Sundar Pichai, Sheryl Sandberg, and a bunch of other top executives in tech are McKinsey alumni, and I’ve been lately thinking if working in management consulting for a year or two is worth it from a career standpoint after college? Did they go to McKinsey to learn as much of business as possible in the least amount of time, or because it made their egos feel good for a second? Specifically; did they succeed because of their management consulting background, or despite it? TC: intern, so same as the other ones.
CS degree from top school with top internships, MBA from top school, top consulting firm, top PM role on track to exec level. At least that's what cc, cscq, or r/pm would think. In reality we know it's not that cut and dry. Whatever helps you get management experience is good. Luck plays a huge role, going from manager to CEO doesn't have anything to do with McKinsey or your school name.
Thanks, I’m just trying to choose a path that maximizes career pace in tech (plan B in case I will never be a successful founder). What I’m after is what is so good about McKinsey experience, if there is any since the people who work there are above average already? Is it the connections, or the problem-solving mindset/toolset? Would I be better of by just starting a startup, or by aiming for a FANG level PM position after college?
Becoming a PM does not even mean good management experience until you hit director level. PMs are very much individual contributors. If you want management then become a people and project manager
You join MickeyZ, BCG, or Bain because they are the hardest to get in and tops in their field. You come out with a really good network - both colleagues who usually end up as top dogs at companies when they leave and clients who are already top dogs.
Let me put it this way; Would you in my position (soon graduating CS undergrad student with a bunch of DS experience) go work from tech to the MBB for 1-2 years after college? Would those connections be enought, or would you do it for something else as well?
How much tech work experience would you already have at graduation? If it’s just internships, then going to MBB is likely a one way street and probably an eventual path to PM or mgmt (depending on how long you stay at MBB). But one way street b/c if you find that you don’t enjoy the biz path and want to get back to eng, you’ll have a harder time due to the lack of tech work exp. The safer option is get some tech work exp for couple of years then hop to MBB.
The best way to rise is to not start at the bottom. MBA, management consulting, and the like help you with that. Access to people already in those roles is critical.
Would you really call an MBA ”not starting from the bottom”? To my knowledge, you can get to the same starting roles with or without an MBA in management consulting? I have no plans to go get an MBA, unless it would be an absolute requirement.
I deeply regret MBA and consulting, I wish I just knew what I wanted and went for it at 22.
I definitely learned more at McKinsey than Google. It gives you a great platform to speed up your career. It will help you to develop executive perspective, problem solve, and effectively communicate. McKinsey is as much people development place as it is a consulting company. Training and development curriculum is top notch.
May I ask what kind of a role you hold at Google today? Interning wouldn’t probably bring any of the upsides you mentioned, but would you say that 1 to 2 years is adequate? I really would like to think of McKinsey as a possibility for fast personal development.
I'm in GBO in stratops type of role. Many former colleagues in gtm, stratops or product roles. Most value at McKinsey comes from engagement manager (skillset, network, external perception) work which usually means sticking 2-3years post mba.
This might be more correlation than causation. Most of the best business-y people wanted to work for MBB 25 years ago. Those people are now CEOs. The ground level analysts learn to be excel / power point grunts, with some exposure to good frameworks. You spend a lot of time with other smart people which is good. Coming out from 2-4 years at McKinsey, you'd probably be behind in tech career (skills, experience, and role) vs starting as a PM/eng.
Consulting is a sub optimal path, like an MBA. Don't fall into the trap...
@enginer that’s what I’ve been wondering, though I don’t expect some magical answer with no bias to appear. I guess it’s only worth it, if you actually are able to jump ship straight to a VP position?
If you want to be in bizdev/ops then yes. PM or engineering manager or business intelligence hell no, the lost time in developing technical skills sets you back. You would also be making much less money than an eng, data analyst, or PM and working long hours making ppts. The exit opps are not monetarily good for a while, unless you go to PE. I have a lot of ex MBB friends, most of them have pretty low TC at tech companies even after moving a few rungs up the ladder.
The main dilemma that I have, as you already pointed out, is that I’ve already sacrificed so much time to learn technical skills. Some of it, like data science, would probably be useful in a PM role, and later on in an executive role to understand how stuff was calculated. The low TC part despite moving a couple of positions up surprised me. What type of track would you suggest to someone, who would like to take your warning?
I think if you have strong technical skills but want more business related work you should go straight for PM (or try to get in laterally if there's no junior PMs) or business analytics (ladder is a tough climb here IMO, seems to me like PMs usually have more political power in orgs). The line of reasoning is that you want to be at a tech company, and in a tech company the more technical people are valued more. Biz ops is important, but it doesn't attract the best technical talent and doesn't work closely with engineering, so the pay and respect are also lower.
They wont hire you unless you go to an ivy league type college.
Not true, Mckinsey has plenty of less prestigious alum, they need a lot of people at junior levels to support it's "growth" goals.
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Hey @smcduck I was thinking the same My long term goal is to be CxO. Most of the folks whom I admire have a common pattern- either an MBA from top 3 or MBB experience. I just started my first job at Google 4 months ago. I have been talking to various folks here at Google and also a couple of VPs to know their thoughts on having an MBA or MBB experience and their response is a no. The advice I have received is to focus on what skills I need to build and find teams/projects at Google to gain those skills. Even if I were to quit my job and pursue a startup, VCs would value more of me as a leader and the quality of the product rather than my resume. MBB is very tempting to me. I was going to go to a Big 4 before getting the Google offer. I look at MBB as an opportunity to learn about different industries and challenges and also the exposure to higher level executives. But for the same time I invest in MBB, I can level up in Google and work on some cool project. So it's kind of like 2 different roads leading to the same end goal.
It definitely is worth it
What about exit from management consulting? I can probably kiss goodbye to product roles and start only looking for biz dev/strategy roles? What I’m worried about is that now one would take me seriously after consulting, even though it worked out quite well for Pichar and Sandberg.
Why would you leave tech and go to consulting if your goal is to become a CEO in tech? That makes no sense and is a 100% backwards career move. People go into consulting so they can get a job at Google. Not the other way round. Since you’re already at Spotify use that to grow in the management chain