I Left My Dream Job at Mckinsey: Here's Why

Summary

The speaker reflects on their experience working at McKinsey, highlighting both the firm's prestige and the challenges of consulting. They discuss reasons for leaving, such as the grueling travel schedule, working with slow-moving corporations, and feeling disconnected from the impact of their work. While McKinsey provided valuable skills and opportunities, the speaker realized they preferred the fast-paced, hands-on nature of startups and venture capital. Ultimately, they express gratitude for the experience but encourage others to pursue paths that better align with their passions and talents.

Takeaways

• 😲 McKenzie has strict standards, such as using no font sizes larger than 10, which can feel excessively focused on appearance.
• ✈️ While consulting offers glamorous travel, it often involves visiting less appealing, remote locations, which can hinder personal life and routines.
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Consulting travel schedules make it challenging to settle down, build friendships, or start a family, as it demands frequent time away from home.
• 🏢 The work often focuses on optimizing large, slow-moving corporations, which can feel less exciting than working in fast-growing startups.
• 💼 The speaker did not want to pursue partnership at McKenzie, as selling consulting work did not feel authentic or fulfilling.
• 📊 There's no real feedback loop at McKenzie; consultants don’t see the direct impact of their work since they leave before execution happens.
• 🚀 Working with startups was more exhilarating for the speaker, offering faster growth and more hands-on execution, unlike McKenzie's focus on strategy.
• 💭 Consulting made the speaker feel more transactional and rushed, which led to a less positive personal transformation over time.
• 🏆 Despite the drawbacks, McKenzie helped the speaker develop strong communication skills and opened doors to prestigious opportunities, like Harvard Business School.
• 💡 The speaker encourages ambitious individuals to consider riskier, more fulfilling career options, like startups, instead of defaulting to prestigious but potentially ill-fitting firms like McKenzie.

Q & A

What was the initial issue the speaker faced with their presentation at McKenzie?

The speaker's manager criticized the use of font sizes larger than 10 and requested a revision of the presentation to reduce font size and fill in blank spaces.

How does the speaker describe the work culture at McKenzie, especially regarding attention to detail?

The speaker mentions that consultants at McKenzie agonize over small details like font size, focusing heavily on presentation aesthetics, which can frustrate those who prefer to focus on getting work done.

Why does the speaker believe McKenzie is not for everyone, despite its prestigious reputation?

The speaker feels that while McKenzie is highly ranked and offers prestige, the lifestyle and nature of the work are not suitable for everyone, especially those who prefer more hands-on or impactful work.

What is one of the major downsides of the travel lifestyle in consulting, according to the speaker?

The speaker mentions that frequent travel disrupts personal life, making it hard to build friendships, settle down, or maintain a routine, and it can also lead to being an absentee parent.

How does the speaker compare the work in consulting to working in startups?

The speaker prefers working in startups because it offers a chance to be part of fast-growing businesses, with more tangible results and less bureaucracy compared to optimizing large corporations for minimal growth.

Why did the speaker not aspire to become a partner at McKenzie?

The speaker couldn't see themselves authentically selling consulting services and didn't admire the lifestyle or skill set involved in being a partner at McKenzie.

What does the speaker find frustrating about the feedback loop in consulting?

The speaker finds it frustrating that consultants often don't see the results of their work, as they don't own the execution and move on to new projects before outcomes are known.

How did working at McKenzie impact the speaker’s personality, and why was this a concern?

The speaker felt that the constant rush and transactional nature of consulting made them a ruder and less kind person, which they disliked and found concerning.

What career realization did the speaker come to after working at McKenzie?

The speaker realized they preferred working in startups and venture capital, where they could see the real-world impact of their work and found it more fulfilling than consulting.

What positive aspects of McKenzie does the speaker acknowledge despite leaving the firm?

The speaker appreciates the smart, kind people at McKenzie and credits the firm with helping them develop communication skills, opening doors to other opportunities like Harvard Business School, and leading them to their passion for startups.

