Consulting Salary for Career Switcher

Hi All, I am looking to do a career switch from IT as a Software Engineer to Management Consulting by getting an MBA in a top 5 program. I know salary ranges tend to be 85-155k and the median is 125k for top MBA programs (plus bonus). My question and concern is that currently as an engineer i am making 90k and would be crushed if after 160k for an MBA i am making less than 125k in salary. Do the top firms (M/B/BCG) all pay the same salary to all incoming MBAers? Does experience determine your starting salary and therefore career switchers should expect less? Or is the 40k difference in salary attributed to say working for Deloitte vs BCG?

Thanks, Tim

3 Comments
 

I am no expert about but it seems that most of the consulting firms have sub sectors focused on specific industries, you may get a higher salary just by joining a software related area,

 
Best Response

McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz, Deloitte, Accenture, LEK, Parthenon, AT Kearney, etc. all pay roughly the same. Two years ago, fresh MBA grads were getting at $125k at the circle-jerk inducing M/B/B, $130k at Deloitte and Accenture, and one of those two figures at basically every other consulting firm.

Regardless of your experience, you'd enter consulting in the same class as everybody else starting at the same time as you, and firms would be foolish to have different pay grades for two new and unproven consultants that are at the same level starting off.

If you're going to be crushed about making less than $160k coming out of business school, then you better be set to sell your soul and go into banking, because you'll be making less than that at any other job you take out of school unless you leverage your software engineering experience and specialize in something for which you have a specific skillset.

 

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