Hello!
I was wondering if consultants (especially those starting off their career at a Big 3 firm) travel internationally. My theory as well was that consultants in Europe might do so a bit more since countries are closer to one another, whereas a consultant in the US might just travel domestically.
Hey there,
Answer from McK perspective. McK has a global staffing model and there is tons of travel (German office). At the peak, I had weeks with 6 flights...usual week was 2 flights (Sun/Mon to Thurs) if staffed in Europe.
I never worked in my home country (Austria) and only once in Germany. However, you can influence and steer your journey. Some colleagues just wanted to work in Germany and did so over their whole career; others wanted to collect far-away experiences (Oceania, Asia, North America) and it worked out as well.
I know that other MBBs, especially Bain, have a more local staffing model but am sure their alumni have more detailed answers here.
Cheers,
Florian
Hello!
Traveling, both nationally and internationally, is super common -although it can be avoided if you really try and know people-.
This said, with COVID travel to clients is highly restricted atm.
Hope it helps!
Cheers,
Clara
Hi there,
Travel/flying is very common, period. Now, whether it's international or not depends on your country! In Australia, maybe 5% of our projects were travel (SE Asia and NZ). That could be because the client was physically located there and we travelled weekly there, or, one part/phase of the project required us to travel internationally once or twice.
Of course, in Europe this rate is indeed going to be much higher. In the US, it will be much lower, but you'll certainly still be flying across states.
Now, remember, a domestic flight in the US or Australia could be 3 hours and an international one in Europe could be 50 minutes!
Bain Germany perspective. As Florian pointed out, Bain is more locally staffed, i.e. Germany/Switzerland would be one staffing pool, in the US every office pretty much serve their surrounding area (mostly at least). This is no hard rule but just the default.
Bain culture is driven by "Make your own Bain". I actively asked for international staffings and worked in Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Spain, US, and even China once. Most of my travel occured while I was working in Bain's private equity practice. Again, depends on what you want. Some of my colleagues love the more local model since you simply get to sleep more on average and waste less time on inefficient travel time (where you are of course expected to work).
I am looking forward to definitely less travelling now as an Investment Banker.
Hi,
BCG works on a system model - so each system is responsible for their own staffing.
This means that systems with multiple countries will see ‘international travel’ - e.g. SEA is one great example.
For systems that are large, single country e.g. Korea, Japan, US, there is rarely international travel. It is still possible but would be driven by unique case contexts to have this.
I'm very much going to be a consultant here. It depends. Very much on the firm, office and sector team. For example if you are based in London, and work at Oliver Wyman or on a Financial Services engagement at any other firm, you'll probably stay in London. If you work on defence, you'll probably by in the country + hubs in Toulouse / Germany.
I for instance spent a lot of my time in the Middle East / Africa / Asia working on telecoms projects.
