I’ll add that consulting gives you a huge range of experiences. So I’ve worked closely with people in many of the elite professions, including with white shoe and boutique law firms (as an expert witness), with investment bankers and private equity (on buyouts and as a company director), with VCs (helping startups), with hedge funds (due diligence and advice on investments), with many of the big MC firms (as a subject expert) and with some of the biggest tech firms (as a consultant).
Of those I think the big tech firms probably give the most enjoyable experience straight out of college (not least because they model their campuses on college life so the adjustment is easier). Although in the end they are frustrating places once they get to be big and risk averse, and some of them are likely to see more public hostility and hence declining popularity as a place to work in the next few years.
In terms of the grind for junior people I found the consultants looked down on the lawyers who looked down on the investment bankers. Amongst all the people I’ve interacted with, the junior investment bankers always seemed the most miserable.
The only job I’ve ever felt might have had a more interesting time than the consultants was in private equity, which has some of the variety of consulting but a longer term operational responsibility for (and alignment with) the firms in your portfolio. I thought that was better than hedge funds and VCs who tend to be making more random bets on companies they can’t understand very well (for slightly different reasons - hedge funds are on the outside, while VCs are looking for 1 in 10 investments to be a home run but they don’t know which one).
On the other hand private equity is operating on fairly long timescales (several years) and I usually prefer projects with a higher level of adrenaline. So to me there’s nothing like being in a high stakes trial with a bunch of top lawyers - that’s where most of my best stories come from (in retrospect if I’d wanted to get into that more directly then I would have chosen economic consulting - places like Cornerstone Research or Charles River Associates, though the ideal route to the top there is by getting a PhD in economics first).
Great insights @Twoin18 . Thanks for sharing. I’ve also heard junior IBers are miserable. Although the ones that last have a pretty interesting life at the MD and higher ranks. Anecdotally, HS buddy of mine rose to the Vice Chairman position of one of the major (BBs) banks. Had to cancel a golf buddy trip once to meet up with Michael Eisner (the former CEO of Disney). We forgave him. He couldn’t putt anyway, not in HS or now
@Publisher I meant that the consultants felt the lawyers had a more miserable working life than them and the lawyers felt that the bankers had it even worse. Measured in terms of weekends and all nighters worked, holidays and birthdays missed, etc. Though it’s probably true that the compensation of bankers was higher than lawyers and lawyers higher than consultants.
@Twoin18 : Thank you for your response. I understand now.
I have a relative considering moving from consulting work to biglaw (same practice area, but income will double from day one). The holdback is the work demands, pressure & hours.
@Publisher It is tough. The NY white shoe partner I worked with had 18 boxes of documents shipped with her on honeymoon (that marriage didn’t last long). I much preferred the boutique trial lawyer firm I worked with, though the competition to get a job was fierce: the junior people had qualifications like Stanford Law Review editor and Supreme Court clerk.
I think you need to look at consulting comp two ways; climbing the ladder and jumping ship.
Compensation at Partner (which has several levels as well) is quite compelling. 7 figures is doable and some make well into that. Also have pensions (depending on firm). Lower comp at the lesser tier firms but still excellent.
Using the “bootcamp” to cross over into industry and climb the ladder (from an elevated rung) has significant compensation upside, including equity in whatever venture one jumps to.
Know some who are leading major divisions of F500 companies and with stock options are making millions. Others went to VC or PE shops (managing portfolio companies) and are killing it.
Anecdotally, brother, within a yr of leaving MBB for a F50 strat job, became Pres / CEO of a small venture within the F50 (kind of a start up which was sold for a chunk in 5 yrs).
Most in consulting are doing it to learn a lot quickly and build a great network to leverage for awesome opportunties. Of course there are the career consultants who just love that lifestyle. They become experts in their field of knowledge.
Thank you all for the great advice!!! I agree that a general management degree wouldnt be the best. I was planning on majoring in Finance and then doing either a minor or double majoring in applied mathematics, data sciences, or analytics, would this be a good route to go in? Consulting appeals to me for a lot of the same reasons that you all have suggested. I like the idea of having all of those unique experiences and I am very interested in it as of now.
Financially, I am luckily in a position in which my parents will be able to help me out with a good amount of my tuition. Of course, finances will be considered in the final decision, but they are definitely not a limiting factor.
What schools in your opinion have the best recruitment? I think I will apply to one or two, but I’m not sure yet which ones.
The MBB tier tend to recruit at the most selective schools. (Ivies, Stanford, etc)
They also get tons of interest. The next tier down recruit more broadly but it will be up to you to network (through events offered by school, linkedin, etc) so that you get into the serious interview round.
MC is a great introduction to the business world. You should know that if you find you are loving it, you will hit a dead end without an MBA or other advanced degree. If you have something quantitative on your resume, that’s likely to be enough to be considered. I know English majors who have been offered these jobs. No need to major in finance unless that’s really what interests you. (And you could even find yourself explaining why you aren’t pursuing something in that field in MC interviews. )
Really, at this point, don’t focus on where you’ll land post college. Focus on finding the place that is going to give you the most engaging academic experience. The pieces will fall into place.
Management consulting and investment banking are both hugely popular careers among Williams College graduates. Recruitment is outstanding. Lots of on-campus recruiting, summer internships, and jobs, with big-name firms.
Major does not seem to matter. There is no business major at Williams, a pure liberal arts college. These fields attract many economics and mathematics majors, but graduates enter these fields from many different liberal arts majors (history, English, whatever).
Although you don’t need to major in Finance, a finance major is a fine thing to have and will not hurt you in MC. Some schools are more quant based finance than others. Adding a applied math or something like it will help alot, but so will having a major / minor in a universally interesting topic like history or polisci. Consultants are people placed in front of clients. Yes you’re working on complicated topics, but you’re also spending a lot of time with your team and the client team. Being an interesting human matters (a lot!). Econ is probably the most popular major for MC as it tackles big issues, is quite quantitative in nature, and requires lots of analyzing.
FWIW, I once worked for Bain (the consulting group, not Bain Capital). In the Boston office at that time, we recruited undergrads from schools in the Northeast which included Ivies and primarily other selective liberal arts schools. On the other hand, we did not recruit from other nearby schools that had more of a business focus (for example, Babson, Bentley). We did not care what someone had majored in, though we did look for some indication that the candidate could handle quantitative reasoning and thinking (if not evident through a major, we’d look to SAT scores, other coursework, the case style interviewing system, etc. to determine whether we felt a candidate could handle the work.) I attended Dartmouth and did not major in economics or anything else business related in undergrad…it wasn’t a problem at all either during the application process to Bain or in the work I did there as an associate consultant (went back later as a consultant for several years after an MBA…at the consultant level, getting an MBA was expected, but at the associate consultant level, no prior business focus was required or preferred).
“Finance and then doing either a minor or double majoring in applied mathematics, data sciences, or analytics,”
That sounds like a lot of quantitative overlap, I would major in applied math or stats or data science and minor in something that would give you a different kind of expertise. If you had a minor in biochemistry say, then you could be of value to these companies that want an associate in their healthcare group. Or engineering, bus ops, someone already mentioned government.
“Being an interesting human matters (a lot!).”
Ok I’m pretty familiar with MBB and while I agree that you need some interpersonal skills, you don’t have to be interesting at all. Solving case problems matters the most.
