Difficulty of getting MBB vs IB offer
I have a background with internships in IB but am now looking to transition into consulting when starting full-time. I'm primarily interested in joining an MBB firm as it seems the difference in exit opportunities between MBB and tier-2 firms is pretty large. How difficult is it to get an offer in MBB compared to getting an offer in IB?
In IB, it feels as if the most difficult part is getting to an interview (which is mostly dependent on your CV). Once you get to the interview stage, the interviews are pretty standardized and easy to study for. With that said, a lot of emphasis is placed on your CV and interviews aren't that difficult. What does this look like in consulting?
I feel as if my resume is quite strong with experience from GS / MS / JPM and going to a top target, but I'm not sure my performance in interviews will hold up that well compared to people who studied management in uni and have been practising cases for years.
Depends on which MBB office, you have as good of a shot as any though based on your background.
Tier 2 vs MBB exit opps aren't that substantially different unless you want high finance
interviews are standard in that you have a case and fit questions. Heaps of resources online on cases and what these look like. You can broadly study for 90% of the permutations of the case questions they'll ask you. Come up with structures that work for you, approaches certain types of cases (eg market entry, profitability issue etc)
Can’t speak to IB vs MBB difficulty (never did IB). But conceptually the talent pools they hire from aren’t that different so I’d assume similar.
What are tier 2 consulting firms?
EY-Parthenon, Strategy&, Oliver Wyman, LEK, Kearney, Altman Solon, OC&C but opinions vary
I did top IB internship and got offers to MBB and top IB for full time, will be working at MBB.
For me, MBB was a lot harder, they don't really care about networking and random stuff, you just gotta ace the cases. You gotta think a lot, use logic etc. you have to be smart.
IB recruiting is really stupid and easy imo, just memorizing technicals and sweet talking a bunch of people while networking like crazy. I got several top IB offers because of aggressive networking. You don't have to think, you just have to make good conversation and bs.
That’s epic work kudos! Wondering how you networked and maintained contacts? Also asking for that referral? I’m starting to network again and it’s daunting keeping up with all the connections and sending followups… I don’t know what to ask sometimes after that first chat :(
So for IB networking I used biws networking guide they had a template to keep track of everything but you don't need the guide dw if y97 can't afford it.
Basically create an excel sheet with every bank, person you reached out 5o, wherever you received a response, whether you spoke with them or not, rate the conversation from 1-5, put down if you followed up with them, if you had a second conversation, and if you did the "ask" (where you ask for a referral).
You should follow up every couple months or more frequently to people you had a good conversation with. Ask to catch up and for a second conversation. Be genuine, don't be pushy. For the people you had the best connection with, you can email them asking for a referral politely. Even if you don't get a referral it doesn't matter is what I found out. Because if you talk to 25 people from one group for example, and most them remember you and likely, it is highly likely you will get a superday or offer, a formal referral doesn't matter. I found that literally every bank I applied where I networked with pretty much the whole group I got an offer.
For MBB you can network if you want but I did zero networking and got 2 MBB offers.
Thanks a lot, that makes sense. That's my experience with IB as well. Just memorize the technicals and have good answers to the standard motivational / behavioural questions and you are good to go. Was hoping that my resume would buy me a lot of goodwill in consulting interviews but I guess I really do need to spend a lot of time practising cases.
Your resume will NOT buy you goodwill for MBB, don't make that mistake bc I've seen so many people make that mistake for MBB interviews. My resume had two top IB internships and none of the MBB cared. I was literally NEVER even asked once about by IB internships throughout the entire process, they don't care. Instead, I was asked about my study abroad experience.
MBB accepts people from all backgrounds (history, law, pre med, etc), they care about casing most and how you think and then personality not your IB internship. Also in my opinion, the IB background actually may have hurt me because it made me seem like an uninteresting generic IB finance hardo, while a lot of other applicants had unique and interesting experiences such as an abroad research fellowship, or going to nationals debate, unique club, worked at a startup, excelled at a hobby such as dance or sports, etc (and after getting my MBB offers I later found out that MBB gets spammed with applications from IB interns who want to work less hours and thus apply to consulting and the interviewers don't like them, so make sure your why consulting answer is solid).
