Hello All:
I’m pretty far along in the interview process for a large investment consulting firm. I’ve been looking around several forums on lifestyle but I can’t really nail down a solid answer. I’m trying to avoid a situation of living out of hotel rooms and traveling M-F, which is the case for most Management Consulting firms. Can any of you provide any insight on lifestyle?
Just ask the company if it involves travelling monday to friday?
Living out of hotel rooms and traveling M-F? Depends on the type of mgmt consulting I guess. I haven’t traveled for work (mgmt consulting - fin and econ division) in months. People in our alternaitive investment advisory division travel a lot. Your best bet is to ask the folks who interviewed you.
Which investment consulting firm? Investment consulting travel is WAY less than management consulting travel. Travel and prestige not even on the same level.
Thanks Ramos but I’m not going to name the firm in order to remain anonymous. I just wanted to get a sense of the lifestyle in Investment Consulting since there really isn’t much information out there about the field.
you agree to the % when you start - basically you agree to the % or don’t work there… most of the time its 80% Mon-Thur with client and then Fridays are work remotely or at company office - but each project and client differ
My lifestyle is totally pimp, but then I’m my own boss. Occasionally go to the client’s office to talk strategy, present a model, or accompany them for an investor pitch. But mostly it’s just working from the home office…people are all over the planet, so a Skype call makes more sense than an airplane.
That would suck if you had to hang out physically with the client all day. 
I’m with purealpha on this one. The lifestyle is butter as far as I’m concerned…
Given, I’m an analyst so I don’t have to travel too much other than the occasional client meeting or due diligence. The consultants have 4-6 weeks a quarter where they are traveling 3-5 days a week to meet with clients and depending on how senior they are another couple weeks traveling 1-2 days to pitch potential clients.
We have also been moving towards a lot of video calls and more and more of our clients seem to be on board with it as time goes by.
At the end of the day, management consulting =/= investment consulting.
Thanks M4tt30 for input. My understanding is IC is nothing compared to MC in regards to travel demands but I was just trying to get a number/% to see if this career path is something worth pursuing.
Do you see yourself staying in the consultant path or are you looking for an exit ?
Expect to have a book of 6-12 clients which you are expected to be the primary contact and then be backup for another 2-6 or so.
Travel will depend on client meeting schedules, but expect quarterly meeting with each one. You’ll be expected to be on RFPs to transition low revenue clients to higher revenue clients, so expect another meeting if you make finalist. Lots of back to back meetings so you’ll have to prep a lot and leverage your analyst. I would say you’ll be pretty busy 1/1.5 months a quarter.
People exit to relationship management, consultant relations, and other client service jobs at asset managers.
Wow, thank you BiPolarBoy,
It sounds like you’re in IC or previously worked in IC and your information is very helpful.
I’m in the late stages in an interview process and will have a face to face shortly. Do you have any idea what types of questions they will be asking and how I should prep?
Are you interviewing at the analyst level? If so…
Show that you have attention to detail, as there is a ton of reporting. Project management, as you’ll have be on top of things. Show interest in portfolio construction. Show that you work will with people and work on your presentation skills.
Read P&I and be on top of asset classes. Read through their website and get an idea of their advice. They might make you do a presentation in front of people but they should give you time to prep. The long term goal is to transition an analyst to consultant so they can increase revenue.
Also, they’ll ask, why this job? Don’t say “I want to work at a hedge fund one day”, rather “I like learning about hedge fund strategies and I enjoy discussing them. In this macro environment, I think these strategies make sense in a portfolio because…”
60-80k+10-20% at the analyst level and 70-100k+10-20% at the senior analyst level. Given or take +/- 10k depending on location and size of firm.