A lot of Big-4/management consultancy, revolves around hiring bright young people straight out of University and sending them into large companies with, at best, a canned methodology, and access to some more experienced people to ask questions of.
Yes you might have junior staff coming in to ask questions, but there is always someone more senior briefing the junior and reviewing their work.
The growth that a graduate experiences in the first 2 years of their career is enormous.
It's also very important to distinguish between consulting and assurance services. Both within a big 4, offer very different services and offerings.
The only “knock” I could see is the presentations could be a bit formulaic and slightly too polished, which is hardly damning.
The presentations? Is that all you got for it? Is that the only or the most important outcome? I would say that's nothing. It's the actual implementation that counts and is difficult. It's as if a consultant would present in a powerpoint how to implement a piece of software and then leave it up to you to implement it and you have to hit and solve all the road blocks along the way. And on top of it they come up with that presentation without even having implementing anything similar themselves.
The current Big 4 accounting firms do have management consulting divisions (not separate entities to my knowledge)
I love hiring new grads.
Disclosure: former consultant
Unfortunately..... that's often (IME ofc) not the case. The financial model and incentives for these companies is to staff with as junior people as they can get away with.
Maybe at a body shop like Accenture though.
Surprising to see how people react when a company does use lots of junior staff. The difference being is that these junior staff are client facing as opposed to being behind the scenes.