Google, Facebook and Amazon might grab more of the headlines, but consulting firms are still snapping up the most students at top business schools as they remain the largest recruiters, according to the latest MBA placement statistics.

谷歌(Google)、Facebook和亚马逊(Amazon)或许抢占了更多头条新闻，但根据最新的MBA就业统计，咨询公司依然是最大的招聘者，从顶级商学院抢走了最多MBA学员。

Amid a surge of interest in technology companies, consulting’s enduring appeal — particularly that of McKinsey, Boston Consulting and Bain, or the “big three” — comes at the expense of finance and banking, which are still recovering from recession.

在MBA学员对科技企业兴趣激增的同时，咨询公司，尤其是“三巨头”麦肯锡(McKinsey)、波士顿咨询集团(BCG)和贝恩(Bain & Co)吸引力不减，是以金融业和银行业为代价的，后两个行业仍在从衰退中复苏。

Recent surveys suggest little more than a third of those who enter consulting after graduation are still working in the field six to eight years later. However, MBA students continue to find attractive the high starting salaries — up to $145,000 a year — and the fast career progression offered by consulting firms.

最近的调查似乎表明，在毕业后进入咨询业的MBA学员中，仅有三分之一的人在6至8年后依然在该领域工作。然而，MBA学员依然觉得咨询公司高达每年14.5万美元的起薪和快速的职业发展很有吸引力。

Still, some observers worry the influence of consulting is now so great that it may be influencing business schools to serve the needs of the profession.

话虽如此，一些观察人士担忧，现在咨询业的影响力太大，以至于可能影响商学院为该行业的需求服务。

Among the schools to report placement statistics for their classes of 2015, Chicago Booth says the consulting sector has recruited 32 per cent of its MBAs, a rise of 4 per cent on last year and the first time consulting has come close at the school to toppling financial services.

在报告2015届MBA班就业统计的商校中，芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)布斯商学院(Booth School of Business)表示，咨询业招募了其32%的MBA学员，比去年上升了4个百分点，在学员就业去向中，咨询业首次接近打败金融服务业。

Consulting firms hired the most MBAs at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business in 2015 for the second consecutive year. More than a third of its MBAs this year have entered consulting, with the big three snapping up 18 per cent.

2015年，咨询业连续第二年成为达特茅斯大学塔克商学院(Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth) MBA学员的头号去处。该校超过三分之一的MBA学员进入了咨询业，仅“三巨头”就夺走了18%的学员。

“For the past few years, about a fifth of Tuck’s graduating students have gone to work for the big three consulting companies and this current recruiting cycle looks to continue that trend,” says Stephen Pidgeon, the school’s associate director for career development who joined McKinsey when he graduated from Tuck in 2007. “Consulting provides a very good match for the interests of MBA students in that it looks for intellectually curious people with a strong mix of hard and soft skills — a top business school is one of the best places to find a rich mix of these people.”

“过去几年，塔克商学院大约有五分之一的毕业生进入咨询三巨头工作，当前这一轮招聘看来将延续这一趋势，”该校职业发展副主任、2007年从塔克商学院毕业后也曾在麦肯锡就职的斯蒂芬皮金(Stephen Pidgeon)表示。“咨询业很符合MBA学员的兴趣，这个行业寻找的是身具多种软硬技能、有求知欲的人——顶级商学院是寻找大量这类人群的最佳地点之一。”

Throughout the financial crisis, Harvard Business School has placed a steady quarter of its MBAs in consulting. And its appeal is not restricted to the US. Insead reported that consulting firms hired 41 per cent of its 1,011 MBAs in 2014, more than a quarter hired by the trio of top firms.

在整个金融危机期间，哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)进入咨询业的MBA学员比例稳定在四分之一。咨询业对MBA学员的吸引力不仅限于美国。欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)报告称，咨询公司雇佣了其2014届1011名MBA毕业生中的41%，咨询三巨头雇佣其学员的比例超过四分之一。

A glance back at history suggests that in the early days of consulting it was the strategy firms that needed business schools to help legitimise their emerging profession. Now their influence spreads beyond recruitment. Joe O’Mahoney, senior lecturer at Cardiff Business School says several European schools, such as Grenoble and Cardiff, now run consulting modules. Others, such as UCD Smurfit, run MScs in management consulting while Lancaster invites Accenture consultants to teach on one of its MScs.

