MUMBAI: Last year, McKinsey India hired a bunch of doctors, railway services professionals and former military personnel as associates and business analysts. So, what is a doctor or an army special operations commander doing in a strategy consulting firm? The answer lies in the changing client demands and stiff competition that makes it imperative to look beyond the prominent IIMs and IITs and hire from a wider pool.
What started as experiments led to the firm revamping its hiring process and talent strategy for India to cater to the shift in business strategy and client demands. “We have expanded our talent pool as the diversity of perspective gives a robust dimension, richness in team and client benefits,” said Toshan Tamhane, senior partner and lead recruitment for India.
Moving beyond IIMs and IITs, from where it continues to hire talent, the firm also recruits from leading colleges such as St Stephen’s, Lady Shri Ram College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, law schools and design institutes. This year, it plans to hire 200 people from campuses. There is also a big push being given to lateral hiring in the last one year.
“Nearly 25% of our talent comes from different industry sectors who have expertise on various areas and can work to solve problem for our clients,” he added. McKinsey has created more than 10 new partner roles including Implementation Partner, Digital Partner, Expert Partner, Recovery and Transformation Partner, Analytics Partner, Design & Innovation Partner and Public and Social Sector Partner. The company has 60 partners in India. “Earlier we were just advisors, but now for more than half of our clients, we are implementing these strategies as well,” explained Tamhane.
The firm has been hiring several diverse roles such as Client Developers, Chief Transformation Officers, Product Managers, Data Scientists, Knowledge Experts, Implementation Consultants, Design Experts and Solution Architects. It has also hired CIOs and CEOs of companies who can help with digital transformation. McKinsey, which is said to have the largest number of CEOs produced by any institution around the world, has also been losing talent in the last couple of years to startups, private equity firms and general industry, and retaining talent has been one of the key challenges.
Besides that, there is increasing competition from other professional services firms such as Bain, the Boston Consulting Group and the Big Four advisory services firms, mainly EY and Deloitte. The company has been working on ways to retain talent. It has also beefed up hiring of data and digital analytics professionals including data scientists, architects, PHD in statistics and MSC in Economics. McKinsey’s digital, analytics and design team in India has more than 350 people. The change in talent strategy is also a result of the changing employee mix where nearly 80% of the over 4,000-strong India workforce is millennials.
“They want variety. There is an increasing emphasis on health and social life. The millennials also want to work globally,” said Tamhane. “In terms of work, millennials can be staffed on engagement with overseas offices, one can choose to go for a short-term or permanent transfer to an overseas office,” Tamhane added.
What started as experiments led to the firm revamping its hiring process and talent strategy for India to cater to the shift in business strategy and client demands. “We have expanded our talent pool as the diversity of perspective gives a robust dimension, richness in team and client benefits,” said Toshan Tamhane, senior partner and lead recruitment for India.
Moving beyond IIMs and IITs, from where it continues to hire talent, the firm also recruits from leading colleges such as St Stephen’s, Lady Shri Ram College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, law schools and design institutes. This year, it plans to hire 200 people from campuses. There is also a big push being given to lateral hiring in the last one year.
“Nearly 25% of our talent comes from different industry sectors who have expertise on various areas and can work to solve problem for our clients,” he added. McKinsey has created more than 10 new partner roles including Implementation Partner, Digital Partner, Expert Partner, Recovery and Transformation Partner, Analytics Partner, Design & Innovation Partner and Public and Social Sector Partner. The company has 60 partners in India. “Earlier we were just advisors, but now for more than half of our clients, we are implementing these strategies as well,” explained Tamhane.
The firm has been hiring several diverse roles such as Client Developers, Chief Transformation Officers, Product Managers, Data Scientists, Knowledge Experts, Implementation Consultants, Design Experts and Solution Architects. It has also hired CIOs and CEOs of companies who can help with digital transformation. McKinsey, which is said to have the largest number of CEOs produced by any institution around the world, has also been losing talent in the last couple of years to startups, private equity firms and general industry, and retaining talent has been one of the key challenges.
Besides that, there is increasing competition from other professional services firms such as Bain, the Boston Consulting Group and the Big Four advisory services firms, mainly EY and Deloitte. The company has been working on ways to retain talent. It has also beefed up hiring of data and digital analytics professionals including data scientists, architects, PHD in statistics and MSC in Economics. McKinsey’s digital, analytics and design team in India has more than 350 people. The change in talent strategy is also a result of the changing employee mix where nearly 80% of the over 4,000-strong India workforce is millennials.
“They want variety. There is an increasing emphasis on health and social life. The millennials also want to work globally,” said Tamhane. “In terms of work, millennials can be staffed on engagement with overseas offices, one can choose to go for a short-term or permanent transfer to an overseas office,” Tamhane added.
( Originally published on Oct 29, 2018 )
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