A Decade of Dominance for McKinsey & Company in Vault Consul
Published: Aug 25, 2011
Vault.com is continuing its Consulting Week celebration today with the release of its annual Consulting Prestige Rankings for 2012 and while yesterday’s rankings went beyond prestige, today’s rankings are all about name value.
Yes, quality of life matters to a lot of jobseekers, but many still want to work for the most prestigious firm. And when it comes to prestige, they don’t come any better than McKinsey & Company. Like Wachtell in Law and Goldman Sachs in Banking, the name McKinsey & Company has become synonymous with the Consulting Industry. For the 10th straight year, the New York-based firm has taken the top spot in the Vault Consulting Prestige Rankings, as voted on by its peers. A decade at the top is not an easy feat to achieve.
Earlier this year, nearly 5,000 consultants of all levels were asked to rate consulting firms on a scale of 1 to 10 based on prestige. To make it fair, these consultants were unable to rate their own firm, and were asked to rate only firms with which they were familiar. The results provide the most in-depth look at who's who in the consulting industry—ranging from big consulting shops to smaller, niche firms, and spanning a wide range of industries. Here is a quick look at the Top 10:
1. McKinsey & Company
2. The Boston Consulting Group
3. Bain & Company
4. Booz & Company
5. Deloitte Consulting
6. PricewaterhouseCoopers
7. Monitor Group
8. Ernst & Young
9. Mercer LLC
10. Accenture
Would you turn down a job offer from McKinsey? In the past, survey respondents have credited McKinsey & Company for practically inventing the consulting industry. This year, they were just as complimentary with consultants outside the firm calling the juggernaut “innovative,” “top notch,” “strategy kings,” “the smartest guys in the room,” the “top dog,” and the “Goldman Sachs of consulting.” McKinsey was also heralded for their “extremely prestigious management consulting,” and for employing “well respected, top talent.”
And that top talent has also expressed their love for McKinsey. In comments culled from the quality of life survey data, which will be released tomorrow, one McKinsey consultant noted that: “I am extremely satisfied with my job. I haven't had a boring day since I joined and I get to work with talented people on challenging problems every day.”
Another added: “McKinsey is a challenging environment in which I am surrounded by people focused on my development- I have grown more in six months at McKinsey than I did in 8 years of school.”
Akin to McKinsey’s repeat performance, this year's prestige ranking did not show significant change in the Top 10, with the Top 5 exactly as it appeared last year. However, there was some movement in the bottom 10, as PricewaterhouseCoopers jumped two spots to No. 6; Ernst & Young moved a spot to No. 8 and Mercer LLC tumbled three spots to No. 9. In addition, Accenture found its way into the Top 10, as Oliver Wyman fell two spots to No. 12 this year.
View the entire Consulting Prestige Rankings.
And be sure to be here tomorrow when Vault releases both its Consulting Practice Area Rankings and Consulting Quality of Life Rankings.
--Jon Minners, Vault.com