Should I do IB one summer before going into consulting?

I'm going to kind of brag here, but I have a natural talent for casing. I haven't practiced much at all, but can get all of the advanced answers in each case. I also go to HYPSW. 

However, I feel like I don't have strong quantitative financial/modeling skills, so I thought I could do IB for junior summer to gain those experiences, and then shoot for MBB full-time. Is this a dumb strategy? Would it just be safer to do MBB junior summer? My worry is that I won't be able to gain that quantitative financial experience once I step into consulting, so I might as well delay it by a bit to hone other aspects of my business skillsets. 


 
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If you know you want to do consulting, then its just safter to do consulting junior summer, especially if you get MBB. Generally, getting the internship is harder than recruiting full time, but not sure if and how that will change moving forward due to covid. I am at a target for all major consulting firms and BCG is doing an information session only for internships this fall. I also did an IB internship and did not have time to recruit for consulting before my offer expired, so thats another thing to consider if you did IB and got a return would you be willing to let it go to recruit all over again.

 

My straight to the point advice is to go for a consulting internship after junior year, especially if this is where you want to end up full time. The main pipeline for undergrad hiring at MBB is through that junior year internship. 

I've had a couple of friends go from bulge bracket IB internships to MBB but it seems to be the more difficult path of the two. 

I'd say network hard for consulting and continue your case practice. If you're so good at casing, don't waste that strength by not doing an MBB internship. Financial modeling skills will come and can be practiced on your own time or through a class if you wish. Gaining financial modeling skills during an IB internship is hit or miss. It may very well be that you end up getting very little experience over a summer in that area. 

Go the IB internship only if you're actually considering that as a career path. 

Finally, I have a shameless plug that I think is quite applicable. Check out one of my podcast interviews with someone who was deciding between IB and consulting and had internships in both: https://anchor.fm/wally50/episodes/Jenna-Scheffert-from-fashion-school-in-Paris-to-fighting-disinformation-in-Brussels-to-investment-banking-at-Rothschild-egde8f

 

As someone who just graduated and did an internship in tech IB and is going into healthcare IB, I'd say use your internship to do the career you most likely want to be full-time in. Most mid-large companies have great internal mobility. I think you'll get much greater benefit from doing an MBB internship and have a path of less resistance moving to an SF office at the same firm or different MBB than you would coming from tech IB

 

Just align with the Digital practice as a Business Analyst at McKinsey. Super prestigious opportunity, around half your work is in tech (or less/more if you want) and the other half is the same as a generalist. Though likely not the original intention, it's been a great way for McKinsey to recruit people that would otherwise work at FAANG or high growth startups. 

 

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