What are your views on the importance of the location of the office? For example, is it more prestigious to work for Deloitte in London than for McKinsey in Poland? Or once you are McKinsey, you are McKinsey no matter where you are based? And what are the chances of getting a job after consulting outside of e.g. Poland if you work for e.g. Roland Berger in Poland?Hope this makes sense and thanks for your input(s)!

Is it easier to join McKinsey in Poland than in London? No. It is easier to join Deloitte than McKinsey? Yes. It is easier to join Deloitte in Poland than London? No one knows because no one wants to talk with Deloitte in Poland anyway.This is nonsense. McKinsey is McKinsey is McKinsey.

That's the thing, it is MUCH easier to join McKinsey in Eastern Europe than in London for example. The majority of people working for McKinsey in places like Poland, the Czech Republic etc are graduates of local universities. If the folks in the headquarters knew the quality of these "universities", they would probably just put a freeze on any hiring there.

The thing is, it's NOT. Not in terms of academic performance anyway - less competition perhaps. As for the standard of Polish education...your average Polish graduate is multilingual, educated in a quantitative or engineering discipline, strong work ethic...and their UK counterparts are all taking degrees in Media or suchlike nonsense, coming out without even common sense let alone languages, and complaining about the lack of opportunities while the establishment continues to beat the drum about the 'excellence' of UK education.The fact is, most UK degrees are toilet paper these days.

I'll second that. I worked at an investment bank with a Polish shared service centre for various IT and project management support services (PMO, finance, cost mapping etc) and they were outstanding; better qualified and harder working than their internal clients..

[quote] If the folks in the headquarters knew the quality of these "universities", they would probably just put a freeze on any hiring there.[/quote]this is the other thing - do you really think for one moment that McKinsey et al don't know the quality of the universities they recruit from?Get into say Roland Berger in Poland and the reality is your work will be with clients in far flung places. Would their clients say they don't want consultants from the Warsaw office? No. They want Roland Berger consultants and they don't care where they come from just so long as they embody what they believe they are paying for in hiring Roland Berger.

[quote]Would their clients say they don't want consultants from the Warsaw office? No. They want Roland Berger consultants and they don't care where they come from just so long as they embody what they believe they are paying for in hiring Roland Berger.[/quote]While we're on the topic of 'is it easier to get in to B firm in X country over Y country', I'm not quite buying this point...All I see on this forum is that in the UK at least, employers (consultancies) want graduates from Oxbridge as clients won't pay £1000 a day for mid-table university graduates... Now in Poland, clients just want the consultancy in to do the job, regardless of where said people have graduate - so long as they are Roland Berger worthy for example...Which one is it?In the UK, would you say clients care more about University name? Driving consultancies to target top Unis. Where as in Poland, clients don't mind so consultancies aren't as caught up on 'top Unis'?

Do you think that 60 years of communism might loosen the stranglehold that the upper class might have on elite education and in some way alter perception of intellectualism?And on return to democracy, what do reckon to the chances of voluntary return to that obsolete feudal attitude?

There's more to consulting than MBB. They can only be a small percentage of the consulting workforce. I am not an Oxford grad and have most certainly never worked for £1000 or less a day. I am not aware of any client ever having taken much interest in which university I went to. I assume they left the selection to my employer...

I think it's a combination. If MBB were full of consultants with degrees from the University of Hull (no disrespect), then they possibly wouldn't have the reputation that enables them to charge high day rates. Clients pay a premium because they expect premium quality ingredients.If the place is 99% Ivy League etc, then having the odd person with a degree in Masturbation Studies from the University of Crap probably don't affect the firm's ability to continue charging very high rates because clients probably assume that there must be some redeeming feature for that one "exceptional" individual to have made it into a firm that has very high standards/expectations of its staff.

The University of Crap haha. I earned all my masterbation badges in home school! Silly.Good point though BEP.

Masturbation Studies seems to be the Degree to go for, given the amount of W***ers Ive met in senior roles.