历史似乎表明，在咨询业的早期，这种做法是该行业公司的战略：它们需要商学院帮助这一新兴行业得到承认。现在，咨询业的影响力已经超越了招聘。卡迪夫大学商学院(Cardiff Business School)高级讲师乔攠汙霍尼(Joe O’Mahoney)表示，格勒诺布尔高等商学院(Grenoble Graduate School of Business)和卡迪夫大学商学院等几所欧洲商学院现在都提供咨询业课程模块。爱尔兰都柏林大学学院(UCD)迈克尔斯墨菲特商业研究生院(Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business)提供管理咨询理学硕士课程，而兰卡斯特大学管理学院(Lancaster University Management School)则邀请埃森哲(Accenture)的咨询师为该校的一个理学硕士课程授课。

However, Prof Sturdy says that even if these services are on an MBA curriculum, good business school academics are not afraid to subject them to significant critique. “Even the best consulting firms rely on correlation rather than causality when selling ideas,” he says. “This problem would come up in any research methods class.” Prof Sturdy argues that consulting firms could contribute further to MBA learning by discussing more practical examples, but thinks they are hindered by their need to be associated only with success.

然而，布里斯托大学(Bristol University)管理学教授安德鲁斯特迪(Andrew Sturdy)表示，就算咨询服务成为MBA教学大纲的一部分，好的商学院学者不怕对它们进行严肃的评判。“即使是最优秀的咨询公司，在兜售理念时依赖的都是关联性而非因果关系，”他说，“任何研究方法课都会冒出这个难题。”斯特迪教授主张，咨询公司能够通过谈论更多实用案例给MBA学习做出更多贡献，但他认为，咨询公司会因为它们需要只和成功联系在一起而受到阻碍。

The top firms believe their relationship with schools is a win-win for both sides, but their lead recruiters are keen to stress their future as well as current recruitment needs. “We’d like MBAs to learn more about organisational dynamics and the science of decision-making,” explains Mel Wolfgang, head of global recruitment at BCG. “That would help clients absorb the work we do and change their decision-making for the better.”

顶尖咨询公司相信，它们和商校的关系是双赢的，但它们的招聘主管在介绍目前的招聘需求时，也热衷于强调它们的未来。“我们希望MBA学员学习更多有关组织动力学和决策科学的内容，”波士顿咨询集团全球招聘主管梅尔茠尔夫冈(Mel Wolfgang)解释道，“这能帮助客户吸收我们所做的工作，改善客户的决策。”

Brian Rolfes, director of global recruiting at McKinsey, says client work continues to expand outside traditional strategy consulting and into implementation, restructuring, transformation and digital. “Clients are also looking for more specialised experience so people with a MBA and experience in certain functions or industries are more important than ever,” he says.

麦肯锡全球招聘总监布赖恩圠尔夫斯(Brian Rolfes)表示，客户业务正不断扩展，超越传统的战略咨询，进入实施、重组、改造和数字化。“客户也在寻找拥有更专业化的经验的人，因此既拥有MBA学位又拥有某些职能或行业的经验空前重要，”他说。

The mutual benefit has been most evident between McKinsey and Harvard Business School — so entwined that writer Martin Kihn coined the term McHarvard in House of Lies, his controversial book on consulting. Through its case study method, McKinsey helped bolster Harvard’s MBA, giving it real-world cachet. McKinsey still uses the case-based interview to recruit MBAs. “The case study method ingrains a consulting mindset on students from an early age,” says Andrew Sturdy, a management professor at Bristol University. “Harvard pioneered this method with the explicit support of McKinsey.”

