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Comment by oneoff786 | Hacker News Reader

I do consulting. I’m always confused when people state that hiring new grads from top universities, having established frameworks, and having experienced people lead projects is a bad thing.

I love hiring new grads.

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Hiring them is fine - charging thousands of dollars per day for expertise they don't actually have is where people start to have a problem.

They’re supervised by junior partners, partners and senior partners. By supervised I mean every proposed set of work and every resulting slide is inspected with a fine tooth comb. The 23 year olds are literally just crunching whatever data the senior tells them to.

Disclosure: former consultant

I'd guess that depends on the consultancy, but I think one of the complaints customers have is that the "data crunchers" hourly rates is often quite high, sometimes higher than you'd pay for an actual expert in the field working as an independent.

True, although the junior rates are almost a rounding error when you see the rate of a Senior Partner. Typically though a McKinsey engagement is billed for the entire project. Internally though the price is determined by the number of consultants and their internal rate

On a website that often complains about how difficult it is for graduates or juniors to get jobs in tech. Big 4 firms especially are well known for hiring people straight out of University.

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.

If the chargeout rates and quality of frameworks and level of oversight is right, then fine.

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.

We do fixed price contracts but in my experience the accounting works out such that the partners leading the work are incentivized to negotiate internally to get the best people they can, not maximize the margin with the cheapest folks available. I can’t say staffing as many junior people as possible resonates.

Maybe at a body shop like Accenture though.

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