Talk:McKinsey & Company/Archive 1

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Revenue Reference is Crap

The reference link www.forbes.com/... does not lead to any information about McKinsey's 2007 revenue. --Emre Kenci (talk) 21:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Interviewing section

I am not sure the section on interviewing is really encyclopaedia material. While it may be of interest to people, does it really belong here? I mean you would never see a section like than in Britannica. Would it not be enough to say "McKinsey's interviews are notorious for their difficulty and rigor, see reference".

Why is Mckinsey's interviews harder than other leading firms? this looks like another mckinsey PR gig. -- as someone who has been interviewed by each of the big 3, I can say that McK is not more difficult than the others

I feel that the information on interviewing to be extremely helpful. Wikipedia is not Brittanica.

Also, a lot of people that consult wikipedia is in the interviewing process at McKinsey (like me) and want to know more about the interviewing process

Might be difficult to get through if you have problems with plural noun determinants.

McKinsey's selection process is considered to be one of its strengths. I think it's relevant.

I think this would be fine if it were referenced and it met Wikipedia criteria, such as WP:NPOV, WP:V and we can add citations (WP:CITE}. Right now, this reads like an advertisement. In fact, it is too long and unreferenced. There are other, better sources for people who want to learn about a company's recruiting process, including the company's web site, or sites like Vault.com (see, for example, [1]). Maybe this section should be reduced to a simple reference to a site like that, if we can't fix it. Elvira100 (talk) 14:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of having a link or reference. There's no citations to suggest that the interview process is universal at McKinsey. It differs between different regions and between undergraduate and MBA levels. We can't really tell if what's written is THE interview process or just some individuals' experiences. It might be better to have a general interview description + links elsewhere. Or be very very specific, but this could get excessive.

As for whether or not it's encyclopedic... Wikipedia certainly challenges the paradigm of what should or should not be included in "traditional encyclopedias" so I don't find this to be too out of the ordinary. My personal rule-of-thumb is usefulness. A lot of potential candidates do seek out Wikipedia as a resource to prep for interviews. The question is: are we a good one? If yes, then sure... stick with it. If not, then we should reference elsewhere. As it stands though, this section is just not as well-written as it could be. 216.80.64.153 (talk) 02:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

"Thug-like" habits

Page 12 of "The Age of Heretics" by Art kleiner describe some thug like habit that Mckinsey used during the 50s when it had virtual monopoly of management. I just wish there is a tactful way to include this information here without sounding too negative

Diversified hires

User:Prohibit Onions and myself seem to have a difference in opinion regarding the statement that McKinsey is hiring people with diversified backgrounds. ProhibitOnions originally had a statement that "most" diversified hires had MBAs. I removed that (without checking its history--nothing personal) as an unnecessary addition which I thought was likely false. ProhibitOnions is adding it back in softened to "many" diversified hires have MBAs. It still feels funny to me - I know a lot of McKinsey diversified hires and extremely few have MBAs, but that's "personal research". Does someone (e.g. ProhibitOnions) have any source for the claim that "many" or "most" have MBAs? Otherwise I suggest to take the phrase back out. Comments? Martinp 11:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, my experience has been the opposite, and from looking at recent McK materials regarding some of its consultants, it seems to me at the very least that the Firm is keen to consider someone who studied, say, philosophy, and then went on to do an MBA, as a "diversified hire," whereas in the past this would not have been so.

I suspect that the reason for this is McK's realization that it has a bit of an image problem, at least in the sense that many people think the Firm consists of nothing but MBAs, and might be susceptible to groupthink; it is thus eager to change this perception, in addition to hiring some consultants from non-traditional backgrounds.

Again, though, because of the intense secrecy surrounding the Firm, we may never know the true numbers, and if you're uncomfortable with the phrase, by all means take it out. ProhibitOnions 12:30, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Amazingly, there is public McKinsey data on this. The split among those with graduate degrees is nearly 50% MBA, 50% non-MBA (such as Ph.D, J.D., M.D., with no MBA) worldwide. Accordingly I'm taking the phrase out.

