MBB fishes, I know most of you are all from top schools and most are all smart but have you experienced where one person on the team was just on another level where inside of you say damn he/she smart?

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I joined BCG thinking this would be a common occurrence but I find I’m more often impressed by people’s ability to grind

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Yup full respect there!

The brightest come in at the junior level and are gone within 1-2 years

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Based on your many years of experience in this game 🤣

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There are a few people I've worked with who are clearly next level in terms of intelligence. It's more apparent at the junior levels when they are just crushing complicated analysis. Once you're more senior, communications and relationships matter more

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Different take… I’m most impressed by how humble people are. No one is in your face with their Stanford Math PhD or Neurosurgery training or whatever. They’re good at the job.

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Yeah, it’s probably hard to be arrogant when you’re surrounded by tons of people with the same or better qualifications than yourself

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Top schools just have a much wider variety of intelligence types, as well as variance in talent, than MBB.

You’d be hard pressed to find quantitative savants or literary geniuses at MBB like you would at HYP, but the avg MBB consultant is better with conceptual processing ability, logical reasoning, communication and real world common sense than the avg HYP student.

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Excellent description. The MBB hiring process is a lot more meritocratic than the HYP-type admissions process, so you get a really high minimum and average standard.

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Nah. Everyone is pretty smart but not too many stand out in that sort of way. And frankly, there aren’t too many opportunities in consulting where that next level intelligence could even shine (modelling doesn’t take a math PhD to figure out).

The truly most intelligent in society aren’t doing consulting. If they do accidentally end up at MBB via some tragic misstep, they bounce within the first two years.

Aside: I had a math / CS prof in undergrad went to MBB after his PhD at a top school (think Harvard/MIT/Stanford). He bounced after 1 year and went back to academic life because the work was so menial for him.

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I have a PhD in astrophysics, and bounced from MBB after one year 😂 consulting was invaluable, I learned how to be 80/20 and actually get things done besides theoretical research papers. That said, not intellectually stimulating and did not challenge me that way. This is not to say it wasn’t challenging in other ways, I wasn’t better at the job than anyone else. Some things were significantly more difficult for me than my peers (client, slides, being 80/20, knowing when to escalate)

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A few people I’ve been impressed by. But what impressed me was that they always knew how to get to an answer. It’s not like they had an answer to everything which is what I though being “smart” was for the longest time.

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Not really - I am also not from top school and rather came in as an EH - there’s alot of smart people here but no one’s that’s been like damn but tbh the skills that makes a good manager and a consultant are very different than doing well at school imo - truthfully after a certain point of intelligence it’s rather your EQ that’s gets your further

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Not impressed by my peers, but some of the Partners I worked with are extremely smart. Back in school, the people I’m impressed with the most are all doing their PhDs now. It’s a completely different level of intellectual capacity.

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Eh, not really

Met a handful who were really sharp and noticeably more so than me or anyone else, but the people who made me go “holy sh*t” were all in college and doing better things

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Don’t know about BB but here it’s on a somewhat regular basis I’d say

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English is hard 😂

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Def, there are a few BAs/EMs/APs/Partners that have absolutely blown me away. The only common theme, oddly enough, is that every one of them has a collegiate debate background with at least one stem major (and so just seems extremely good at everything - analytics, conceptual problem solving, articulating themselves, rhetoric, etc)

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Not really. Also not from a top school in any way shape or form. I’m an experienced hire in EMEA.

People are very good at their job, clearly. But that comes with experience, so that’s what I expect to find. No one is otherwise more insightful than they ought to be or brighter / quicker to make connections / understand things than the standard in this industry.

What surprised me most was indeed the grind and speed. That took me a minute to get used to, and that was impressive to me.

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My ability to make 1+1=3 is quite famous

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My supervisor is crazy smart and AP managed teams very well - been impressed so far

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Smart as in intelligent? Not really, the smartest people on Earth are probably smart enough to avoid MBB.

Smart as a mix of intelligent + knowledgeable + experienced? Definitely.

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Definitely. There are people that I am blown away by all the time.

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50% of people I work with are really smart , another 25% are ridiculously smart like ceo material with grind , remaining 25% are average smart like me lol … take heart - you can make it here , just need some luck

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I haven’t met any that stood out. What’s most impressive is the abundance of smart people. Also, the people who really stand out are those who did cool sh*t like placed in the Olympics, fighter pilots, etc.

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I’m most impressed by people management skills. Eg., partners ability to manage boisterous or difficult clients in a full meeting gracefully

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