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 Boston 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 Boston offices?
- Which undergraduate universities give you the highest chances of getting into the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG or Bain?
- Is an MBA a good route to management consulting in Boston?
- Is there an entry path to the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG or Bain from other industries?
The insights in this article come from a detailed analysis of over 340 individuals hired by McKinsey, BCG and Bain for client-facing consulting roles in their Boston offices from 2020 to mid-2022.
Key takeaways:
- In MBB’s Boston offices, 47% of hires are pre-experience students, 31% are MBA hires, 16% are experienced professional hires, and 6% are advanced degree candidates.
- Bain’s Boston office hired over 70% more consultants than McKinsey, and close to 20% more consultants than BCG, between Q1 2020 and Q2 2022.
- Overall recruitment patterns of MBB’s Boston firms indicate relative gender parity, although they slightly favor male hiring, with 47% female hiring by the three firms.
- Universities that contribute significantly to the hiring pool across all channels are some of the most competitive in the US. This suggests that, along with New York, MBB’s Boston offices are likely to be among the most difficult to break into in the US.
- Five universities supply about half (49%) of pre-experience student hires to the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain, including Harvard University (15%), Yale University (9%), University of Pennsylvania (9%), University of Virginia (8%) and Dartmouth College (7%).
- Three schools supply almost 60% of MBA hires to the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain. These include MIT Sloan School of Management (25%), Harvard Business School (18%) and Tuck School of Business (16%).
- 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 Boston offices.
- MBB’s Boston offices had more advanced degree hires than any other top US office we’ve seen. This is likely to be driven by the availability of high-quality advanced degree talent locally, as over half of the hires came from nearby Harvard (29%) and MIT (24%).
The main sources of candidates for top consulting firms’ Boston offices
Hiring in MBB’s Boston offices mirrors the US average
Overall, MBB’s offices in Boston have similar recruitment channel outcomes as the US as a whole, with a maximum of only four percentage points of difference across all channels.
In MBB’s Boston offices, 47% of hires are pre-experience students and MBA hires constitute 31% of the total. Experienced professionals make up 16% of hires and advanced degree candidates make up 6% of hires.
To understand these categories better, here are quick definitions:
- Pre-experience students (at bachelor’s degree or a non-MBA master’s degree level) 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 or 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. In the US, they’re typically hired into post-MBA roles (i.e. Associates at McKinsey and Consultants at BCG and Bain).
Bain hires more candidates than McKinsey and BCG
Bain’s Boston office hired over 70% more consultants than McKinsey and close to 20% more than BCG between Q1 2020 and Q2 2022.
BCG and McKinsey had identical hiring split by channel (37-38% pre-experience students, 35% MBAs, 20% experienced hires and 7-9% advanced degree candidates). Bain, however, was different. Sixty percent of its hires were pre-experience students, 25% MBAs, 10% experienced professionals, and only 4% were advanced degree professionals.
McKinsey’s Boston office hired more women than men
Overall recruitment patterns of MBB’s Boston offices indicate relative gender parity, although they slightly favor male hiring, with 47% female hiring by the three firms.
The relative gender parity observed, however, is not evenly distributed across channels and firms. Fifty-three percent of McKinsey’s hires were female, indicating clear gender parity in hiring. However, Bain and BCG had 44-45% female hires. While there was gender parity in their pre-experience student MBA, and advanced degree hiring (49-52% female hiring), 67% of their experienced professional hires were male.
Pre-experience student hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices
Pre-experience students made up 47% of total hires by McKinsey, BCG and Bain in Boston 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 Boston offices.
The next section will look closely at which universities the pre-experience student hires of MBB’s Boston offices attended.
Where did Boston MBB’s pre-experience student hires go to university?
All 45 of the universities that supplied pre-experience student hires to MBB’s Boston offices are based in the US. Five universities supplied about half (49%) of these hires. They are:
- Harvard University (15%)
- Yale University (9%)
- University of Pennsylvania (9%)
- University of Virginia (8%)
- Dartmouth College (7%)
In the chart below, we list out the 13 universities that contributed more than 1% of hires to the total. Together, they accounted for 76% of pre-experience student hires. One common theme is that these are some of the most competitive universities in the US. This suggests that, along with New York, MBB’s Boston offices are likely to be among the most difficult to break into in the US, given the strength of their candidate pool.
Of the top three firms, BCG appears to be the most open to various universities. Thirty-five percent of their pre-experience student hires originated from the long tail of universities, versus 27% for McKinsey and 17% for Bain.
What did they study?
