Hi everyone,
I understand the compeition within the junior level at BCG, but what's the compeition level like once you are inside the firm ? Are associates/ team are more collabrative or people are compeition against others to get their promotions and bonuses ?
Hi,
In general, people are not competing with each other in BIG3 companies. There is a number of reasons for that:
This may be different on the pre-partner level when it becomes extremely tough to get a promotion, or when you are one of the associate partners with the same tenure in the same industry. But personally, I've never heard about these cases.
Best
Wanted to specify that while what Vlad and I both said stays true(there is no or very little unhealthy competition); all people that belong to a cohort are ranked against their peers in a very clear and straightforward base: synthetic evaluation score on cases, positioning on the performancd vs. Potential matrix every six months. I think the nuance is that no one cares if you are #2 or #5 but they do care if due to your rank you move from first to second to third rank bucket. Those macro categories determine bonus, promotions, cancel out decisions. Bucket size in terms of people is forced (with some wiggle room).
hope this clarifies,
andrea
Across the offices I worked with level of collaboration and friendliness was very high. This because you quickly realize that promotions are about your own performance and relationships you form with the leadership (is anyone of them willing to sponsor your promotion?). Performance is also mostly about yourself, true there is a forced curve distribution, but your performance will determine where you fall in that distribution, being competitive against others will not change it (well, unless you sabotage them...which clearly is not the best way to create an healthy environment :)).
hope it helps,
andrea
Not at all, and this is like this also in the other MBBs
In fact, some of my best friends I met in McKinsey!
Hey,
i would definitely second the opinions below around a high level of collaboratiin and even friendship (that’s what happen when you spend 20+ hours with the same people 5 day per week and everyone is nice and interesting :) ) rather than competition environmental within the teams and offices, but would like to add two caveats:
- I’ve seen some change in the levels of collaboration across geographies - as far as people explained it was highly influenced by the culture of some countries - and I’ve found even more collaboration in smaller offices (not that the big ones is pure competition, but found it to be somehow less caring sometimes)
- it can get more competitive at more senior levels, especially for Partner position (not noticeable in most of the cases for the junior people anyway!)
best
Bruno