I think the reason is not as much image, as genuine desire to avoid groupthink and to broaden the hiring pool. Martinp 21:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The recurring block deletioning of universities the recruit from does not help showing diversity either. How about setting a policy on that: to keep the list or to keep deleting the list of universities? Last round of wipeout was: Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School of Business, the Kellogg School of Management, the Columbia Business School, and INSEAD. This list shows it goes beyone Ivy League alone and even recruits graduates from abroad. There are however two problems here: is this list verified? And is this list only US-centric? A qualifies university list is important since some companies and institutions insist on recruiting from a very limited number of universities. --23:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Too Negative?

Hmmm... Not sure how the article can be balance without some negatives. The current draft reads like a McKinsey puff article.

I once bet a McKinsey partner a thousand dollars that he could not back up a single "fact" on one of his viewgraphs. His reply was bluster, but he refused to take my bet, or to back up his facts.

When I told this story at a business dinner one evening. Each exectuive, at a table of about 10 people, from a variety of industries, took turns telling stories about McKinsey foulups. Cokie Roberts had the best story, about a set of recomendations for ABC that would any rookie should seen as just dumb.

The fact is that McKinsey makes mistakes sometimes, and when they do, it can have awful consequences sometimes for thousands of employees who never knew where the crazy ideas came from.

>> Well, only smart people can really mess the things around, because nobody trust anything to dumbs

Yep, the current article is written in "McKinsey style" — right down to the bulleted three-point criticism! It is a bit too positive, and doesn't mention things about the Firm that have been widely publicized, such as the tendency of its consultants to simply offer whatever the latest fashionable "management theory" is as their reasoned and expensive "analysis" (they are mostly recent grads, after all). Groupthink is a big problem; the Firm likes to tell you what a diverse bunch of people they have, but they're mostly silver-spoon MBA's. There was a BBC documentary about five years ago about what McK did for Cadbury (and others), in essence issuing expensively contradictory advice every couple of years. ProhibitOnions

Not to slag off the Firm, but this may be the flip side to its secrecy; like many other shadowy organizations, its activities tend to spawn legends, and its successes and failures, both real and imagined, are often wildly exaggerated.

FWIW, the article does not yet mention the frequent, and generally unfair, accusation that McK is a "job killer," which I think should be added in context (job cuts may sometimes be necessary to save bloated companies from bankruptcy, etc.). ProhibitOnions 12:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

This has to be one of the worst articles I've seen on wikipedia. I thought this was supposed to be an encyclopedia. The criticisms section comes across as a trashing of everyone and anyone not in agreement with the NEA. Its more politics than information. I would even question if a section devoted to public criticism where aynone can write practically anything is appropriate for an encyclopedia article. There are forums and blogs for that sort of thing. Chuckh1958 (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Right off the bat, I can't help but question the criticisms by how that section starts with "The firm itself will not discuss specific client situations and maintains a carefully crafted and low-profile external image, which also protects it from public scrutiny of the results of its involvement, making an assessment of its client base, its success rate, and its profitability difficult. This secrecy also helps conceal McKinsey's prices." How is that a bad thing? If I was a client of a consulting firm, I would expect that firm to maintain confidentiality of the information and issues provided... last thing an organization wants is their problems aired to the world, which is why they hire a consultant in the first place. Also, keeping prices "concealed" isn't uncommon for many consulting firms (small and large) as the "price" does vary according to the circumstances. Either way, considering they have 11,000 consultants and have been around since the 20s, human errors do happen; I would have expected this section to be more about criticisms towards regular practices (save using the accepting management theory "of the day")not about the "bad apple" minority that exists in every organization (unfortunately).LittleMatchGirl (talk) 16:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I completely disagree that this article needs a sticker saying it is "written like an advertisement". Half of the article is negative criticism of what is legitimately a fairly prestigious (and well-intentioned) organization. Not saying McKinsey is perfect, but I dont think it deserves some of the criticism (like the ATT story is BS, I will explain later), and certainly does not deserve an Advert tag. - jrgregory88 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrgregory88 (talk • contribs) 03:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Negative news

500 dead so far, another McKinsey & Co. negative news story. [2] Should this be in the article page instead of here?

