What is management consulting?
Companies pay millions for the service of just a few men and women with almost no experience in the real field. Everybody says management consulting (or, “consulting” for short) is over-priced and over-rated. But consulting keeps getting bigger and bigger each year, attracting the brightest and the most ambitious talents from top schools. How does that all work? Will I ever be a part of that great engine?
What is management consulting?
Management consulting is an industry providing expensive and professional advice to organizations to improve their overall performance, through better “management”, which includes strategy, governance, operation, organization, finance, and marketing. The three most prestigious management consulting firms are McKinsey, BCG, and Bain (the Big Three).
In simple language, think about any other type of “consulting”. If “financial consulting” focuses on advising clients about finance, “legal advisory” ensures lawful activities across the broad, and “IT consulting” helps clients solve IT problems, then “management consulting” is all about management.
“Management” is a broad area, connecting almost all other functions and departments of any particular company. As a management consultant, you typically work on top-level business problems, those that concern CEOs, Chairmans, Boards of Directors (BOD), Boards of Management (BOM), etc. Simply because they are in-charge of “management”.
Categories of management consulting
Technically, anybody helping anyone on “management” is a management consultant.
Management consulting firms can be divided into 4 main categories (or tier): The Big Three (McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain), The Tier 2 (Accenture, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, L.E.K.), The Big Four (Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, EY), and Boutique firms. This categorization is based on the typical project sizes.
So you can imagine McKinsey would do the biggest projects while Deloitte typically take on smaller contracts, often in a more granular and niche area. This is despite the fact that Deloitte itself is a bigger company than McKinsey. So the categorization focuses mainly on the size of the projects, NOT the size of the firms themselves.
The word “management consulting” or “consulting” standing alone mostly refers to that top-of-the-range group (MBB). Preparation for this group is also the main focus of our website.

Management consulting vs Strategy consulting?
“Strategy consulting” is a part of “management consulting”, focusing on the strategy practice. Other than strategy, a management consulting firm also does operation and implementation. It is rare to see a pure “strategy consulting” firm, doing only “strategy” nowadays.
Also, don’t assume that management consulting is merely about (1) strategy and (2) implementation. This breakdown is overly simplified. Both strategy and implementation are part of the “management” big picture with so many other moving pieces.
I will talk about this in greater detail below when we deep dive into a typical consulting project.
The top management consulting firms
Speaking of size, Big 4 accounting firms (E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC) are also the biggest consultancies. However, size alone cannot tell the whole story because those firms also do a lot of other services.
The most elite and prestigious management consulting firms in the world are the Big Three: McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain (MBB). These three companies charge significantly higher than others and they also pay their employees a lot more generously.
In the industry, if one says he/she is with McKinsey, everybody immediately pays respect, admiration, and (in some cases) jealousy.

McKinsey vs BCG vs Bain
McKinsey has a slight edge over BCG and Bain, charging clients on average 30% more consulting fee than BCG and Bain for the same scope of work. McKinsey is generally considered as more prestigious and a more desirable place to work.
This is not to devalue BCG and Bain. Landing a job on any of the three firms above is a dream for everybody. But if one gets offers from all 3 firms, he/she would most likely join McKinsey.
Quick facts about a consulting project
Here are some facts about a typical consulting project for busy people.
Why do companies pay consultants SO MUCH money?
Best practice!
Consulting firms also consult many other clients in the same industry across the globe. So even though nobody is 100% certain the advice would work, everybody knows that consulting firms will bring the “best practice”, the most updated, the most current, and the most proven solutions to the table.
Sometimes, hiring consulting firms is as about standing out as it is about not being left behind! Everybody is doing this “best practice”, we can’t afford to not even know about it!
Politics!
Big conglomerates are complicated! Sometimes (sadly), consulting firms are used as a political tool to create buy-ins, to raise the stake, or to eliminate rivals.
For example, if there are 2 rivaling sides with 2 opposing ideas on how to run the conglomerates. Is there any better way to add weight to one’s argument than saying it comes from fact-based, independent, and highly smart McKinsey people?
Do the clients always listen to consultants’ recommendations?
It’s not always black and white. Consultants’ recommendations are never something simple like let’s do A or let’s do B. It’s a complicated set of big strategies with many detailed actions with respective milestones and conditions. Plus, implementing those recommendations is not like eating a piece of cake. There will always be adjustments here and there to suit the specific context and the ever-changing market condition.
Do consultants’ advice really help clients?
Anybody saying a definite yes / no is not telling the whole story.
People say consulting is the most prestigious field, WHY?
Even the brightest people get overwhelmed sometimes. But you either get smart or get kicked!
What does a consultant do?
either over-simplifies it or doesn’t know much about consulting!
We know that consultants solve business problems, but how do we do it, exactly? To answer that question, I present to you one of the best all-time videos about management consulting.
If you don’t have the time right now to watch the video, here is the 20-seconds summary. Spoilers, of course!
Think of each management consultant like a “Content ambassador”, connecting a massive back-end support network of experts and a complicated client context with moving pieces.
If you want to learn in detail about the management consulting job, and you prefer to read, this article talks in-depth about what management consultants do.
Career paths in management consulting
In almost every consulting firm, there are 2 career tracks: the Consulting track and the Support track; basically the consultants and everybody else.
While the support tracks vary a great deal from firms to firms, the consulting track is much more standardized, and strictly follows the org-chart in a bottom-up fashion.
Consulting track
Support track
In the “How McKinsey is organized as a company” video, you see that the scale and diversity of support centers are tremendous. There are hundreds of different centers within McKinsey, ranging across many functions, industries, location, task supports, etc. So you can imagine, each of those centers would have one or a few career tracks for their own staff.
Here, let’s look at some notable ones, whose work has similarities with the consultants themselves.
How can I become a management consultant?
As good as it is to be a management consultant, getting in is brutally difficult. The passing ratio is usually lower than 1% in most MBB offices.
The recruiting process goes from: Resume, Standardized Tests, then Case Interview. Each step includes multiple baby steps:
Each of these steps is a unique game on its own. And to make it really challenging, consulting people has their own styles in all of the above steps.
It’s a long and challenging process that you should start as early as possible. Many of the above take time to absorb. But when you make it, I can guarantee it’s one of the best things that can ever happen to you. You will join an elite group of people. You will suffer at times but will learn so much. Your career and your life turn to a new page.
Just a few years at McKinsey completely changed who I am, both personally and professionally. In a postive way, that is. I also see it changing the lives of almost all the colleagues I ever know. I sincerely believe you can and you should do it. Nobody said you have to stay there forever. But the lessons, the toughness, the desire, the structured mindset, etc. will remain
It’s ridiculously difficult to even get your foot in the doors of the top management consulting firms. Most applicants don’t even get to see the interviewers, and the few that does must undergo the most strenous, high-stake job interviews existing on this planet.
However, with systematic and careful preparation – in the same manner that consultants approach their projects – I believe anyone can make it to consulting.
Are you a believer?