Deloitte vs. PwC Consulting - MBA

I'm considering consulting for my career. I've done some research and it looks like the best firms are the MBB. Of course I wanna get into those 3 but I'm also looking into the second tiers like Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, etc. It seems that Deloitte consulting is better than PwC counterpart but PwC recently formed Strategy& and its consulting business looks legit now.

What's your take on the better consulting firm: PwC or Deloitte? Also, which firms looks better for an MBA application?

5 Comments
 

The reason why MBB is called MBB and Tier 2 is called Tier 2 is because the firms in the same tier are largely comparable when you get down to it. That said, to answer your question, the general board consensus at this time seems to be Deloitte is a hair better than PwC.

Unless you have offers from both firms, it doesn't really matter anyway. As an undergrad interested in consulting, you should apply to both, the likelihood you'll get both offers is pretty low unless you are a rock star. While they are both T2, they are still way more selective than most employers.

 

Take this for what it's worth but there's an MBA Program ranked 30~ near where I live and PwC Consulting recruits ~15 people each year while Deloitte takes maybe 1 or 2 (don't even come to campus). Oh yea, and it's not for Deloitte's Strategy Consulting practice, it's for their Supply Chain Consulting Division.

Also, I think Deloitte offers to pay half your tuition while PwC doesn't.

 
Best Response

It's very important to differentiate between PwC consulting and Strategy& for the OP. PwC consulting is moving more to implementation & division level work. The best strategy work at PwC is consolidating in Strategy&.

When you recruit from an M7 or top 15 b school, you'll be recruiting for Strategy& or Deloitte S&O. You can probably recruit for supply chain division etc but the strategy lines are the divisions that dominate campus recruiting. If you're in the 15-30 range, it's almost impossible to recruit for the strategy divisions for either school, though their other consulting practices will have target schools for recruiting needs. The recruiting for these two top strategy divisions is very consolidated at top MBA programs.

The quality of work, compensation, quality of people and nature of work are very similar between S&O and Strategy&, though there are some differentiating factors between the two. At the end of the day, S&O is more generalist than Strategy& and comps second year tuition for returning interns, which is usually a tipping factor for cross invites. Recruiting at both is very competitive, and fewer people have the luxury of choosing than you probably think.

 

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