The landscape: MBB, Big 4, boutiques, and in-house strategy

Intuition

Think of the consulting world like restaurants. MBB is the three-Michelin-star tasting menu, small, expensive, famous for one thing done flawlessly: strategy advice to the C-suite. The Big 4 are the giant, reliable chains that do everything, audit your books, file your taxes, build your software, and yes, advise on strategy too. Boutiques are the specialist bistros known for one cuisine. And in-house corporate strategy is having a private chef on staff.

You don't need to love the food metaphor. You need to know that where you interview changes what they're tasting for.

Framework

The four lanes you'll meet:

• MBB (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), strategy-led, brand-premium, hardest cases, work for the CEO and board. Interviewer-led or candidate-led cases plus a fit round.
• Big 4 (Deloitte, PwC/Strategy&, EY-Parthenon, KPMG), vast firms; strategy is one practice among audit, tax, risk, and tech. Often group cases and written exercises.
• Boutiques (LEK, OC&C, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, etc.), specialist or regional, deep in one industry or function; cases can be the most technical of all.
• In-house corporate strategy, strategy team inside a company (Amazon, Disney, a bank). Cases are real and company-specific; less "framework theater, " more business judgment.

Worked Example

Same candidate, three doors. At McKinsey, you'll likely get a crisp interviewer-led case and the PEI (Personal Experience Interview) probing a leadership story. At BCG, you might face the online Casey chatbot case before a human. At Deloitte, you could be put in a group case solving a problem with four other candidates while assessors watch how you collaborate. Identical résumé, three different games.

The same divide shows up in the fit round. Weak: "I want to work in consulting because I love solving problems." Strong, at LEK: "I want LEK because your private-equity due-diligence work is some of the most quantitative casework anywhere, and my two years in equity research are built for it." The first answer fits every firm, which is exactly why it impresses none of them.

In the room

Tailoring shows up in your mouth, not your résumé. When the fit question comes, name the firm and a real reason: "I want Bain specifically because of how you staff, one office, one case team, and your private-equity ring-fence is where I want my reps." In a Deloitte group case, the scored move is building, not dominating: "Let me build on Priya's cost point and add the revenue side." At a McKinsey PEI, open with the situation in one line, "I'll tell you about the time I lost half my project team three weeks before a deadline", then go deep on your actions, not the team's. At each of these moments the interviewer is scoring one thing: did you prepare for their game, or for a generic one?

Pitfalls

• Treating all firms as "consulting" and preparing one generic motion.
• Saying "I want to work in consulting" in a fit round instead of "I want to work here, because…".
• Ignoring boutiques and corporate strategy, often less competitive entry points with excellent work.