that are currently shaking up the consulting industry and that I know you must be aware of – the earlier, the better. For each of these megatrends, I elaborate the implications for your consulting career and decisions.
PART C: Gain transparency on your individual consulting career path and life
In the third part of this course, I turn back to the personal and individual aspects of your consulting career.
First, I will help you explore the steps on the consulting career ladder you may take and help you understand the many roles you may adopt during your consulting career.
Second, I will invite you to take part in an exciting experiment – “consulting meditations”, through which I want to enable you experience truthful consulting project reports and thereby the light and shadow of consulting life yourself.
And there is so much more... I am excited to welcome you on the inside of this course :-)
Your Dr “Jack” Jörg Leib
YOUinConsulting
Who this course is for:
- Students who want to explore or firmly pursue a management consulting career
- Young professionals (i.e., with some initial work experience) who consider a career change into management consulting
- Intermediates who frequently work with consultants (e.g., coaches, headhunters, etc.) who benefit from gaining a much deeper understanding of their clients' daily consulting life and challenges
- Knowledge multipliers with a strong interest in consulting (e.g., journalists, educators) who want to gain first-hand insights to the consulting industry from a former ex-McKinsey consultant
Instructor
- 4.3 Instructor Rating
- 34 Reviews
- 4,178 Students
- 1 Course
My McKinsey and consulting background
Becoming a top management consultant had been a professional career goal early on, and has remained my passion to this day. Prior to serving as an independent management adviser, I worked for five years as a consultant and project manager for the world’s leading management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company.
Already prior to joining McKinsey I had researched the industry intensely. Among other activities, I did internships at McKinsey’s competitor Roland Berger, in “Big Four” firm Ernst & Young (EY)’s transaction advisory services unit and at a medium-sized consulting firm. Furthermore, I have interviewed with virtually all leading strategy consulting firms as well as some medium-sized consultancies. I have attended many consulting firms’ recruiting workshops (including several “top events”). During this process, I have developed highly effective application and interview strategies. I was also selected as one of 20 finalists from 2000 applicants for McKinsey’s “CEO of the Future” contest to solve and present a consulting case study to a panel of German stock exchange (DAX) company board members.
Before becoming a management consultant, I completed a PhD at Imperial College London on the economics of climate change. I finished my studies in economics at the universities of Heidelberg, Jyväskylä (Finland) and Bonn as best in class.
The YOUinConsulting mission
Again and again, I am asked for advice on (consulting) career decisions. Many people share the dream of becoming a management consultant and perhaps even starting their career at one of the world’s leading consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG or Bain. Others have already made the leap into consulting and now find themselves confronted with the recurring challenges that consulting business and its institutions regularly present.
Maybe you are one of my (future) peers. I view it as a priority to empower you to make the best career decisions for yourself, and to then guide you towards career success. However, I found that the commonly available glossy career magazines, sponsored recruiting events, anonymous internet forums (and so forth) do not truly serve the purpose of differentiated opinion-forming and optimal career preparation.
I decided to satisfy this vital need for information through my YOUinConsulting courses, in which I provide unprecedented consulting insider knowledge on the entire consulting life cycle – transparently, authentically, personally, and in a structured, didactic and entertaining form: on the successful entry, rise and exit as a consultant!