Over 30% of incoming MBA students select consulting as their desired industry, making it one of the most popular industries for business students during their recruitment cycle. However given the high selectivity of consulting firms and the limited number of positions available, many individuals ultimately matriculate into a different industry. While many factors contribute to receiving a consulting job offer, with our blog post here+ detailing the best strategies to maximize one’s chances at a consulting career, we wanted to see how business school rank correlated with hiring firms within the consulting industry..
Utilizing the MBA tier list we organized based on aggregated rankings, as outlined by this previous blog post, we found the top consulting employers for each business school tier from data collected from MBAs.
First, we looked at the overall top consulting employers from all of our MBA data.
Next, we asked the question who the top consulting employers were for each tier.
Tier 1
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
McKinsey & Company |
13.6 |
|
2 |
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) |
12.8 |
|
3 |
Bain & Company, Inc. |
11.0 |
|
4 |
Deloitte Consulting |
11.0 |
|
5 |
Accenture |
5.2 |
|
6 |
Strategy& |
5.2 |
|
7 |
A.T. Kearney, Inc. |
3.3 |
|
8 |
L.E.K. Consulting |
3.3 |
|
9 |
ZS Associates |
2.7 |
|
10 |
KPMG |
1.9 |
|
11 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
1.6 |
|
12 |
AlixPartners |
1.4 |
|
13 |
PwC Advisory |
1.4 |
|
14 |
Analysis Group, Charles River Associates, IBM, Roland Berger, The Brattle Group, The Cambridge Group |
.8 each |
Tier 2
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
McKinsey & Company |
12.9 |
|
2 |
Deloitte Consulting |
10.1 |
|
3 |
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) |
9.8 |
|
4 |
Accenture |
7.0 |
|
5 |
Strategy& |
6.6 |
|
6 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
5.2 |
|
7 |
Bain & Company, Inc. |
4.9 |
|
8 |
L.E.K. Consulting |
3.1 |
|
9 |
KPMG |
2.8 |
|
10 |
A.T. Kearney, Inc. |
2.4 |
|
11 |
Oliver Wyman, Inc. |
2.1 |
|
12 |
Parthenon-EY |
2.1 |
|
13 |
ZS Associates |
2.1 |
|
14 |
Analysis Group, The Cambridge Group |
1.7 each |
Tier 3
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
Deloitte Consulting |
15.1 |
|
2 |
PwC Advisory |
8.0 |
|
3 |
Accenture |
7.7 |
|
4 |
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) |
7.1 |
|
5 |
McKinsey & Company |
6.9 |
|
6 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
5.8 |
|
7 |
L.E.K. Consulting |
5.5 |
|
8 |
Strategy& |
3.6 |
|
9 |
Bain & Company, Inc. |
3.3 |
|
10 |
KPMG |
3.3 |
|
11 |
ZS Associates |
3.0 |
|
12 |
IBM |
1.9 |
|
13 |
Parthenon-EY |
1.9 |
|
14 |
A.T. Kearney, Inc. |
1.4 |
|
15 |
AlixPartners |
1.4 |
Tier 4
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
PwC Advisory |
25.7 |
|
2 |
Deloitte Consulting |
12.4 |
|
3 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
7.6 |
|
4 |
KPMG |
7.6 |
|
5 |
McKinsey & Company |
6.7 |
|
6 |
Accenture |
5.7 |
|
7 |
AlixPartners |
1.9 |
|
8 |
Aon Hewitt |
1.9 |
|
9 |
Cognizant Business Consulting |
1.9 |
|
10 |
Everest Group |
1.9 |
|
11 |
North Highland Worldwide Consulting |
1.9 |
|
12 |
Schlumberger Business Consulting |
1.9 |
|
13 |
Slalom Consulting |
1.9 |
|
14 |
Tata Consultancy Services |
1.9 |
|
15 |
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) |
1.9 |
Tier 5
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
17.5 |
|
2 |
Deloitte Consulting |
15.5 |
|
3 |
Accenture |
12.6 |
|
4 |
