Struggling at MBB
I joined an MBB about 5 months ago on a new consulting track track that is supposed to be longer-term and not up-or-out (lower salary), but my experience so far has been very frustrating.
I keep getting staffed into messy, mid-stream projects with little context, weak coaching, and almost no ownership of a real workstream.
I often do very serious analysis, propose a structured point of view, and then later find my work deleted or replaced without any explanation. Nobody tells me clearly what was wrong, what changed, or how I should improve, so it feels impossible to learn. Most of my team is in another city, I’m excluded from key discussions, and I often only see tasks after the real decisions have already been made. On paper I’m expected to perform professionally, but in practice I’m given limited context and treated like support capacity rather than someone being developed. What makes it worse is that more political or influential people seem to be able to rewrite the flow and override others without debate. I’m trying hard, communicating clearly, and delivering what I’m asked to do, but the environment feels opaque and discouraging.
At this point I genuinely can’t tell whether this is normal consulting, a bad team/setup, or a structural problem with my track. Has anyone experienced this kind of low-context, low-feedback environment, and how did you deal with it without burning out or losing confidence? One of my friends in the firm told me that just stick with that so when other people out you can take over the responsibilities, is it a good approach?