I was blacklisted from McKinsey & Company before I even started my freshman year of college.
In the summer of 2024, I was doing a pre-college program for teens around the world interested in potentially entering the world of business. A couple of nights in, my cohort of 24 other kids and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit in the Ross School of Business and hear from a business analyst at McKinsey. Or so I was told we were lucky; back then, I had no clue what McKinsey even was. That, coupled with the fact that it was 6 p.m. on a Friday in July and the thought of sitting in the Law Quad with dining hall soft serve was suddenly sounding really appealing — let’s just say my heart wasn’t in it.
I’ve never been one to be rude, though, so I did my best to engage with the speaker as much as possible. It proved to be an easier task than I thought, especially since he actually turned out to be some kind of complex character — a man from southwest Detroit who grew up with few opportunities. He had worked really hard to go to a small college and study engineering, led by his interests in ideation, design and an instinct to create in unconventional ways.
Upon graduation, it was a bit tougher to find a job than he’d hoped, so he pivoted to business, taking an operations role at a smaller firm. And almost 20 years later, he accepted an offer to join McKinsey as an entry-level analyst in his middle-age. This was quite the untraditional path, as most employees entered McKinsey straight out of college before working there three to five years and leaving for a less chaotic job after having saved some good money. This meant employees were usually graduates from the top target schools, and it was incredibly rare for anyone outside of that mold to land a role — especially that far removed from college.
His ability to break that pattern stood out, so I couldn’t help but ask:
How do you hold onto that side of yourself — the part that likes to create — in a place with such strict rules?
To which he responded,
Well, do you want to have a personality, or do you want to get a job?
This was my first time considering a world where the two were mutually exclusive.
Growing up, the only visual representations I had of the business world were characters like Wilhelmina Slater and Samantha Jones — women who built careers while dressing in ways that reflected their personalities, whether through sharp tailoring, bold color or silhouettes that refused to blend in.
It wasn’t until I came to the University of Michigan that I learned that in the “real world,” it’s standard to wear plain colors — tan, navy, white, black, gray or brown; show no excess skin beyond the hands (not even open-toed flats); and avoid jewelry in uncommon places. I was shocked to watch my male friends remove their earrings as they entered the recruitment process for investment banking and my female friends claw off intricate acrylic nail designs before major interviews.
Those expectations eventually extended to me. One night, I wore a pink blazer and white open-toed kitten heels to a club stock pitch, something I hadn’t thought twice about, and was told it wasn’t appropriate. I surprised myself with how quickly I adjusted; I haven’t since reached for either piece again in a professional setting.
When I notice myself making these changes, I think back to that conversation from the summer before I started college. I found the speaker’s statement so unsettling, especially because of how easily it seemed to be accepted. The idea that personality and professionalism were at odds didn’t feel like it was open for debate. It felt like a rule.
And yet, the more time I spend studying business, the less that rule makes sense to me. I’ve grown increasingly drawn to researching consumer-facing industries, such as fashion, beauty and consumer packaged goods — spaces where I’ve found that success depends on standing out. When I think about the brands people are drawn to, they’re often shaped by decisions that reject uniformity: a campaign like Gap Inc.’s collaboration with Young Miko, which leans into individuality rather than mass appeal; Lucky Brand’s partnership with Addison Rae, where personality becomes central to the brand; or packaging redesigns across the CPG space, where brands like Oatly trade minimalistic design for personality, turning even a carton into a point of view.
None of those ideas come from uniformity. They come from people willing to challenge the default, not just in what they create, but in how they choose to show up.
I don’t know if personality and professionalism are truly as mutually exclusive as that conversation suggested. But I do know that if the goal of business is to create, to innovate and to question norms in order to build things people actually want, then the instinct to stand out can’t be something we ask people to leave behind.
Daily Arts Contributor Grace Otieno can be reached at graceot@umich.edu.