Cognizant Business Consulting |
3.9 |
|
5 |
KPMG |
3.9 |
|
6 |
McKinsey & Company |
2.9 |
|
7 |
Daugherty Business Solutions |
1.9 |
|
8 |
Guidehouse |
1.9 |
|
9 |
IBM |
1.9 |
|
10 |
Infosys |
1.9 |
|
11 |
The Advisory Board Company |
1.9 |
|
12 |
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) |
1.9 |
|
13 |
ZS Associates |
1.9 |
|
14 |
ARCADIS |
1.0 |
|
15 |
Acuity, Inc |
1.0 |
Tier 6
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
McKinsey & Company, Inc. |
14.3 |
|
2 |
Accenture |
11.4 |
|
3 |
Deloitte Consulting |
11.4 |
|
4 |
Bain & Company, Inc. |
5.7 |
|
5 |
Booz Allen Hamilton |
5.7 |
|
6 |
Slalom Consulting |
5.7 |
|
7 |
PwC Advisory |
5.7 |
|
8 |
Daugherty Business Solutions |
5.7 |
|
9 |
Grant Thornton |
2.9 |
|
10 |
Strategy& |
2.9 |
|
11 |
SBI (Sales Benchmark Index) |
2.9 |
|
12 |
Hitachi Consulting |
2.9 |
|
13 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
2.9 |
|
14 |
AlixPartners |
2.9 |
|
15 |
Cicero Group |
2.9 |
Tier 7
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
Deloitte Consulting |
15.6 |
|
2 |
PwC Advisory |
15.6 |
|
3 |
Accenture |
8.9 |
|
4 |
Booz Allen Hamilton |
6.7 |
|
5 |
Cognizant Business Consulting |
6.7 |
|
6 |
KPMG |
6.7 |
|
7 |
CGI Group |
2.2 |
|
8 |
L.E.K. Consulting |
2.2 |
|
9 |
Slalom Consulting |
2.2 |
|
10 |
Sapient Global Markets |
2.2 |
|
11 |
SAI |
2.2 |
|
12 |
Ryan, LLC |
2.2 |
|
13 |
RSM |
2.2 |
|
14 |
NTT DATA |
2.2 |
|
15 |
International Data Corporation |
2.2 |
Tier 8
|
Rank |
Employer Name |
Percentage of all MBAs employed by company (%) |
|
1 |
Accenture |
18.2 |
|
2 |
KPMG |
18.2 |
|
3 |
CGN Global |
9.1 |
|
4 |
Crowe Horwath |
9.1 |
|
5 |
Deloitte Consulting |
9.1 |
|
6 |
Ernst & Young LLP |
9.1 |
|
7 |
PwC Advisory |
9.1 |
|
8 |
RAS & Associates |
9.1 |
|
9 |
Slalom Consulting |
9.1 |
As seen above, certain employers hire a larger percentage of a certain tier and several seem to be recruiting from a few tiers alone. To investigate if we can see a clear trend of the tiers that popular consulting employers are recruiting from, we plotted the above percentages by company.
Percentage of MBAs in Consulting from each Tier at Four Strategy Consulting Firms
It appears that the leading firms associated with Strategy (Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey & Company) employ mostly from business schools in the top tiers.
Percentage of MBAs in Consulting from each Tier at Four Implementation Consulting Firms
The four largest accounting firms in the United States seem to recruit from a variety of business schools, with a certain percentage of each tier being employed by one of the four. Based on the above, KPMG seems to attract and employ business students attending schools at all ranks while PwC Advisory is a popular consulting employer for tier 4 students.
Percentage of MBAs in Consulting from each Tier at Four Industry-Specific Consulting Firms
While employers such as Booz Allen and Cognizant Consulting have larger percentages with increasing tier (decreasing business school rank), Strategy& tends to employ in tiers 1-3. Accenture, the fourth most common overall consulting employer in our data, seems to hire across the board of tiers.
Are you interested in learning more about top MBA employers? Continue checking out the RelishCareers Blog, where we will continue posting information about employers, job function, and work culture. Candidates can also sign up for an account through RelishCareers and registrants will be informed of all upcoming blog posts through email.