Management Consulting Discussion - Page 5

When did chinos became acceptable business attire?

Thanks Ramuman and Artisan Fan, From what I understand consulting will give you a broader range of skills and more exit ops, a more relaible job/income and travel? AF, I'll disagree on the pay. Hedge funds equal those numbers and add in a bigger bonus, obviously at the expense of job security. IB tends to be a touch lower. Prop is generally too tied up in your performance for a comparision. All numbers refer FO roles. Ramuman, that was my impression too -- I lean the otherway, but I actaully do Math Fin. Would you mind expanding on why you went to consulting?

I ultimately want to get into one of the big VC/PE firms (Sequoia, KPCB, KKR, etc.). I felt like MC will give me a broader set of skills and experiences than finance. Going through the interview process is resource intensive for everyone involved and I didn't want to waste my time or theirs by half-heartedly interviewing for a financial firm.

The lifestyle in consulting has the potential to be far better than the low levels of the IB world depending on what kind of person you are.

Right now I don't do management/strategy work and I don't have to travel. I certainly applied to things that required travel though and would have been open to doing so for a while. There are so many expenses covered when you travel, including the fact that you don't necessarily have to go back home for the weekend (and not to mention building up airline and hotel status and credit).
Vacation policies in consulting tend to be a lot more lax than ibanking at the low level where you only get a little bit and can't really use it (and you can score all your free status upgrades!).

If you factor in the reduced hours, the perks, the ability to take vacation when you aren't staffed on a project...the IB pay doesn't seem much different.

PE, fair enough then. How realistic are the exit ops to PE (I know Bain cap recruits heavily from their consulting division and you can likely leverage you background for VC stuff, but otherwise)? Otc, IB's, real IB -- not the quant trading stuff we have been discussing, value lies in its stronger long-term growth wether it be to PE/HF or the noticeably higher top tier pay. I don't think anyone would argue that there is much going either way earlier in your career. Neither would I argue that there is more risk in IB.

Another "thank you" for this thread, AF. Lots of good information here.

Can you talk more about experienced hires?

Also, I know a number of MC firms do a fair bit of consulting to government. Any advice for getting into that particular specialization?

+1.

Agreed - thanks for making this thread, AF.

(and also vaguely curious about the experienced hire route.)

The biggest value proposition of management consulting / consultants is: consultants are ready (or rather have no choice but to) to bust their ass and work 16 hours a day trying to solve your problem while you (the industry guy) goes home at 5pm and has dinner with his kids. At least that's how I rationalized my value proposition when I worked in MC.

There are not many ex-MC guys in VC. I mean yes, you can find examples, but vast majority of VC general partners are ex-industry guys / ex-CEOs. If VC is your ultimate goals then I won't consider MC the best route to get there.

wrt PE - the large buyout shops have a few MC guys but the vast majority are ex-bankers. There is probably a middle ground between VC & PE (growth equity type of shops) that MC guys stand as good a chance as an IBer to get a gig. These shops are more "operators" of the businesses they invest in (which tend to be middle market types) than the larger buyout shops.

I can positively tell you (from personal experience) that the bolded amount is too high for an EM. That's more the range of an AP (Associate Principal).

That's probably true overall, but in my case, if I stayed in engineering, I had three options: Do a startup based on my research and hop from that to VC, enter industry and hope that I could move up quickly enough into some notable management position to let me move to VC, or stay in academia, and have little to no chance to get into VC in any short time frame. Banking work, at least what I'd be doing initially, didn't really appeal to me.

In my last round of interviews, I was meeting with the partners/managing directors and they had specific examples of that move happening and my advisor's son also went from BCG to PE.

Sure, I agree that your chances to get into VC / PE are higher coming out of MC than from getting an engineering job out of school. Don't get me wrong, there are many examples of folks who have gotten into VC from MC. I just believe that: (a) its a very very small % of MCers who get into VC directly from MC (b) an MC job does not really prepare you very well to be in VC when compared to having been an entrepreneur / operator (c) a lot of ex-MCers hit the ceiling soon if and when they manage to get into VC directly. Likely start as associates and get tapped out at the Principal level. There are very few (as a %) VC General Partners who did nothing else in their lives but MC My personal opinion is that if VC is your ultimate goal then spend 3 yrs or 4 yrs max in MC. Get a gig in the industry after that and rise there the hard way. Then join a smaller company and hopefully be a part of a successful exit. Then get into VC. My views are based on having worked in MC (DEFINITELY not the company you are joining - so you can guess) and now current working in an industry which attracts the largest (or maybe 2nd largest depending on where you get data from!) venture financing and being intimately networked with VCs in the sector.