How well does a career in strategy/management consulting set you up for future careers?
I frequently hear the comment that unless you network hard to get onto the right projects or develop a specific niche, the types of work you do can set you up to become a 'jack of all trades, master of none'. How true is this? And overall is that a good or bad thing when it comes to looking for jobs in industry
Do you know any strategy or management consultants who has struggled exit to industry at a decent enough salary?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, a career in strategy/management consulting can set you up quite well for future careers. The exposure to a variety of industries and business problems is a significant advantage. However, the concern about becoming a 'jack of all trades, master of none' can be valid in some cases. It's true that without networking to get on the right projects or developing a specific niche, consultants might find themselves with a broad but shallow skill set. Yet, this breadth of experience can also be a strength, as it equips professionals with a versatile toolkit that can be applied to many situations.
Whether being a 'jack of all trades' is good or bad when looking for jobs in industry depends on the individual's career goals and the needs of the employers they're targeting. Some companies value the broad perspective and problem-solving skills that consultants bring, while others may prefer candidates with deep expertise in a particular area.
Regarding the second question, tell me more about 2, based on previous WSO threads, there are indeed strategy or management consultants who have faced challenges when exiting to industry, particularly at a salary that matches their consulting pay. However, this is not a universal experience. Some consultants manage to transition to industry roles without taking a pay cut, as indicated by a Certified Consulting Professional who did not take a haircut on pay when moving to industry, although they did note that the compensation trajectory might be different, being one level below VP.
In summary, while there are challenges and trade-offs when moving from consulting to industry, many consultants successfully make the transition and find roles that compensate them well. It's important to strategically manage one's career in consulting to align with long-term goals and desired industry roles.
Sources: 4 Real-Life Consulting Exit Opps of My Former Colleagues, Strategy vs Management Consulting, Strategy& Ex Employee - Q&A, 4 Real-Life Consulting Exit Opps of My Former Colleagues, Ex-McKinsey Consultant Here Answering Questions
I spent a year in MBB consulting post-MBA and then switched to corporate strategy. Generally, ~3 years of consulting experience should get you plenty of looks for corporate strategy roles in any industry you can reasonably weave a story about your experience in. the challenge is that it can be hard to recruit for roles other than strategy teams. These teams have:
Pros: Leadership exposure, interesting projects sometimes
Cons: Frequently lack promotion opportunities, can be hard to move into P&L roles
Over the last 1.5 years specifically, the consulting firms have had a huge drought of projects, leading them to cut a ton of early-career consultants. this has created an oversupply that has made it much harder than normal to leverage your consulting background into a sexy exit role. Remains to be seen whether this is temporary.
Thanks! If you don't mind me asking- how are the hours and pay in your corporate strategy role?
they matched my MBB pay, and the hours are ~40 with flareups when I have steercos
I'm trying to understand what the options are after consulting if you want reasonably interesting work but want a less intense work schedule.
What are easier/less competitive roles that ex-strategy consultants can go for which is pays reasonably but not amazing? Is it possible to pivot to a more data, analytics and business insights type role, and if so, what do you think about the prospects of this area and potential pay?
Also, can strategy consultants go into an FP&A type role? I heard this can be really interesting and provides good work life balance.
people really like product management, but very hard to do unless you are a post-UG analyst, and personally I don't get it... seems like you just write tickets all day at most of these jobs?
Not sure why you think analytics or FP&A would be more interesting than strategy? Our analytics team is just nerds who answer questions for us, i.e. "how do subscription renewal rates differ across customers with x, y, z traits, across our geographic portfolio?". If you love writing SQL go for it.
FP&A is just accounting, 100% backward looking.
The corporate strategy role still has plenty of boring slidemaking, but at least the job fundamentally is figuring out:
1. what are the most important problems the executive team should be solving
2. what are the best ways to solve those problems
3. how can you convince the relevant stakeholders that they should implement your solution?
as far as thinking about running a corporate business goes, I think thats about as interesting as it gets, and the hours aren't bad. the downsides people usually identify are more that its hard to move up bc strategy teams are small, and it can pigeonhole you as someone who can only give advice but can't execute it, i.e. you have trouble moving to the commercial teams that own P&Ls and have more room for advancement
I also had a similar experience- got let go after 1 year MBB, got a corp Strat gig in a "less sexy" industry for slightly higher comp but better hours. Getting staffed was absolutely brutal.
“Jack of all trades, master of none, but often times better than master of one”
I'd add a few things, but with the caveat that I'd largely separate out things between MBB and others - i.e., not all of these points will apply to MBB, but hold true for 90% of consulting in general. I exited consulting after doing 7 years straight from UG at a T2 shop (think LEK, ATK, EYP, S&, etc.)
A handful of generalizations, but hopefully this helps
Great points!
I will add that not everyone has the luxury of being able to plan things out that much. Often, people "go with the flow" and just do consulting without thinking much about it. Others get screwer by the market conditions and are unable to get on the projects they want (or even any project at all).
I do see your point about the money growing too fast though- once you get that promotion to post-MBA level it's hard to find a comparable corporate gig. IMO the best time to leave MBB is during your mid/late 2nd year post undergrad- by then you'll have most of the skillset and you'll be relatively cheap enough to hire that you can find a 9-5 corporate gig that pays more than MBB at that time.
In terms of hiring, plenty of people leave after ~1-1.5 years and it's honestly all about how you market yourself.
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