麦肯锡和哈佛商学院的互利最为明显——两者的关系如此密切，以至于马丁蘒楗(Martin Kihn)在他有关咨询业的有争议著作《谎言屋》(House of Lies)中发明了一个词“McHarvard”。麦肯锡通过其案例分析法帮助提升了哈佛商学院的MBA，建立了其在课堂之外现实世界的声望。麦肯锡现在依然使用基于案例的面试来招聘MBA毕业生。“案例分析法使学生从早期就养成一种咨询业的思维方式，”布里斯托大学的斯特迪教授表示，“哈佛商学院在麦肯锡的公开支持下开创了这种方法。”

In his unauthorised biography of McKinsey, The Firm, business journalist Duff McDonald writes that when Harvard president Derek Bok proposed jettisoning case study methods in 1979, McKinsey chief executive Marvin Bower wrote a 52-page retort. The proposal was scrapped. In return, Harvard acted as a breeding ground for future McKinsey consultants who understood the firm long before they started working there.

达夫麦克唐纳(Duff McDonald)在其未经授权的麦肯锡传记《麦肯锡的故事》(The Firm)中写道，当时任哈佛校长德里克娠克(Derek Bok)在1979年提议抛弃案例分析法时，时任麦肯锡首席执行官马尔温贠尔(Marvin Bower)写了一份52页的反驳书。该提案遭到废弃。结果，哈佛成了麦肯锡未来咨询师的孵化器，让他们早在为其工作之前就了解这家公司。

McKinsey became the first to focus on hiring business schools’ crème de la crème — at Harvard these were the Baker Scholars, the top 5 per cent of each class — prioritising youth and potential on the grounds that it was easier to mould a young mind. By the mid 1960s, at least two of every five McKinsey consultants had gone to Harvard. “The practice of hiring from top schools really took off when BCG started to compete with McKinsey for talent in the 1960s and 1970s,” says business journalist Walter Kiechel and author of Lords of Strategy, “and business schools had to demonstrate success in placing their students with the firms.”

麦肯锡成为首家专注于雇佣商校精英的咨询公司，优先考虑年轻和潜力，理由是年轻人的头脑具有更大可塑性——在哈佛商学院，这些精英指的是成绩处于每个班级前5%的贝克学者(Baker Scholar)。到上世纪60年代中期，每5个麦肯锡咨询师中至少有两人上过哈佛。“波士顿咨询集团在上世纪60和70年代开始和麦肯锡争夺人才，使雇佣顶级商校人才的做法真正起飞，”著有《战略之王》(Lords of Strategy)的商业记者沃尔特蘒切尔(Walter Kiechel)表示，“而商校也必须向这些公司输送毕业生，以展示自己的成功。”

In recent years, the big three have widened their search to a broader range of business schools, but the bulk of recruits comes from elite schools: Harvard, Yale, Kellogg, Duke, Wharton, Chicaco Booth, Michigan Ross, MIT Sloan, Tuck, Darden, London and Insead. Being top employers puts them in a strong, some would say dominant, position at some schools. “Consulting firms use greater resources than many other employers can,” says Prof Sturdy. “Business schools are not always effective in regulating this and [it] can crowd out other options.”

近年来，咨询三巨头拓宽了人才搜索范围，纳入了更广泛的商校，但大部分新晋员工都来自精英商校：哈佛商学院，耶鲁大学管理学院(Yale School of Management)，凯洛格管理学院(Kellogg School of Management)，杜克大学(Duke University)福库商学院(Fuqua School of Business)，宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania)，芝加哥大学布斯商学院，密歇根大学罗斯商学院(Michigan Ross)，麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院(MIT Sloan)，塔克商学院，弗吉尼亚大学(University of Virginia)达顿商学院(Darden school of business)，伦敦商学院(London Business School)和欧洲工商管理学院。作为顶级的雇主，它们在一些商校占强势地位（一些人可能会说霸主地位）。“比起其他许多雇主，咨询公司能够使用更多资源，”斯特迪教授表示，“商学院并不总能有效地规范这一点，（这）可能会挤掉其他的选择。”