Outlines

00:00

💼 My First Week at McKinsey: The Font Size Incident

The speaker recalls their first week at McKinsey, where their new manager criticized their PowerPoint presentation for using font sizes larger than 10. This incident highlighted McKinsey’s obsession with details and presentation aesthetics, which can be frustrating for those who prefer focusing on substance over style. Despite the challenging experience, it reflected the firm’s intense attention to every detail, even down to font size, which is part of the culture at McKinsey. The speaker acknowledges that this focus on presentation isn't unique to the entire firm, but it was a defining early experience.

05:01

🌍 The Glamorous Yet Grueling Consultant Lifestyle

The speaker describes the seemingly glamorous lifestyle of a McKinsey consultant, traveling to various cities to advise major corporations. However, in reality, the travel schedule is exhausting, often involving work in remote, less exciting locations like Cincinnati or Peoria. The demanding hours and constant travel prevent consultants from building a stable home life, cultivating friendships, or establishing a healthy routine. While the allure of traveling and working with influential companies seems appealing, the harsh reality of long hours and remote locations dampens that image.

📊 Client Work: Navigating Corporate Politics

The speaker shares how the nature of client work at McKinsey, particularly for Fortune 500 companies, involves navigating internal politics in massive organizations. Progress is often slow and focused on small improvements, like increasing growth by a small percentage, which the speaker found demotivating. They realized they preferred the fast-paced, high-growth environment of startups, where they could see a more direct and significant impact. This experience made the speaker appreciate startup culture over the slower, more bureaucratic environment of large corporations.

🚪 The Decision Not to Become a Partner

The speaker explains their decision not to pursue a partner role at McKinsey. They struggled to authentically sell consulting services and found it difficult to justify the high fees McKinsey charged for their work. Instead, the speaker gravitated towards the world of startups, where they admired builders, creatives, and innovators. Consulting didn’t align with the speaker’s personal values and aspirations, leading them to shift their career focus.

🔄 Lack of Feedback and Fulfillment in Consulting

The speaker highlights the lack of a feedback loop in consulting, where consultants rarely see the long-term impact of their work. Unlike startups, where results can be seen and measured quickly, McKinsey consultants often move on to the next project without knowing if their strategies made a meaningful difference. This lack of fulfillment was a major reason the speaker left McKinsey, as they found more satisfaction in environments where execution and direct impact mattered more.

💼 Does Consulting Make You More Transactional?

The speaker reflects on how consulting work might make individuals more transactional. Constant deadlines, rushing to flights, and frequent changes in project teams create an environment where interactions feel rushed and less personal. Over time, the speaker felt that this transactional nature affected their own behavior, making them less considerate. This shift in personal dynamics contributed to their decision to leave McKinsey in search of a career that better aligned with their ideals.

🎓 Gratitude for McKinsey and Future Opportunities

Despite leaving McKinsey, the speaker expresses gratitude for the opportunities the firm provided. McKinsey helped the speaker develop communication skills and opened doors to ventures like public education, Harvard Business School, and a future in startups and venture capital. While McKinsey was an essential part of their journey, the speaker acknowledges that it may not be the best fit for everyone, particularly those seeking a career that aligns more with their talents and aspirations. They encourage ambitious individuals to explore paths like startups for a more fulfilling career.

Keywords

💡Consulting

Consulting refers to the professional service of providing expert advice to businesses, typically in strategy, management, and operations. In the video, the speaker discusses their experience working at McKinsey, a top-tier consulting firm, emphasizing both the challenges and rewards of this line of work, including the client demands, long hours, and pressure to deliver high-level strategic solutions.

💡McKinsey

McKinsey is a prestigious global management consulting firm known for advising top companies and governments. The speaker's experience at McKinsey forms the core of the video. They reflect on its culture, the demanding nature of the work, and how the firm’s reputation opens doors to opportunities like Harvard Business School but also pushes some employees to leave due to its intense work environment.

💡Font Size

Font size, though a seemingly minor detail, represents the intense focus on presentation and communication within consulting. The speaker shares an anecdote where their manager at McKinsey criticizes the use of a font larger than 10, illustrating how much consultants scrutinize even the smallest details of their work. This highlights the perfectionism and often frustrating attention to cosmetics in consulting.

