Originally Posted by JonLaw
Originally Posted by Dude
Originally Posted by Bostonian
You appear to unfamiliar with how management consulting firms such as McKinsey and Bain work. They hire graduating seniors from elite schools and have an up-or-out system where most consultants are asked to leave after after a few years.

Because young employees command smaller salaries, are far less likely to consume medical benefits, and are more tolerant of poor management.

No.

It's pretty much the BigLaw system for elite school undergrads.

It's an insane inhuman system for the simple reason that it's an insane inhuman system.

Dysfunction is embedded into its organizational DNA.

This.

Management consulting can be a wonderful, engaging career, but there is a lot of compensatory switching going on between personal and professional lives. As in, you fail in your personal life, so you throw yourself into your career 16 hours per day, 6.5 days per week instead of the 13-14 hours you were already working.

I was in strategy consulting for one of the major firms until I was 8.5mos pregnant with DS. It's exhilarating, but it leaves no room for a life outside work, let alone parenting. Every partner I know has a stay-at-home spouse or is divorced, and my sample size is, shall we say, statistically robust. It's great when you're in your early to mid 20s and are single or, as I've seen before, you hate your spouse so much that the hours are worth it, and you don't want to be bled dry on alimony.

What is to give light must endure burning.