What MBA won’t tell you about Management Consulting? | Dark Side of Consulting | McKinsey BCG Bain

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Management consulting is a glamorized profession. I worked at McKinsey and Company for 7-8 years and had ups and downs in my career. In one of the appraisal cycles, I was rated to be among the top 2% of McKinsey consultants. This is a tough feat to achieve but in another appraisal cycle, I was almost asked to leave. In this video, I highlight some of the cons of consulting and the negative aspects of being a management consultant.

The first negative aspect is well-known. It is the amount of effort you must put in daily. As a management consultant, you would be working 12-14 hours every day Monday through Friday. You thus don’t have time for anything other than work. Personal life takes a backseat. Thus the management consulting work-life balance is pretty skewed. Some consultants even have to work on Saturdays and Sundays but that’s not the case at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Kearneys of the world.

I quit McKinsey because I had a child and a family that I wanted to spend more time with even on a weekday. In consulting families, wives often call their husbands weekend husbands. The next point is excessive traveling. If you travel a lot as a consultant then mostly you will use the same airline to travel with. However, as you keep traveling you collect some points which you can later convert into free tickets or free hotel stays. But as you keep traveling again and again, this travel will get to you pretty quickly.

The other point is the impostor syndrome. You will be working with some of the best minds in the industry. People from the best colleges and universities across the world. But while you are working with these people you will start questioning your own worth. This is a classic case of Impostor Syndrome. When you start questioning your own caliber, the initial stages of being a consultant will be pretty rough for you. But as you progress in your journey, you will notice that these thoughts willl slowly subside.

The fourth issue you will face will be that while working with these good people you will not be able to stay connected with them for a very long time. Your projects won’t last beyond 2 months. You will not have the ability to build a long-term relationship with any of your colleagues. You need to put in a lot of effort to build that connection with the other person. The fifth point is that many clients will question your existence itself.

They will ask you point blank if it is worth spending millions of dollars on consultants. You will face these questions many times and every time I faced such questions I asked the client to ask these questions to my manager since as an entry-level consultant I couldn’t answer these for them. You will face these uncomfortable questions many times in your career. You need to manage these problems efficiently.

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About Me

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Chapters

0:00 - Intro
0:59 - #1 - Work-Life Balance
1:53 - #2 - Travel
2:30 - #3 - Impostor Syndrome
3:18 - #4 - Short term connections
3:50 - #5 - Questioning your existence
4:29 - Summary
5:09 - Outro

[jaypalnitkar]

Loss of hair, dark circles, anxiety disorder, depression {likely} ____ THE DARK SIDE IS LIMITLESS

[dhabeli]

As a 10 year consulting experience, 100% agree with your video, thanks for putting it out so the next generation understands both pros and cons

[kargo]

Consulting and Investment Banking are two places where people are promised huge money, position and a great life. What they get in return actually is instant death 😂😂

[sankyghoble]

The loneliness in the hotel room at night and Monday morning travel hits me the worst

[glorgau]

Yeah, it's a grind. Make your money, build your contacts, and then get yourself hired on as a VP of whatever in some company. Think of it as doing a residency.

[senpaiprada]

A very crisp, to the point, and neutral outlook. Thank you so much for sharing! Look forward to more content from you.

[GauravSakhuja]

Good points touched, the key is don’t get stuck in consulting forever, do it on and off with other roles like delivery, architecture etc that will upgrade your skills and keep you out of being sucked up

[Debraj]

All the points you mentioned is true for any industry, if you are working in position where you need to interact with customers directly.

[gjd]

My neighbor is a consultant at a large firm mentioned in this video. He has 2 young kids. He is home just 24 hours each week. Not the life for me.

[tusharsaxena]

This was indeed a really insightful video, Pavan! While we all have heard about the positives of the Consulting world, I’m glad you gave a very honest and nuanced downside of the domain too! Thanks again! :)

[humanandindian]

Inspite of all these cons, MC is still a desired position for me. I pray to god that one day ill reach it.

[ppvshenoy]

I have heard this from my consultant acquaintances - how the long hours, stress and travel has negative impact on their health and relationships. Not glamorous after-all, considering the cost, in most cases not recoverable.

[coolcool]

Not only management consultants. Even engineering consultants are the same. It is my firm opinion that consultants are such a waste of time . Most of them have no field experience and their work reflects that. I feel it would be better if firms that need consultation start forming small consulting units in their own office among their own staff. Saves a lot of money and rework and headache.

[JP-okqd]

Great video Pavan! For showing the dark side of a glamorous job!

[lawclerksanbar]

😂 is it lonely at the top? Its extremely lonely at the bottom too. Management consultanting especially after hearing about the darkside appeals more to me as a career. Plus points
1. No long term getting along with colleagues ? So you dont have to put up with same lame ass people? Yes please
2. Not seeing toxic family members regularily? Woah what
3. Constantly travelling in flights and AC cars instead of standing in trafic for 4 hrs everyday? Whooo

[wildpett]

Good points --- i work in the consulting world and have learned that it is very important to take care of yourself

[chiragsharmaYoutube]

Top quality video. And thank you for providing real knowledge. Very few people talks about negatives of the job. and students set wrong expectations. Keep doing it.

[srinathrangaswamy]

All great points and totally relatable! Its not just the consulting world, corporate world in general... Eg: I am ex-Accenture, very similar experience..

[fatmanslim]

i work an ez job making 40k a year...while my "successful" cohorts make about 70K+...but im 36 and look like im 26, while the rest of them look like they already mid 40s...stress hit them hard. granted im single and dont have kids....but still i enjoy the stress free life.

[bossgandy]

A great book on this

House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time

They made an amazing tv series based on this book House of Lies, it’s for mature audience btw