Top-Performing College Grads Fall into the ‘Prestige Career’ Trap

There are two big misconceptions here:

1. Consulting/banking are useless 2. Harvard/Yale grads who go work for prestigious firms disappear, never to be heard from again.

The first point is disputable. There's a lot of really low-hanging fruit out there for improving management practices. Think of it as akin to hospitals improving results by insisting that doctors was their hands more. That's consistent with the randomized controlled trial that found consulting can improve productivity: https://www.nber.org/papers/w16658.pdf

The second point is insane. Consulting alumni go on to have tremendous impact. Sundar Pichai and Sheryl Sandberg both worked at McKinsey. Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu worked at BCG. Pick a random mid-size Silicon Valley company that's in its scaling phase, and the growth team is probably led by an ex-consultant or ex-banker. Places like Bain take someone with raw intelligence and give her a tremendously valuable set of skills that she didn't have as a fresh graduate. They don't expect most new hires to stick around indefinitely; they train you and then actively support you as you go figure out what you want to do next.

Disclosure: I worked for a top consulting firm out of college. Incidentally, I only lasted a bit more than a year - I hate Powerpoint - but now when I'm working on my side-project, I use those skills a lot more than the ones I learned working at a big software company.

The article really puts an emphasis on recruitment and, as someone who went to a top 5 school and went into business for myself instead of joining the pack, it's not about that at all but rather about social conditioning and money.

These firms pay the best for your run of the mill pre-professional undergrad, it's really that simple. Unless you have a CS degree, the other primary high-paying careers require continuing education (M.D.s, etc).

We live in world where there are three basic economic classes; wealth, wealth management, and the proletariat. It's no surprise that the bulk of top school grads get herded into jobs that serve firms and the wealthy.

Of note is that large tech companies are becoming prestige careers too.

Would be interested in the fraction of consulting activities that are devoted to maximizing the returns in zero sum games.

Also, have you heard the phrase ‘consultants are hired when the firm needs to fire someone.’ The most important implications are not the firing.