BEYOND B- SCHOOLS

Like many other leading consulting firms, McKinsey is a big recruiter on B- school campuses. Typically, it takes about eight years or so for the people it hires to become a ‘partner’. But that is too short a time to develop expertise, and clients, too, increasingly need implementation capabilities. So, McKinsey has been hiring domain experts laterally and has created different pathways to becoming a ‘ partner’. These are:

GENERALIST PARTNER:

Catchment area would typically be leading B- schools

EXPERT PARTNER:

Area experts in domains such as risk or cyber security. Would be hired from industry, say, a chief risk officer in a bank

MASTER EXPERT:

Globally best expert; would be a handful

RTS ( RECOVERY AND TRANSFORMATION SERVICES) PARTNER:

Could be lateral hires from industry; ‘chief’- level executives ( CXOs) or others who have been successful turnaround experts

MGI ( MCKINSEY GLOBAL INSTITUTE) PARTNER:

Could be those initially hired from B- schools or laterally. Could also be people with PhDs in Economics or an expert focused on public policy, research and resource building capability in socially relevant areas

DIGITAL PARTNER:

For digital, analytics and other technology- related areas. Could be from industry with deep knowledge

ADMINISTRATIVE PARTNER:

Internal function for McKinsey. Depending on requirement, could be from law firms or audit firms, or chief human resource officers

IMPLEMENTATION PARTNER:

Someone with track record in execution excellence. Could be hired from industry

PSS ( PUBLIC AND SOCIAL SECTOR) PARTNER:

People who have been with government or in social sector with deep domain knowledge