Big Three Consulting Firms Delay Start Dates for MBA Hires

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the big three consulting firms—McKinsey, Bain, and BCG—have delayed start dates for MBA hires. The firms, together nicknamed MBB, are perennially among the top employers of MBA graduates, as is the broader consulting industry. 

McKinsey plans to onboard MBA hires in a staged manner from post-graduation through February 2024. Similarly, a BCG spokesperson confirmed that they too plan to stagger start dates for MBA hires from late 2023 to January 2024. 

Bain, taking a different tact, offered its MBA recruits compensation to accept an April 2024 start date. For those impacted, Bain’s financial incentives include $40,000 to work for a nonprofit, $30,000 to learn a new language or take on another academic endeavor, and even $20,000 to become a yoga instructor or take a safari. 

According to the WSJ, the Big Three are not alone in adjusting their hiring practices this year. The article highlighted a recent analysis by William Blair & Co., showing that job postings at EY, Deloitte, KPMG, and PWC have declined by 62 percent year-over-year. 

Poets & Quants reached out to MBA career center professionals for additional insight into how the delays are impacting students. Most maintained their optimism. 

“We have yet to see (knock on wood) any offers—consulting or otherwise—get rescinded. What is impacting our Class of 2023 MBA graduates are start dates being pushed back. Most firms employing Scheller MBAs have offered a range of dates that are definitely later than in prior years. And at least one firm has offered some financial incentive to students who accept later dates. That is about the extent of it at this point,” Dave Deiters, Associate Dean of MBA Programs at Georgia Tech’s Scheller MBA Career Center, said.

Jeff McNish, Assistant Dean of the Career Center at University of Virginia’s Darden, also describes the impact as relatively minimal. “To date, we have not been made aware of any frozen or rescinded offers for consulting in the class of 2023. We have had one company ask a small set of students going to a specific city to consider changing the start date to later this year or early next year. It has impacted fewer than six of our students. This is the extent of what we know at present,” he said.

One unnamed career center director at a top-20 MBA program hypothesized to P&Q that the delayed start dates are simply “a reset to previous years.” They explained that in hot economic times, consulting firms ask MBA hires to start work soon after graduation, but that in slower economic periods it is not atypical for firms to opt for later start dates.

Business School Students Seek Jobs with a Mix of In-Person and Remote Work

Flexibility is key for business school students as they consider their future careers. According to a survey by Highered, which includes responses from over 1,000 business school students globally, almost half (49 percent) said that they are looking for hybrid employment, with a mix of onsite and remote work. Similar numbers prefer fully remote (27 percent) or fully onsite work (24 percent). And just over a quarter (26 percent) said that they would not work for an employer who requires employees to be fully onsite. 

When students were asked to name the perceived advantages of remote work, over one-third named the freedom to live where they like (35 percent). 16 percent noted the ability to attend to family commitments. And 15 percent cited the ability to create their own work schedule. Among the perceived disadvantages of remote work, students named the lack of work/life balance (21 percent), pressure to work outside of core business hours (16 percent), and isolation/loneliness (14 percent). 

Just over half of students responded that their business schools are preparing them with the necessary skills to lead remote teams (52 percent). In terms of soft skills needed for successful remote work, students named: self-motivation (35 percent), flexibility / adaptability (14 percent), discipline (13 percent), and time management (10 percent).  

Student responses are in line with the market shifts driven by the pandemic and technological advances. According to Ladders, Inc., the availability of high-paying remote work has “exploded.” There were an estimated 4 percent of high paying (more than $100,000) remote jobs available pre-pandemic and just under 20 percent at the end of 2021. This number is expected to increase to about 25 percent by the end of this year. 

Ladders, Inc. also analyzed the types of high-paying jobs with the most significant increases in remote work from March 2020 to mid-2021. They found that marketing, media, and design (+974 percent increase in remote opportunities, with more than 18 percent of careers available remotely) and project and program management (+801 percent increase in remote opportunities, with about 15 percent of opportunities available remotely) experienced the largest growth. Other roles with plentiful opportunities in remote work include: software engineers, account executives, development engineers, and data engineers.