Elite consulting experience without Big Three (MBB) brand name
Pros
For better (or for worse) you can have an extremely similar experience at A.T. Kearney than at McKinsey, BCG or Bain. I joined straight out of undergrad, went to b-school sponsored, and came back to repay. My high school and college friends (20+) who also worked at MBB firms and A.T. Kearney have shared very similar experiences. Here is a summary: (1) Pure-strategy work remains elusive and operations-focused projects are by far the bread & butter. Arguably, our competitors do a better job at marketing the type of work to new recruits, but its mainly marketing. Many of my friends at MBB firms were lured in by the potential to do "pure-strategy" just to quickly find out that operations are the meat & potatoes of the industry. I did plenty of strategy work and never did a sourcing project, but that was definitely not the norm. Many of my colleagues did tons of boring projects. (2) As in other firms work-life balance is "OK" at A.T. Kearney. Occasionally the crazy “horror” project does trap you, but again this is quite similar to what happens elsewhere (a friend at McKinsey had a nervous-breakdown and was hospitalized). You might get a crazy 2-week due diligence but then get a more manageable 6-month steady project. (3) Compensation remains largely benchmarked, particularly in the U.S. and coming out of b-school. What you see in the b-school self-reported placement reports is pretty much what you get. If you are a sponsored student (i.e. an ATK scholar) you might get a slight bump when you come back, but nothing to get too excited about. MBA tuition is entirely covered if you are a scholar, but that is also true in any MBB firm. (4) As an analyst or pre-MBA associate your main exit opportunity is to get an MBA and you can feasibly get into Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Booth, Wharton, Columbia, etc. I got into 3 of them and without breaking a sweat. However, as you progress in your career, particularly when you become a manager or a principal it does get harder to jump ship. Similar to other MBB firms most sponsored b-school students come back only to eventually leave. Of the last 5 scholar classes around two thirds of the people have already left. This seems to be on par with what my MBB friends have seen.
Cons
The main problem with A.T. Kearney lies in its poor brand name. Everybody in the market knows about it and have it in high esteem, but within less informed circles the name does not mean a lot. Many even confuse ATK with other Big-4 audit firms. Ironically, from the perspective of the partners, this is actually good for business. After the financial meltdown ATK did pretty well. Many longstanding clients hired us because of our operations focus (i.e. lots of sourcing, cost-reduction, transformation projects) and we did not have to compete head-to-head with MBB. However, for the vast majority of the employees the lack of a strong brand name does have significant cons: (1) There is a Catch-22 in terms of work content. Clients do not see us as strategic advisors and we limit ourselves to operations-focused work, which in turn limits the experience that consultants get, and ultimately leads to fewer exciting projects in the long run. (2) There is also a Catch-22 in terms of image. Although other firms do plenty of operations work, people in ATK view themselves an edge lower than those at MBB, which in turn leads to a lack of swagger and pride shown to clients, and in turn having a weaker brand name. Actually, in an annual partners meeting, a big-name client (CEO of Fortune 100 company) told the audience that ATK consultants lacked confidence and could benefit from being more assertive. (3) Exit opportunities beyond the analyst/associate role are quite narrow. The longer you stay the harder it is to leave. Most managers and principals leave to become sourcing managers/directors at former clients. Perhaps many stay because they can’t leave elsewhere. Cool jobs in the Valley (Google, Apple, Facebook, Uber) or investor-side private equity gigs (Apax, Blackstone) are a quite a stretch. The only private equity role you can realistically bid for, not surprisingly, is on the operations team. As everyone that leaves consulting, many of my friends from MBB firms struggled to find attractive jobs but I've found that very few managers or principals from A.T. Kearney have made stellar transitions. The lack of brand name and operations-focused roles significantly limits your job prospects. While I was recruiting for general manager roles at the Valley and other startup hubs I had to carefully outline who A.T. Kearney was. I commonly told my interviewers: "It's like an MBB consulting firm". (4) Travel seems to be a bit higher than the norm but not excessively so. Old-time partners prefer a very "on-hands" approach, which essentially means working 4-days a week at the client site. The problem with having a weak brand name is that partners want to “impress” clients and try to "over deliver" by having as many troops as they can at the site. Of course clients care about the presence of consultants but trying to over deliver through that way seems to be missing the point. (5) While progress has been made in improving alumni programs, those that leave A.T. Kearney are still seen somewhat as "defectors" and not really as a natural thing of the industry. Very few ever become a partner, and that is anywhere in the industry. ATK consultants (non-partners) rarely attends alumni events. The few that attend those events are mainly former staff members (whom I love and admire...but you get the point).
