Job Responsibilities
My personal responsibilities depend on the client and the
structure of the team (usually composed of McKinsey consultants
and client employees) but are usually among the following:
- Delivery of quantitative and qualitative analysis under
stringent quality and time constraints (company valuation,
business-plan modelling, market sizing, technological trends
analysis, etc.);
- Leadership of workshops with client employees (brainstorming on
risk reduction measures);
- Active participation in devising recommendations for the client
(design of a reporting tool at Group level for the Board,
desing / fine tuning of new processes, ??Make-or-Buy?? analysis,
selection of potential acquisition targets, etc.);
- Management of client-staffed teams dedicated to specific sub-
projects.
Depending on the task / engagement, the main tools are PowerPoint
(communication of the recommendation), Excel (modelling) or
phone / email. It is impossible to be specific about approximate
amount of time spent each day/week on a single responsibility, as
there is no such thing as a typical day or week.
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Job Requirements
Master's degree is minimal requirement is Europe (do not know
about the US of A or Asia).
The vast majority of the junior consultants (also called Business
Analysts, esp. in the US) are expected to leave the firm after 24-
36 months in order to gain additional experience:
- by doing an MBA
- by joinging a "real" company
A small percentage of Junior Consusltants (say 5-10%) are
directly promoted Associates.
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Uppers
- The poeple are just fantastic (at McKinsey at least). Friendly, professional,
extremely inteligent, and with enormous respect for the views of others and
willingness to help the "newcomer".
- Very interesting projects (maybe I've been lucky so far)
- Diversity of industries and problematics (not applicable, of course, for a
consultancy firm specialised on one sectore or function).
- Lots of formal training (say about 2 - 3 weeks per year).
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Downers
- Sleep ? What use does one have for sleep ?
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Lifestyle
- Hours are not that long, but they can be rather unpredictable.
- Travel has not been an issue so far, mainly because most the French companies
have their headquarters in Paris. Germany, Switzerland are the opposite. It
highly depends on the country / office.
- Perks include comfortable expense limits, mobile phone, taxi / car rental when
need be, good (but not great) insurance (though in France it is not as important
as in the US), good pension fund (12%+ of salary).
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Compensation
As I had some work experience upon joining I had a fairly good
deal. "Normal" juniors would has about ??7,500 less per year.
- ??48,500 per annun, excl. bonus
- Expected raise of ~15% per year
- Bonus last year ??7,500. Expected to be ~10,000+ this year
- About 12% of basic salary on a fund, to be monetized upon
leaving.
No stock options !
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