💡Lifestyle

Lifestyle refers to the way consultants must adapt to constant travel, long hours, and a lack of stability. In the video, the speaker describes how the demanding lifestyle of consulting—working late nights, traveling frequently, and living out of a suitcase—negatively impacts personal life, friendships, and the ability to settle down in one’s home city.

💡Client Work

Client work in consulting involves helping large companies with strategic decisions. The speaker explains that while working with major corporations sounds exciting, it often entails navigating bureaucracies and making minor changes that only yield small growth. This experience led the speaker to feel demotivated, as they found more fulfillment in working with startups, where there is a greater chance of making a significant impact.

💡Politics

Politics in this context refers to internal corporate dynamics and power struggles within large businesses. The speaker discusses how navigating corporate politics is a central part of consulting, often hindering progress. This frustrated the speaker, as dealing with executives' political maneuvering made it difficult to achieve meaningful outcomes and added to the stress of the job.

💡Startups

Startups are small, early-stage companies that often experience rapid growth. The speaker contrasts their experience at McKinsey with their passion for startups, emphasizing how startups offer a more dynamic and exciting environment. Unlike the slow and political nature of large corporations, startups are focused on building and executing ideas quickly, which the speaker finds more fulfilling.

💡Feedback Loop

A feedback loop is a system in which outputs are fed back into the process to guide future actions. The speaker contrasts consulting with startups and venture capital by noting that in consulting, there’s no clear feedback loop to understand if the strategy they devised has been successful, as consultants are typically not involved in execution. This lack of closure was unsatisfying for the speaker.

💡Venture Capital

Venture capital (VC) is the practice of investing in early-stage companies with high growth potential. The speaker, having transitioned from consulting to venture capital, finds this field more fulfilling because it offers clearer metrics for success, such as cash returns, and allows them to work with innovative founders and startups, which they find more exciting and meaningful than consulting.

💡Stress

Stress in consulting comes from tight deadlines, client expectations, and navigating complex organizational dynamics. The speaker mentions that while consulting is stressful, it is not the reason they left McKinsey. Instead, they highlight how the type of stress—caused by corporate politics and deadlines outside of their control—was different from the stress experienced in startups, which they found more productive and rewarding.

Highlights

The speaker's first experience at McKinsey involved strict font rules in PowerPoint presentations, highlighting the meticulous attention to detail in consulting work.

Consulting often focuses heavily on communication aesthetics, like font size, which can be frustrating for those who prefer focusing on actual productivity.

Despite McKinsey’s prestigious reputation, the speaker realized it wasn't for everyone and decided to share the challenges of working there.

The lifestyle of constant travel, long hours, and remote locations can make it difficult to establish roots, maintain friendships, and start a family.

Although working with Fortune 500 companies may seem glamorous, navigating corporate politics can be demotivating, especially when working on minimal growth projects.

McKinsey made the speaker realize they preferred working with startups, where rapid growth and excitement are more prominent than in large, established businesses.

The speaker didn’t see themselves becoming a partner at McKinsey, as they didn’t enjoy selling consulting services for large fees.

There’s no clear feedback loop in consulting; unlike in startups, consultants rarely see the long-term impact of their work, making it less fulfilling.

In startups, there is a faster feedback loop where results of actions can be seen almost immediately, offering more gratification and learning opportunities.

The speaker felt that working in consulting made them more transactional, as the constant deadlines and changing teams encouraged a rushed and impersonal work dynamic.

McKinsey is an excellent training ground for communication and professionalism, especially for those coming from technical or analytical backgrounds.

Despite leaving McKinsey, the speaker is grateful for the experience, which opened doors and led them to pursue further opportunities, such as working in venture capital.

Consulting at McKinsey gave the speaker valuable experience but also underscored their preference for working in environments where execution and results matter more.

The speaker warns ambitious individuals not to join McKinsey just for the prestige, as they may find more fulfilling opportunities elsewhere.

