Since I have always continued my career in consulting, I decided to do a social experiment. I conducted an environmental scan through my LinkedIn network. I then categorized my findings into key themes of the most common consulting exit career paths using a cohort of 45 former consulting colleagues.
For this scan, I decided to define consulting exit opps as any career path outside of employment with a large consulting firm. I removed individuals that jumped to another Big 4 or MBB firm (which represented 5 former colleagues). I wanted to focus my analysis solely on exit opps outside of the traditional consulting career model.
Career Paths of 40 Former Colleagues:
I analyzed the career paths of 40 high performing individuals, all exiting with an average of 3-7 years of consulting experience. The results were surprising. Below are the 4 common consulting exit opps I came across:
Entrepreneurs:
Entrepreneurship represented the career path of 15 (or 37.5%) of the consulting exit opps. A number of colleagues have either decided to start their own business, are freelance consultants, or have taken on an executive leadership role in a family business.
Industry:
Interestingly enough, 11 colleagues representing 27.5% of the cohort decided to leave for industry roles. There were all in either mid-management or executive leadership roles in 3 key industry sectors: 3 are in tech companies like Google or Amazon, 4 are employed at a large financial services firms like Goldman Sachs, and 4 colleagues have decided to go into non-profit/social enterprise work.
Graduate studies:
20% of the cohort (or 8 of my former colleagues) are currently enrolled full time at a top 15 business school program. One colleague is a PHD student at an M7 business school program and another colleague is finishing up medical school.
Local consultants:
Six former colleagues represented 15% of the cohort have jumped to boutique consulting firms in leadership roles that doesn’t require travel and service local clients.
You can see my ongoing Q&A here: Q&A: I grew up in Consulting and reinvented my brand 3 times
You work at EY in "Organizational Development" - isn't that the equivalent of "Business Analysts in" BB IB, aka middle-office operations? I wouldn't be describing myself as a consultant tbh
Thanks for your thoughts PE_Reaper I appreciate your perspective. I'm not sure what type of middle office operations work you do nor what your definition of a consultant is.
In my current role I partner with my clients to design, plan, and implement strategic talent initiatives. It is great to help my clients solve complex people related problems, both internally in my firm and in the marketplace.
I wake up and partner with our executive leadership and HR/talent teams to shape the culture of one of the biggest management consulting firms in the world. It's fulfilling, impactful work for me to have the opportunity to experience being a consultant from this lens.
PE_Reaper, Douchebags like you are the reason this website is laughed at. Christie is definitely in a front office role, albeit in one different than "traditional" strategy consulting. But I'm sure she does some very useful work in her niche. Consulting isn't MBB or bust - I say that as an EM at an MBB. We in the industry know that there are many ways to create value for clients.
Thanks aspiringchimp !
PE_Reaper in case you were trying to connect the dots between what is called org development at EY vs other large firms as it relates to front office "people strategy" work, let me break it down further for you:
You are correct, my current role sits in an internal consulting practice called Organizational Development. Our sister (market facing) practice is called People Advisory Services * Accenture call it Human Performance * Deloitte calls it Human Capital * Bain calls it Organization * Boston Consulting Group calls it People and Organization * McKinsey calls it Human Capital * Oliver Wyman calls it Organizational Effectiveness
To the point aspiringchimp was making, it is a specific niche type of work and not as widely popular as some of the other strategy work out there.
To kind of visualize it, think of the Billions character Wendy Rhoades, who plays an in-house performance coach for Axe; while the show really spins the role for entertainment purposes, the basis of her work can be (sort of) compared to some aspects of what I currently do.
I hope this helps.
How many years of experience did your colleagues have before they went for their MBA? How many years out of college where they?
BTW I think your awesome for doing all of this.
TheKid1 Good question. Looks like those that went back to b-school range between 2-6 years of consulting experience. Several actually had 1-2 years of industry experience, others came in straight from undergrad into consulting, and 2 of them actually already have a masters degree (they completed a 5 year program at their schools and graduated with a non business master's degree). It's actually pretty interesting.
You are most certainly welcome. I do this because it is the type of information I wish was available to me when I was younger in my career; sometimes you have to become the mentor that you wish you had. :-)
I left consulting for industry. For me, it allowed me to work on similar projects (M&A, process improvement, new product strategy, etc.) but cut out the endless revisions needed between the various review levels at a consulting firm. Now, I just walk into my SVP/EVPs office with my analyst and he says: "guys, make these small tweaks on slides 5-7, then we're good to go. This is going to CEO in 2 days, let's lock it down". Done. You are getting your feedback straight from the "client", and this contributed greatly to my improved work-life balance.
I also don't have to do bullshit like "practice development", e.g., plan events to keep the newly hired undergrads entertained, random assignments from partners that are pitching, or participate in recruiting (though I did like this bit). Booking meetings is taken care of by the EA. Oh and the best part, I'm not expected to sell. I deliver on my projects, I get recognized. Simple as that.
How have you found the compensation trajectory? I'm at the point in my career now where I have to make a choice between gunning for partner or jumping into a role in industry. I know I can expect less in industry, but by just how much?
I really like this job and the hours aren't bad for me (and I'm very much considering the long road to partner), but I'm wondering what the trade-off was for you and what made you pull the trigger on leaving consulting?
For me specifically, I did not take a haircut on pay. Salary + bonus is about the same, but trajectory wise, I am one level below VP at my company. VPs here make around $300K-$500K, which means I'm below what new Partners make. But, the one big thing is that they don't have to sell! They do their work, have lots of responsibility (and real P&L), and then they leave their office at 5-6pm. Like me, they may take some work home, but it's mostly emails, reviewing materials, jumping on calls. From there, it goes like this:
VP = $300K-$500K SVP = $750K-$2MM EVP/C-Suite = $2MM-$5MM CEO = $10MM
Note this is all in comp, not salary and lots of variations of course below the c-suite. Personally, I think it is more likely that someone makes Partner than SVP/EVP. It is more about your ability to bring in revenue in consulting, rather than waiting for the guy above you to retire/keel over. In that way, I think there is a more straightforward path to $1MM+, but beyond that, it's a crapshoot and a big combination of luck, timing, and skill (in that order).
Christie Lindor once again an excellent post and please understand (I believe you do) that a vast majority of us at WSO appreciate your time, effort, and thoughtful posts and find your insight to be valuable as we progress in our respective careers.
You mentioned some consultants are moving into non-profit/social enterprise work. Does this include roles such as impact investing? Can you describe the types of roles they are moving into?
I'm interested in this area and looking into perhaps working for a think tank or industry advocacy group post-consulting. Have you seen consultants move into these areas as well?
Thank you
RedRage Apologies for the delay, just now seeing your question. Thanks for the compliment, it has been great to share my experience and help anyone along their journey.
Yes, I have seen individuals going into impact VC roles and taking on senior advisor roles for large NGOs. A couple of colleagues have gone into international development/policy work with various prestigious foundations. I think it is a great route to take; build up the core skills of a for profit focused consultant and leverage the rigor, tools, and methodologies into the non-profit world to make a significant impact. You can tell by the marketing successes as of late of large NGOs that are taking consulting techniques and applying them in a social impact context. It's a great recipe for success.
While it is rewarding work, keep in mind that the pay, politics, and career progression/dynamics may not be the same as consulting....but in the same breadth, you would probably be able to take on key senior leadership roles coming out of consulting a lot faster given the experiences you have.