Fifty percent of pre-experience student hires into MBB’s Boston offices graduated with either an economics degree (35% of the total) or an engineering degree (15% of the total). The remaining studied a variety of other 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 10% of pre-experience students, compared with 90% without. This is similar to the US total and Canada.
MBA hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices
Almost a third (31%) of all hires into the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain came from an MBA program. By firm, this translates to 35% of McKinsey and BCG hires and 25% of Bain hires.
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 or 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 Boston MBB’s MBA hires attend?
Three schools supply almost 60% of MBA hires into the Boston offices of McKinsey, BCG and Bain. They are:
- MIT Sloan School of Management (25%)
- Harvard Business School (18%)
- Tuck School of Business (16%)
Similar to the pre-experience student channel, MBA hires come from some of the most competitive business schools across the US. Thus, for this recruiting channel, we also expect high levels of difficulty in breaking into the Boston office based on the candidate pool strength.
The remaining 26% of hires are supplied by 18 business schools. Of these, only two are non-US business schools: INSEAD and London Business School. Together, they are responsible for only 3% of MBA hires into MBB’s Boston offices.
Which undergraduate universities did Boston MBB’s MBA hires attend?
MBA hires into MBB’s Boston offices came from over 65 undergraduate programs. This is a larger pool than for pre-experience student hiring (with 45 universities represented). This indicates that MBB’s Boston offices are more open to a wider range of undergraduates in their MBA hiring.
Fifteen percent of MBA hires into MBB’s Boston offices came from an international undergraduate program, making it the largest channel of entry into MBB firms in Boston 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 Boston offices.
However, while higher than for other channels, the percentage of MBA hires into MBB’s Boston offices from an international undergraduate program falls below the US average of 23%. This appears to be driven by the prevalence of Bain, which hires very few MBAs with an international background. Only 3% of Bain’s MBA hires have an international undergraduate degree, compared with 21% from McKinsey and BCG.
Experienced professional hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices
The ‘experienced hires’ channel, in which candidates have two to eight years of professional experience, was the third-largest recruitment channel for MBB’s Boston offices from Q1 2020 to Q2 2022. It made up ~16% of all their hires.
Experienced hires made up around 20% of total hires at McKinsey and BCG. This number was significantly lower at Bain, where only 10% of all hires were experienced professionals.
Experienced hires joined top firms at different levels:
- 42% of experienced hires were recruited into pre-MBA roles (i.e. Business Analysts at McKinsey, Associate and Senior Associate Consultants at Bain and Senior Associates at BCG).
- 58% 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 compared to their seniority at their previous firm.
Which industries did Boston MBB’s experienced hires come from?
Almost half (49%) of Boston MBB’s experienced hires came from other consulting firms. These included other strategy consulting firms (e.g. L.E.K), the strategy teams of Big-4 accounting firms (e.g. EY-Parthenon), and Accenture.
The finance industry contributed about 15% of experienced hires, tech contributed 9%, and the remaining 27% came from a wide range of unrelated industries.
Where did the experienced hires at MBB’s Boston offices go to university?
The largest five undergraduate contributors for the pre-experience student channel – Harvard, Yale, UPenn, University of Virginia and Dartmouth – are responsible for 49% of pre-experience student hiring. They contribute 22% of the experienced professionals hires at MBB’s Boston offices.
This signals that, like the MBA hire channel, experienced professionals from a wider range of undergraduate programs are considered. Eleven percent of hires from the experienced hire channel had an international undergraduate degree.
Advanced degree hiring in McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices
While advanced degree candidates were the smallest proportion of hires for McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices (6% of total hiring), the firms’ Boston offices had more advanced degree hires than at any other top US office we’ve seen. This is likely to be driven by the availability of high-quality advanced degree talent locally, as over half of the hires came from nearby Harvard (29%) and MIT (24%).
Stanford contributed 10% of advanced hires into MBB’s Boston offices. The rest were spread across eight universities: six in the US and two in Canada.
What’s next if you’d like to get into McKinsey, BCG and Bain’s Boston offices
Looking to join McKinsey, BCG or Bain’s Boston offices? CaseCoach has resources to guide you all the way, from crafting your resume to preparing for your final interviews.
Our Free Resume Course provides resume and cover letter templates and specialized advice for students, MBAs, and experienced professionals.
The Interview Prep Course contains all the material you need to ace your case and fit interview, including interview videos of candidates who joined top consulting firms’ Boston offices.
CaseCoach’s team of coaches includes former consultants and interviewers with McKinsey, BCG and Bain. They are available to deliver case and fit interview coaching and mock interviews in a realistic setting to put your preparation to the test, providing the personal feedback and practical advice needed to ace your interviews.
