McKinsey, BCG and Bain, collectively referred to as ‘MBB’, are widely recognized as the top management consultancy firms in the world. Each has well-established operations in several cities across the US.
This article will focus only on the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain, and will answer some of the top-of-mind questions for potential candidates. Questions like:
- What kind of candidates are recruited by McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices?
- Which undergraduate universities give you the highest chances of getting into the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG or Bain?
- Is an MBA a good route to management consulting in Atlanta?
- Is there an entry path to the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG or Bain from other industries?
The insights in this article come from a detailed analysis of over 200 individuals hired by McKinsey, BCG and Bain for client-facing consulting roles in their Atlanta offices from 2020 to mid-2022.
Key takeaways:
- In MBB’s Atlanta offices, 47% of hires are pre-experience students and 36% are MBA hires. 10% are experienced professionals and 7% are advanced degree candidates.
- McKinsey and BCG’s Atlanta offices hired similar numbers of consultants between Q1 2020 and Q2 2022. Both firms hired close to 80% more consultants than Bain in the same period.
- 67% of hires by McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices were male, signaling significant room for improvement in gender parity in hiring.
- MBB’s Atlanta offices were open to graduates from a long and varied list of schools, with only a minority of candidates hired from top-10 US universities or business schools. Thus, we can gather that Atlanta is a great destination for candidates who want to secure a role at a top consulting firm and are open to relocating for the best chance of success.
- Only 38% of the pre-experience students hired by MBB’s Atlanta offices went to universities based in Georgia. These were the Georgia Institute of Technology (21%), Emory University (9%) and the University of Georgia (8%). The rest came from 33 universities, many located in neighboring south-east states.
- Five schools – the Fuqua School of Business (20%), Goizueta Business School (16%), Harvard Business School (8%), Booth School of Business (8%), and Kellogg School of Management (7%) – supplied ~60% of the MBA hires into the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain.
- If you did not study (at bachelor’s or master’s level) at a target US undergraduate or master’s program, an MBA at one of the top US programs highlighted in this article is your best route to breaking into MBB’s Atlanta offices.
The main sources of candidates for top consulting firms’ Atlanta offices
Hiring in MBB’s Atlanta offices mirrors the US average
Overall, MBB’s offices in Atlanta have similar recruitment channel outcomes to the US as a whole. The exception to this is the experienced professional channel, which accounts for 10% of hiring in Atlanta, compared to the national average of 16%.
In MBB’s Atlanta offices, 47% of hires are pre-experience students and MBA hires constitute 36% of the total. Experienced professionals make up 10% of hires and advanced degree candidates only make up 7% of hires.
To understand these categories better, here are quick definitions:
- Pre-experience students (bachelor’s degree or a non-MBA master’s degree) are hired out of university or shortly after. They typically have no more than two years of experience and are hired into entry-level roles (i.e. Business Analysts at McKinsey, Associates at BCG and Associate Consultants at Bain).
- MBA hires are graduates of a one or two-year MBA program. They typically have work experience gained before their MBAs and are hired into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
- Experienced hires are from other employers and typically have two to eight years of experience. Those with less are hired into pre-MBA roles (i.e., Senior Business Analysts at McKinsey, 2nd year Associate Consultants at Bain and Senior Associates at BCG). Those with significant experience are hired into post-MBA roles (i.e Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
- Advanced degree hires are hired during or soon (not more than two years) after their Ph.D. or medical school programs. They’re typically hired into post-MBA roles in the US (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
McKinsey and BCG hired more candidates than Bain
McKinsey and BCG’s Atlanta offices hired similar numbers of consultants between Q1 2020 and Q2 2022. Both firms hired close to 80% more consultants than Bain in that same period.
There are some disparities in the hiring mix among the three firms. Pre-experience students made up 52% of Bain’s hires, compared to 43-44% for BCG and McKinsey. MBA hires made up 40-41% of BCG and Bain’s total and only 31% for McKinsey. Sixteen percent of McKinsey’s hires were experienced professionals, compared to 5-6% for BCG and Bain.
MBB’s Atlanta offices hire more men
Sixty-seven percent of hires by McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices were male, signaling significant room for improvement in gender parity in hiring. This holds true at similar levels across all three firms and across all channels.
Pre-experience student hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices
Pre-experience students made up 47% of total hires by McKinsey, BCG and Bain in Atlanta from Q1 2020 to Q2 2022. This means that hires from a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree program (excluding MBAs) made up the largest recruitment channel for entry-level roles at MBB’s Atlanta offices.
The next section will look closely at which universities the pre-experience student hires of MBB’s Atlanta offices attended.
Where did Atlanta MBB’s pre-experience student hires go to university?
Only 38% of Atlanta MBB’s pre-experience students were hired from universities based in Georgia.
They all graduated from three universities, which also provided the highest number of hires:
- Georgia Institute of Technology (21%)
- Emory University (9%)
- The University of Georgia (8%)
Conversely, 62% of Atlanta MBB’s pre-experience student hires relocated from out of state. They were hired from 33 universities, many of which are located in neighboring south-east states. No one was hired from foreign universities.