You have to grind and become an expert at casing, period. The mindset you should have is that you're starting from blank/equal level as everyone else, forget your background completely, throw your ego and sense of entitlement away completely and simply grind casing.
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Only the intro of case in point is good. The cases blow so once you read the intro, start using MBA casebooks from top schools
My bad. Ignore my comment then. Thanks for correcting!
I'm the poster who made the above comment about IB and MBB, I got multiple MBB offers.
Do not use case in point. It teaches you to memorize frameworks which is how you guarentee not getting an MBB offer.
Thank you for the warning. Any particular resources you would recommend using instead? We've got access to CaseCoach through my Uni.
Did you network? And did it help for receiving offers? How is IB and Consulting recruiting different in your opinion?
I’m incoming FT MBB and used case in point. It’s fine for understanding the flow of conversation and basic market sizing techniques but you’ll get rejected if they think you’re using the frameworks in it. In my experience with MBB, they are a lot more about problem solving and logic rather than can you memorize and regurgitate information.
Don't go into banking
Why not? You went into banking
That’s clearly why he’s saying not to go into banking, he implying it sucks
MBB def harder. IB interviews basically just memorizing guides, basic algebra, and mental math. Cases are way harder
IB recruiting is cake compared to MBB imo
Edit: I’m the poster above who did two top IB internships and got multiple top BB IB offers, will be going to MBB, just stating my experience with both
IB is cake compared to MBB
If this is UK then MBB is significantly harder. On a pure numbers basis there's 600-700 BB/EB spots vs 100 MBB spots
It is indeed for London, so thanks for your insight. Guess it makes sense as you have 10-15 BBs / EBs while there is a more steep cut-off between MBB and tier-2 firms in consulting. Do you have any idea what the headcount for MBB looks like this year? Seen some threads that speaks about lower headcount and start-dates pushed until 2025 for the US.
Even in US there are way more spots for bb eb IB than MBB. I mean there’s literally like 10 banks total that qualify as bb or eb, maybe more while only 3 MBB.
Yeah but proportionally its different. Anecdotally it seems like if you're at a target in the US then it's pretty doable to land MBB whereas in the UK even at oxbridge landing MBB is still very difficult. For example Mckinsey has 20ish offices in the US vs 1 in the UK.
getting an interview is not trivial at MBB, but you should be able to do so relatively easily coming from a top target with a prestigious banking internship.
once youre at the interview, your background doesn't matter at all (beyond having good stories for behavioral questions) and all that matters is your casing ability
educational background matters very little when it comes to casing, so don't feel like you're disadvantaged from people who studied management. honestly, it's a kind of problem solving format that comes very naturally to some people (who maybe do 5-10 practice cases and land MBB offers), and not so naturally to others (but they get the hang of it after 50+ cases). you need to just go out and do them and figure out where you land.
also - it's not the end of the world if you end up at MBB vs T2 (EY-P, S&, OW, Kearney, LEK all great options). i'm a few years out of undergrad now and a good number of my classmates across these firms have started exiting, and there really isn't a huge discrepancy between exits, with the notable exception of buyside. but if you want to do buyside, you should just do banking instead - that will be your path of least resistance, instead of going through consulting
Are exits really the same btwn MBB and t2? Seems weird that mckinsey and ey would have the same exits
EY is a lot different than EY-Parthenon. Think he meant T2/Big 4 strategy arms with similar exits. They pay similarly too
outside of buyside, i would say 80%+ of opps will lump MBB and T2 consultants into the same bucket. in fact, most interviewers have limited context about the marginal differences in prestige between shops. now, McK on your resume is always going to shine brighter vs EY-P, but someone from EY-P can absolutely snag a better exit than someone at McK if they put in the work
put another way, MBB isn't a golden ticket to landing whatever exit you want, and T2 won't necessarily doom you to a slower career progression than your peers at MBB
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