For those interested in breaking into startups or venture capital, the speaker offers advice and resources through additional videos.

Transcripts

it's my first week on a new engagement

at Mackenzie and I'm putting together a

PowerPoint presentation for a client

kickoff my new manager walks in and asks

to take a look at what I'm working on he

looks at the first slide and then starts

thumbing through the rest of the

presentation and says we don't use Font

sizes bigger than 10 here at McKenzie

reduce the size of the fonts and figure

out some way to fill in all the blank

space and redo all the slides then he

left the room it was like 10:00 p.m. on

a Tuesday I thought it was a joke but

that dude was deadly serious this guy

was kind of like a char picture of what

everybody hates about Mackenzie and

thankfully not everybody at the firm was

like that but that is a reflection of

just how much Consultants agonize all of

their energy thinking through how to

communicate something down to the

Cosmetics of font size which can be

really frustrating for people who

actually just like to get stuff done but

that's actually not the biggest reason

why I left the firm McKenzie is

perennially ranked the number one

consulting firm in the world one of the

most well-run and prestigious companies

to work at with a less than 1%

acceptance rate much lower than getting

into hard Harvard and in fact it's one

of the very top choices to work at for

people who graduate from Harvard but I

actually think it's not for everyone

probably not for most people and I'm

going to share the soft underbelly of

what it's like to work in Mackenzie by

talking about the top seven reasons I

[Music]