This data suggests that MBB’s Atlanta offices are attractive employers for local graduates. None of the local universities are typically ranked in the top 20 nationally, yet top consulting firms have managed to scoop many of their top graduates to fill their ranks.
In addition to local graduates, MBB’s Atlanta offices have also sourced candidates from a long and varied list of other universities, with few candidates hired from nationally top-ranked universities. This suggests that Atlanta is a great destination for candidates who want to secure a role at a top consulting firm and are open to relocating for the best chance of success.
The chart below lists the 15 universities that contribute more than 1% of hires to the total. Together, they account for 82% of pre-experience student hires.
Of the top three firms’ Atlanta offices, McKinsey appears to be the most open to candidates from a variety of universities. Thirty percent of its pre-experience student hires originated from the long tail of universities, versus 13% for Bain and 5% for BCG.
What did Atlanta MBB’s pre-experience student hires study?
Over 60% of pre-experience student hires into MBB’s Atlanta offices graduated with either an economics degree (20% of the total), an engineering degree (20% of the total), or a business administration degree (21% of the total). The remaining studied a variety of disciplines.
Unlike in European offices (e.g. France and Germany), a master’s degree doesn’t seem to give candidates a distinct edge. Pre-experience students with a master’s degree made up only 11% of pre-experience students, compared with 89% without. This is similar to the US total and Canada.
MBA hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices
Thirty-six percent of all hires into the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain came from an MBA program.
As a reminder, MBA hires are graduates of a one or two-year MBA program, usually at a US business school. They typically have some work experience gained before their MBAs and are hired into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
For MBA hires, we will explore two questions:
- Which business schools did they attend?
- Which undergraduate universities did they attend?
Which business schools did Atlanta MBB’s MBA hires attend?
Five schools supplied ~60% of MBA hires into the Atlanta offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain. They are:
- The Fuqua School of Business (20%)
- Goizueta Business School (16%)
- Harvard Business School (8%)
- Booth School of Business (8%)
- Kellogg School of Management (7%)
As with pre-experience student hires, MBB firms in Atlanta have been open to graduates from a long and varied list of schools, with a minority of candidates hired from top-ten US MBA programs.
This confirms that Atlanta is a great destination for candidates who want to secure a role at a top consulting firm and are open to relocating for the best chance of success. The lower cost of living compared to many other US locations may also make Atlanta an attractive option.
Which undergraduate universities did Atlanta MBB’s MBA hires attend?
MBA hires into MBB’s Atlanta offices came from over 60 undergraduate programs. This is a broader range of universities (almost 2x) than was considered in pre-experience student hiring (with 34 universities represented), indicating more educational background openness for the MBA hiring channel.
Twenty-four percent of MBA hires into MBB’s Atlanta offices came from an international undergraduate program, making this the largest channel of entry into MBB firms in Atlanta for international candidates.
Thus, if you did not study (at bachelor’s or master’s level) at a target US undergraduate or master’s program, an MBA at a top US program is your best route to breaking into MBB’s Atlanta offices.
Experienced professional hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices
The ‘experienced hires’ channel, in which candidates typically have two to eight years of professional experience, was the third-largest recruitment channel for MBB’s Atlanta offices from Q1 2020 to Q2 2022. It made up ~10% of all their hires.
At McKinsey’s Atlanta office, experienced hires made up around 16% of total hires. However, this number was significantly lower at Bain and BCG, where only 5-6% of hires in Atlanta were experienced professionals.
Experienced hires joined top firms at different levels:
- 45% of experienced hires were recruited into pre-MBA roles (i.e. Business Analysts at McKinsey, Associate, Senior Associate Consultants at Bain and Senior Associates at BCG).
- 55% of experienced hires were recruited into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain). Candidates with team leadership experience at other consulting firms sometimes join at a more senior level, but will typically experience a small step back in seniority compared to their previous firm.
Which industries did Atlanta MBB’s experienced hires come from?
Fifty percent of Atlanta MBB’s experienced hires came from other consulting firms. These include Accenture and the strategy teams of ‘Big-4’ accounting firms. The other half of Atlanta MBB’s experienced hires came from a wide range of unrelated industries.
Where did MBB’s experienced hires go to school?
The largest five undergraduate contributors for the pre-experience student channel – Georgia Tech, Emory, University of Georgia, Vanderbilt, UNC at Chapel Hill – contributed 45% of experienced professionals to MBB’s Atlanta offices, signaling a continued focus on the regional talent pool.
Only 5% of hires from the experienced hire channel had an international undergraduate degree, compared with 24% for MBAs. This is likely to be driven by the low proportion of international candidates in the local pool of professionals.
Advanced degree hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices
Advanced degrees were the smallest proportion of hires for McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices, making up just 7% of total hiring. Only Georgia Institute of Technology (19% of advanced degree hires), Emory University (13%), Duke University (13%) and Arizona State University (13%) contributed more than one hire between Q1 2020 and Q2 2022. The remaining seven US schools contributed one advanced degree hire each.
What’s next if you’d like to get into McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Atlanta offices
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