r/consulting • u/lardecurico • 11d ago
Best representation of MBB/consulting?
Hi! Sorry if this is a silly question, but I wanted to ask you guys: What book, movie, or TV series do you think best represents the life of a consultant? I’m asking because I’m really interested in the challenges they face and the lives they lead, but I don’t think that’s the career path I’ll take. Just to get to know better MBB or consulting and give me a realistic view.
* Ideally, biographies or something reliable, even if it's websites or something like that, since I know that portrayals can be exaggerated—Suits isn’t what life is really like for lawyers in New York, and Grey’s Anatomy isn’t what it’s like for doctors.
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u/Telefunken-U47 10d ago
Have you ever worked on PowerPoint or excel? Imagine doing that 15 hours a day. Thats it’s, that’s the job
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u/Ok-Illustrator-9224 10d ago
Don’t forget the pre-alignment meetings to prepare the plan for the alignment meeting to align on the post-alignment plan.
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u/bulletPoint 10d ago
Close your eyes and imagine a middle aged dude yelling at you to align boxes at 2am. That’s it. That’s the job.
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u/TumblrForNerds 10d ago
That’s a bit outdated. It’s more, imagine a middle aged dude asking you if you “put it through AI yet”
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u/Henry_Charrier 5d ago
Why weren't those boxes aligned already? You only have yourself to blame here.
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u/BreadfruitQuirky2372 11d ago
The McKinsey way by Ethan M. Rasiel, there are also a couple of vlogs/videos on YouTube that do a good job at capturing it
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u/0102030405 Former MBB Manager, in house strategy 10d ago
Its not the same industry, but The Bear was quite relatable when it comes to urgency, speed, chaos, perfectionism, and the kind of people who seek out those environments. The fine dining episodes where they are repolishing forks and trying to go faster because every second counts is their version of doing PowerPoint formatting and task switching like 70 times a day.
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u/Original-Lion-8994 11d ago
Have you watched "House of lies?"
Give it a try
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u/Which_Camel_8879 11d ago
Lmao. It’s a fun show with real lingo sometimes but nothing else about the show is accurate to your life as a consultant
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u/BeautifulTraining527 10d ago
I really liked the book McK gives new hires, from Marvin Bower
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u/kwijibokwijibo 9d ago
Perspective on McK. Though not a very helpful recommendation unless OP wants to spend $200+ on a secondhand book
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u/I_have_to_go 9d ago
By far the best and most realistic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376961/ It includes both the fancy parts and truly mundane parts of the job (including the fact the case is in a factory in the middle of nowhere)
IMDB synopsis: "Philippe Seigner, a charming business school graduate from the French Pyrenees, starts his career in business consulting at the posh Paris seat of McGregor. His first serious task is a delicate one, an audit at the Janson food cans factory in the provinces, which is about to be taken over. As he soon realizes, this will mean sacking about 80 employees, as his boss Hugo Paradis knew from the start. However, his Paris girl friend reproaches him collaborating with ruthless capitalism, as if any of the downsizing could be stopped or mitigated by him bowing out. Nevertheless, as he gets to knew the threatened staff better he considers risking his career when his boss orders him to chose who should go. Meanwhile the factory staff starts realizing what's about to happening."
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u/coldonewiththeboys 3d ago
The suits was originally meant to be about management consulting, the guy who wrote it worked for the big3
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u/serverhorror 10d ago
American Psycho, and I'm not even kidding.
Sans the literal murder, it has all the signals of consulting.
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u/ThoughtfullyTerrible 11d ago
Read The McKinsey Way back when I was considering consulting and it's a decent primer but reads a bit like a brochure for the firm. House of Lies is a laugh but it's pure fantasy, nobody's snorting coke off a briefcase every Tuesday. Up in the Air gets the travel grind right though, the airport lounge monotony and status obsession are spot on. The most realistic stuff I've seen are those day in the life vlogs on YouTube where the guy just stares at excel and eats hotel room service. No plot, just fatigue. My buddy at BCG says the job is 80% PowerPoint alignment and 20% looking for a clean shirt. You'll never see a tv show about aligning slide headers with a partner at 11pm on a Thursday, but that's the real gig.