Colleagues, corporate culture and intellectually stimulating work. Apparently that's what many poetic applicants from consulting firms would wish for if a good fairy came by tomorrow and wanted to grant them three wishes for their dream employer. This is the result of a recent survey by Careernetwork squeaker.net.

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The methodology

At the end of 2011 carried out Onlinesurvey, somewhat exaggeratedly dubbed the “Consulting Excellence Study,” took 1.003 People who are interested in career opportunities at consulting companies.

Exaggerated because an online survey cannot verify whether it is really students, graduates and professionals who voted - or maybe not Employees the consulting firm itself Hand have created.

Work-life balance less important than corporate culture

Because the result, which astonishes me personally: Despite intensive discussion, plays "Work-Life-Balance”Continues to play a subordinate role in the choice of employer in consulting, but is more strongly represented than, for example, the aspects of“ reputation ”or“ internationality ”.

After all: In my opinion, a good corporate culture also includes a sufficient balance between Job- and privacy. Or not, as the survey shows: Many prospective consultants apparently don't have one Problem with being married to her job – provided the colleagues sympathisch are.

In this way respondents respond in detail

60 percent of those surveyed already have practical experience from the Industry. When asked “How important are the following criteria to you when choosing an employer?” the participants were able to rate a total of 20 criteria on a scale from 1 to 10 (very important). The result:

Rank:Criteria:Score:
1colleagues8,28
2Corporate Culture8,10
3Intellectual stimulating work7,92
4salary Increases7,78
5Career opportunities after leaving the company7,68
6Career progression in the company7,41
7Work-Life Balance7,16
8Reputation7,10
9Performance orientation in career development7,00
10internationality6,92

Strategic consulting of the most popular working field

Another result is the klare Preference order within the different types of employers: Companies Classic 1 remains for most of those who are interested in consulting.

34,6 percent state strategy advice as their “preferred field of activity” (for comparison: corporate finance advice: 9,87, in-house advice: 6,88 percent). In terms of absolute awareness (at least superficially known), the major strategy consultancies are in front: 1st place for McKinsey, 2nd place for The Boston Consulting Group and 3rd Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Employer - known or popular?

Well-known as employers for consultants are also the audit firms: KPMG (rank 4), PricewaterhouseCoopers (rank 5) and Deloitte (rank 6). Companies from in-house consulting, on the other hand, are rather unknown. Here, however, Siemens Management Consulting (rank 10) is among the top ten.

Awareness and attractiveness do not match, however, and there were a few surprises here: squeaker.net also asked the participants which employers they worked for to planto apply.

Unknown?

As with awareness, 20 companies were available here Choice, which according to the experience of squeaker.net play a particularly important role in the choice of employer: In the resulting ranking, the Boston Consulting Group is ahead of McKinsey. Although "Booz and Company" is not among the top 10 in terms of pure awareness, the consulting occupies third place here.

The same is true for Oliver Wyman. The strategic advice lies in the notoriety on place 13, with the application prospect however to rank 5. In case of doubt, the more unpredictable strategy advice in the competition area thus suggests the more well-known auditing company:

Rank:Company:Percentage *:
1The Boston Consulting Group37.2%
2McKinsey and Company33.4%
3Booz and Company27.0%
4Bain and Company26.2%
5Oliver Wyman Consulting25.8%
6Roland Berger Strategy Consultants25.2%
7AT Kearney15.1%
8Siemens Management Consulting14.8%
9PricewaterhouseCoopers14.7%
10Deloitte13.7%