Hi all, I was wondering who here has worked in strategy consulting in the past, or has aspirations to transition from finance into strategy consulting. I’m particularly interested in anyone that may have had encounters with some of the larger consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. I have long-term aspirations to be a senior manager/executive of an organization and feel like consulting would be the best way to prepare me for such a role. I also feel that while I have some useful analytical skills that I’ve developed in finance over the last few years, I don’t actually have much managerial experience and really have no idea what it takes to run a company, at least from practical firsthand standpoint. However, I also want to make sure that I really understand as much as I can about the consulting field, and that I’m not looking at the field with rose-colored lenses. Feel free to point out any misconceptions that I may have. Also, for those of you that have worked in strategy consulting, what did you enjoy most about the job and what did you like least? What prompted you to eventually pursue a role in finance, and what skills did you gain from consulting that you felt were most helpful? And for those of you who are contemplating leaving finance for strategy consulting, what are some of your main factors driving your decision?
Hey Numi, While I have little knowledge of the topic above, I have an idea for you that has worked well for me. Log on linkedin (which I assume you have). Do a search for Bain as the company and your Undergrad as the school. Check the results and look for mutual connections. Send them a message explaining what you just outlined above, or ask a mutual connection to introduce you. All the best!
Numi, I’ve done some myself, never with one of the major companies, but I know lots of people who have done it. Positives: Your brain is constantly engaged, usually with interesting stuff. Pay is good, but doesn’t seem so great when compared to IB, PE, and buy-side stuff. Definitely comparable pay to lawyering, doctors, etc… You also meet a lot of people and fill your rolodex with useful contacts for the future. Negatives: You live in airplanes and hotel rooms (sounds glamorous at first, but gets boring fast, especially when you travel to exotic locales and don’t see anything but the 5-star cookie-cutter hotel and maybe a local bar). Hours aren’t that different from ER or IB. Your clients have unrealistic expectations and deadlines, and your managers all-to-often defer to them, passing the buck to you, who then takes the blame for their unrealistic expectations. You also have the frustration of proposing the solutions, without (usually) much power to implement them. After a while, you wonder if you are actually DOING anything at all, or just talking bla bla bla with old wine in new bottles. Whether the positives outweigh the negatives is largely a personality issue. It’s easier to hack the hours when you’re young and build the rolodex.
I have a friend that works at McKinsey. Similar to what bchadwick stated, he is all over the world in these exotic places and is constantly traveling. At firms like McKinsey, you are not traveling from NY to Miami. You are travling from NY to Tashkent, Uzbekistan or NY to Lahore, Pakistan. He is a relatively young guy with no kids so I think this lifestyle works for him. However, I know burnout and travel fatigue are definite factors to consider. Spending your life in airplanes and hotel rooms is not my cup of tea, but it works for some.
I worked in one of the firms you mentioned before my MBA. Dr. Bchadwick and thommo are accurate in their descriptions. I had to travel to places like Tripoli, Libya, and was actually scared of doing so. During my time the Partners I reported to were all divorced, and had one or more children living in different countries/continents. One of them finally bought a house thinking he had some certainty about his location for a couple of years, and less than a month after he was assigned to another country. The exit opportunities are really good for managerial positions. M/B/BC have a strong “up-or-out” human capital policy. After your third or fourth year, if you are not promoted to the next organizational level, you’ll be fired. Most managers get major managerial positions in another firm before that. Overall is a great experience. The learning and career opportunities are endless.
I did strategy consulting early in my career. They generally have no interest in hiring someone for 8 months before b-school.
I’m in a strategy group right now and my group is made up of mostly ex-consultants from top companies. I came into the group straight from undergrad, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of working at one of those companies. However, when people burn out on the travel and get tired of not seeing whether or not their recommendations were implemented, they often join a corporate strategy group. I like the job since it’s all about solving business problems, which means that you need to be able to think at a very macro level to discuss with senior management while being able to understand the granular details that the operations teams worry about. What I really like is that the work is constantly changing. In the morning, I’ll be working on a project to exit a product line and transition into another, then in the afternoon will I’ll be working on a tuck-in acquisition. Also, I always know if my suggestions are implemented and the actual impact, which makes updating the resume a lot easier than with “normal” consulting.
numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi all, > > I was wondering who here has worked in strategy > consulting in the past, or has aspirations to > transition from finance into strategy consulting. > I’m particularly interested in anyone that may > have had encounters with some of the larger > consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. > > I have long-term aspirations to be a senior > manager/executive of an organization and feel like > consulting would be the best way to prepare me for > such a role. I also feel that while I have some > useful analytical skills that I’ve developed in > finance over the last few years, I don’t actually > have much managerial experience and really have no > idea what it takes to run a company, at least from > practical firsthand standpoint. However, I also > want to make sure that I really understand as much > as I can about the consulting field, and that I’m > not looking at the field with rose-colored lenses. > Feel free to point out any misconceptions that I > may have. > > Also, for those of you that have worked in > strategy consulting, what did you enjoy most about > the job and what did you like least? What prompted > you to eventually pursue a role in finance, and > what skills did you gain from consulting that you > felt were most helpful? > > And for those of you who are contemplating leaving > finance for strategy consulting, what are some of > your main factors driving your decision? I would recomend restructuring as a possible option as well. I’m currently working in that field and our firm does both financial and operation restrucuturings. Many of the operational guys are ex-consultants and often after being hired as CRO, senior people are hired on to run the company. I personally do more of the financial restructurings based on my background but will probably see more operational issues this year. Based on some of the discussions I’ve had with senior people, running a company in distress, deciding to exit business, etc is a decent way to learn how to run a business. As dspapo says as well, seeing these things through is important as sometimes consultants drop a book off and leave and don’t see the whole thing through (that’s their rep anyways).