No, I don't really see a direct connection. As silly as McK advice may have been in other circumstances, what they suggested as mentioned in the article is pretty straightforward; whereas corruption, bad or nonexistent emergency planning, overwhelmed city services, poor construction, etc would seem to have a lot more to do with the events described. Or is there more to this? ProhibitOnions 14:58, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Warning of potential future trolling/vandalism

Just a warning that we are entering peak recruiting season for McKinsey and other consulting Firms. This may lead to an increase in vandalism as well as "jockeying" in the list of example schools where McKinsey recruits and the list of other companies called competitors. Martinp 02:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention the excessively long list of "notable alumni" that I just reverted. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 09:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a notable list of employees of the company, and as such has been restored. Please explain why you believe this material does not warrant inclusion in an encyclopedia. Thanks. Harr o5 23:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Because it's excessive, as I said above, and it's McK showing off, as Martinp said before that. Do we need to know that the son of the former Greek prime minister worked for McK? Wouldn't a dozen or so names be enough to make the point that some McK consultants go on to work for other companies? We don't provide lists of former employees for every company, and we don't need to help McK advertise. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 04:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

It could be moved into a separate list and linked to, but to say it is excessive is a bad description. Because many notable people went to Harvard, does that mean we should choose who of them is the "most notable" even though they all meet the WP:BIO criteria? There is no reason to remove what is encyclopedic information, and it is a self-fulfilling argument for you to say that this should be removed because it somehow constitutes advertising. Harr o5 05:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

We didn't say anyone was "most notable". We listed a handful of names. There's nothing wrong with concision. And yes, McK does like to show off with lists of its alumni (and McK people have clearly edited this article in the past). Long lists of things have been removed from other articles in the past, regardless of whether the individual entries were encyclopedic. If you want to create a separate list article, go ahead. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 05:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Definite/indefinite article

I removed the following:

The Economist magazine, on the other hand, always refers to McKinsey as "a management consultancy."

since the Economist always uses the indefinite article in descriptions, as a matter of house style [3]. Thus, that it should do so is no reflection of its opinion of the stature of a company, organisation, etc.Soobrickay 19:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Competitors

This section seems to be a place for people to list lots of companies in the same sector - but many of whom seem to be a lot smaller than McKinsey. Anyone know of some good sources for the statement that certain companies are direct competitors? Is it even encyclopedic? at the very least I think it should be moved further down the article. -- SiobhanHansa 13:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I just came across this blog post discussing two sources on the top management consulting firms. Vault's study looks at 'prestige' and Consulting Magazine (2006) looked at 'best to work for'. Tomvanaardt 11:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The Vault ranking above lists Oliver Wyman General Management Consulting and OW Financial Services as seperate firms, although they merged in April 2007. The combined firm (Oliver Wyman) is now the third largest strategy consulting firm by revenue. It makes much more sense to group it with Bain and BCG than with firms like Deloitte and Monitor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.217.186.69 (talk) 03:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, 100% of the edits by the above anonymous user(166.217.186.69 talk) involve removing Monitor and adding Oliver Wyman in the list of competitors to McKinsey, Bain and BCG. Hmmmm.

Having read the Vault materials mentioned, I'm not convinced. Unless I can find good evidence to the contrary, I will reduce the relevant competitors to BCG and Bain, which seem to be the only ones consistently mentioned. It appears that in Europe there is another firm in Germany that seems to be in the same category, but I don't think it merits mention because it seems to be in just one country. It is hard to find much material that consistently puts other firms in the same category as these three. -- Elvira100 (talk) 14:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't really need a competitors section. But if added, Oliver Wyman really is not a strategic competitor. It's way too small.--DMCer ™ 23:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

A competitors section is unnecessary; I added a distinction between other larger firms and smaller boutique firms. (6/22/08) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.146.215.167 (talk) 23:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no reference whether one of these man. consulting firms compete with one another to a greater/lesser extend. They're all pure management consulting firms --Emre Kenci (talk) 19:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Recruiting and interviewing section

Since none of the material was sourced and had been tagged from August 2007 as needing references (see discussion on Interviewing above), I removed it. It's probably marketing material that can be found somewhere else. What would be appropriate — and more interesting — are independent articles meeting WP:RS that discuss the recruiting process. Flowanda | Talk 04:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

History section

The history section is incoherent. Sentence subjects and objects are changed within sentence or over sentences without clear indication. McKinsey leaves the company and becomes its CEO. The other guy leads McKinsey after he leaves. The New York office is first split, then resurrected. While this all somehow could make sense, it is confusing. Ben ^T/_C 09:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

mc kinsey & co. is sales oriented or market oriented???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.37.5.54 (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)