throwaway1281

We - or, at least, people in the projects that I've been in - most certainly talk to anyone who can provide valuable input to the question at hand. That being said, it's impossible for us to know which individual contributors are relevant to a project - it's up to their manager to pull them in (we encourage them to do so). Just need a cc on an email and we'll handle the rest.

> In my experience McKinsey consultants prefer not to talk to lower-level minions

This is certainly not my experience. Sure, we might not be talking to every entry-level employee (we'll interview some of them if need be), but we definitely talk to all levels of managers. The normal meeting cadence is 2-3x "touchpoints" with working teams and one "steerco" (C-suite) meeting every 2 weeks to update them on progress. We usually get a team room on client site, so pretty much everybody is aware that we are there, and we are more than happy to have a coffee with you anytime. (If you ask and they say no, that is kind of a red flag IMO.)

It sounds like the projects you have seen would be CEO-level secrets regardless of McKinsey's involvement. But I personally never had a project on e.g., digitalization or AI that doesn't pull in the relevant non-C-suite stakeholders of the client.

> Why is the "tier" of your university important here?

I made the point just to provide a counterexample to the notion that consultants don't have technical depth. Of course this is not always true - we all operate outside of our expertise area at some point; I had to learn the steel industry from scratch in 2 weeks for a client - but I just wanted to show that some of us do bring considerable technical expertise, not an MBA.

I don't think anyone really answered your question. I work at McKinsey and can try to provide an understanding of how we add value. I have a PhD in computer science from a T1 university, so I'm not exactly the MBA type; but I am on the exact same track as them as a generalist consultant (called integrative).

Here are the good parts:

1. We are pretty good at being translators. For companies I serve, making sound business decisions requires understanding of the technical details. However, most of the time, the C-suite will not dive deep into them (most have no time; some just refuse to learn). Our job is to distill the complex topics into something that is digestible for everyone, and I mean everyone. The time spent by an analyst or associate is mainly on slide-making for this reason - there is a lot of iteration until the message and storyline are perfected.

2. We provide a voice for the technical working teams. Pretty much every project I worked in, the technical teams have a pretty good understanding of what they can do and what they need, but this doesn't always get heard by higher-ups. Part of our job is to relay these thoughts (again, in a digestible way) - anonymously if need be. Most of the time a representative of the client team also joins our C-suite discussion, which is a great career opportunity for them.

3. In addition to point 2 above, when the technical teams don't know what they need, we build out a plan for them. I built financial models, workplans, capability assessments for e.g., cloud migration for automotive part manufacturers (i.e., high-tech but not necessarily computer savvy companies) directly collaborating with working teams. They can then use these to present their case to higher-ups, enabling them to actually get what they need.

4. We have an understanding of the industry overall, because we go around and see what's happening everywhere. In order to prevent unintended spillage of company secrets, we get "conflicted out" of working with direct competitors when we serve a client, but we can work with different parts of the supply chain. We also have industry experts, internal and external, who can provide insights - which is sometimes very critical to get up to speed quickly.

The burnout is also real, and I am actively trying to move on to a "real" tech job after approximately 2 years at the Firm. But positive client interactions are very fulfilling, and I have learned so so so much about so many different things, it's incredible.

I'm also pretty lucky to have worked mainly in growth or go-to-market strategy. I have never laid anyone off, never led to someone losing their job whatsoever (I actually kinda did the opposite once by helping them overcome a PIP), never participated in political battles, and never did anything that could be considered unethical like the Purdue thing. Just solved cool business problems for tech companies for 4-8 weeks at a time.