quit the first that we have to dig into

is the lifestyle it sounds super

glamorous traveling the world advising

Titans of Industry on world shap

strategy but the fact is when you do

travel you're working like a dog so you

don't exactly get to enjoy the places

you're traveling to and you'd be

surprised how much big corporations are

spread all over the world into remote

places so yes I did work at Luxembourg

San Francisco and Chicago but I also

worked in Cincinnati Eden Prairie and

peia Illinois these are places where the

hotel and food options are pretty

limited if you care about that sort of

thing I actually grew up in those sorts

of places so I actually kind of like

going to Applebee's every day but for

much of the Mackenzie people who are

used to a lot more it adds to the Grind

when you work these long hours in a

remote place that's not that nice and

most importantly the travel schedule

really gets in the way of settling down

routes in your actual home city building

friendships starting a family and just

having a healthy routine being out of

town living out of a suitcase Monday

through Thursday is a great way to

ensure that you're an absentee parent

now you may be thinking working in other

Industries like Tech can also be pretty

intense and long hours and while that is

true especially in early stage startups

I'd say that there is a lot more

flexibility if you're an engineer it

just matters that you get the work done

you don't need to travel across the

country and put in a bunch of FaceTime

you decide when to work now this is

changing quite a bit with remote work

and I'd say the lifestyle these days is

probably a lot better than it was say

you know 2 3 5 years ago but nonetheless

if you're a consultant clients and their

deadlines are still the ones dictating

your schedule the second reason I quit

McKenzie is the nature of the client

work itself yes you're meeting with some

highflying Fortune 500 CEOs and

Executives but these are also decades

old businesses with hundreds of

thousands of people where you have to

navigate tons of politics to get

anything minuscule done I'm just

personally very demotivated by

optimizing monolithic businesses like

this to grow 2% per year versus 1%

McKenzie is actually what made me

realize I love working with startups

where there is a real chance you can be

part of a rocket ship growing 1,000% a

year and is so much more exhilarating

the third reason I left McKenzie is I

just didn't want to be a partner at the

first

and I just couldn't see myself selling

Consulting work in an authentic way to

be honest part of that is I was a

business analyst in the middle of the

sausage making every day and I just had

a hard time believing that we were worth

the 500 Grand per month or whatever we

were being paid selling Consulting

business just wasn't a lifestyle or a

skill set I admired personally no

offense to my friends at McKenzie I

personally find myself much more

gravitating towards the iconic class the

builders and the creatives the rule

Breakers the kind of of people who tend

to start early stage companies the

fourth reason is there's no real

feedback loop yes you make money off

clients and you're graded by other

Consultants on the quality of your work

but there's no real way to know if the

work you're doing is actually creating

value because you don't own the actual

execution of the strategy you come up

with and you're just simply not around

anyways to see the impact because you're

on to the next project one of the

reasons I really love venture capital in

investing is there's a very clear and

objective metric by which you're judged

and that's cash on cash returns Venture

is a little bit tougher in the sense

that it may take 10 to 15 years to IPO

but I'm personally willing to play the

long game the feedback loop for startups

is much faster you could for example

launch a new marketing campaign for your

product and see the results same day a

related but actually more important

point it's just not as fulfilling when

you only do strategy I didn't fully

realize this until I worked at Google

and startups the work you're doing is

just so much more fulfilling when you

actually see it through all the way to

the end and see the real world impact

that it's done and McKenzie the best you

can do is maybe stay in touch with

clients and hear about that secondhand

but for the vast majority of Consultants

especially Junior folks you just have no

idea if anyone did anything with your

suggestions this is the polar opposite

of a startup where ideas are cheap and

execution is everything and you spend

all of your time actually building and

learning as fast as possible and lastly

this is probably a controversial point

that many will not agree with but I

wondered if the work was making me more

transactional as a human being hear me

out here people are generally just

Rudder and less kind when they're in a

rush and with Consulting you're always

pulling late nights to meet a client

deadline always running to catch a

flight and I think for me personally it

brought out the worst of me sometimes

and also the fact that you're constantly

working with different project teams

doing work for different clients and

then leaving before the repercussions of

your work are known I also think that

structurally that might make a lot of

people more transactional as well and so

in some sense I actually didn't like the

person I was becoming through Consulting

and I think this is one of the

underrated pieces of joining and leaving

jobs is what is the nature of the work

due to you as a person I admittedly am

an idealistic Optimist but I like it

that way so for me being a venture

capitalist and getting to dream

alongside amazing Founders trying to do

the impossible is perfect now you'll

notice I didn't say I left Mackenzie

because of the stress frankly I think

there's a lot of jobs out there that are

more stressful namely working at an

early stage startup or starting your own

company which I think is in order of

magnitude more stressful but I would say

I don't like the kind of stress that you

face at Mackenzie because it's often the

product of big company politics that are

beyond your control especially as a

junior person imagine an executive at a

company may be threatened by your

presence just because McKenzie was hired

by his or her boss when they weren't

doing a good job and that person may go

out of their way to criticize you

publicly in high stakes meetings in

front of your team and clients and and

give illogical emotional feedback which

leads to tons of thrash on the work

you're doing that stuff happens all the

time at McKenzie and there are certain

clients and engagements that get

reputations for being a complete

disaster but at the end of the day I

think those Stakes are still just so

much lower than living paycheck to

paycheck or say being a startup operator

where your customers investors and team

owe their livelihoods directly to you

all that said I'm actually really

grateful for my time at Mackenzie

there's some amazingly smart people and

kind people there that were actually the

biggest draw for me in the first place

and I certainly personally got a lot out

of it at the time I joined I was much

more of a math nerd who needed help with

communication and Mackenzie I think is

the best training ground for that in a

business context and it opened up the

doors to so many other opportunities I

actually ended up following one of the

partners I work with into the public

education sector and I eventually went

to Harvard Business School in large part

because of the Mackenzie brand and the

strong references and that is actually

where I discovered my love for startups

and Venture Capital so Mckenzie was an

integral part of my journey so far that

I'm immensely thankful for and I

wouldn't change for the world but I

thought this was an important video to

make precisely because McKenzie is such

a strong brand that opens doors I feel

so many people join the firm when they

may be better served elsewhere you can't

go too wrong working with such smart

people at a place that opens doors but

it's a safe option for many incredibly

ambitious young people who could dare to

do something that's a better fit for

their talents and for the most daring

startups are an incredible opportunity

for outsize impact on that note if

you're looking to break into the startup

World inventure capital I made a couple

of videos that walk through step by-step

how to land the dream job helping build

the future thanks so much for watching

see you next

time