Pros
Pros: 1) Paycheck and Benefits: Most attractive part, maybe the only motivating factor on some days. 2) Quality of work: Work undertaken by BCG is mostly interesting and potentially impactful. You feel that you are part of a project that can change the way an industry works or client's TSR 3) Clients served: You get to work with leading players, and it is a privilege to share board rooms with CEOs and be able to learn from them 4) BCG MDPs: The Managing Director & Partner team is terrific and one of the major reasons why BCG is a top-tier strategy consulting firm. The amount of information and industry expertise some of the Partners have is jaw-dropping and even C-level execs pay close attention to what a BCG partner has to say. 5) Fellow consultants and non-consulting staff: Most of the consultants and associates in the office are fun. Consultants are supported well with L&D teams, staffing teams
Cons
Cons: 1) Long hours: Consistently clocked >70 hrs/ week. Though weekends are protected, Sat is spent recovering/ grocery/ laundry and then by Sun eve--you are packing for an early AM flight on Monday. This makes you question the money you are making. If you making 1.7x the market rate, you are sorta working 1.5-1.8x hours as well. 2) Middle management (Senior Project Leaders/ Principals): Not everyone in middle management is a great people developer. I once worked for a senior Principal who would constantly fret about his promotion and how if he doesn't become a Partner soon, he'll have to leave. That made for a terrible case experience as he was so insecure and made everyone work long hours (unnecessarily) to deliver "value" 3) Up-or-out policy: BCG is aggressively pursuing the up-or-out policy. Every year size of incoming class gets bigger, but people start leaving after 12-14 months. All you need is 1-2 bad case experiences for the firm to make up its mind and force you to leave. This policy makes sense superficially, but it assumes that everyone develops at the same pace. At the same time, you do not need to be exceptionally smart to have a long career at BCG. BCG has a very peculiar work culture/ process, some people are able to adapt and some don't. If you have some industry/ real-life work experience, it may hinder your success at BCG as you may feel we are not answering the right questions or our work lacks technical detail. Most "successful" consultants at BCG joined the firm right out of undergrad and only have consulting expertise.
