McKinsey & Company, one of the Big Three management consulting firms, is encouraging employees to quit by giving a variety of incentives, including assistance in finding a new job.
Under the new program, McKinsey consultants who are considering leaving the firm can take advantage of the company’s in-house career-coaching services, including résumé improvements, as well as the use of email accounts and other tools to help them find work.
In addition, McKinsey is offering managers up to nine months of compensation to undertake a job hunt without having to work on corporate projects. At the end of the period, employees must quit the company, regardless of whether they were successful in their job search.
The Times newspaper said that the incentives had been offered to managers in the UK, while similar offers were available to personnel in the United States. Hundreds of staff from both UK and US firms are anticipated to be offered the proposal.
It’s the latest example of belt tightening among consulting firms, which collectively employ thousands of business school graduates each year. McKinsey and its sibling MBB firms, Bain & Company and Boston Consulting Group, are among the top employers of MBA graduates every year.
The Big Four accounting and professional services firms—Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and EY—all have major consulting operations and frequently hire from business school cohorts.
As salaries in several industries stagnated, all of these major businesses declared pay freezes for 2024. Earlier in 2023, EY announced headcount and compensation cuts for UK consultants, while Deloitte delayed start dates for MBA hiring.
The restrictions are largely in response to a continuing drop in demand for consultancy services, which began in 2023 and corresponded with widespread economic issues.
Hiring in the consulting sector increased dramatically during the Covid epidemic, and many leading firms’ low ‘attrition rate’—the number of employees who quit to work elsewhere—has resulted in bloated headcounts, compelling them to act.