IB to Consulting Prep

I was in your shoes last year. Had finished up my first year at at a MM investment bank in NY, collected my bonus and bounced over to MBB consulting. Much happier over here - took a minor paycut for better people, better WLB (relative to IB) and very interesting work. 

I would say you are probably better suited to do well in the case interviews than you might think. Banking gives you a lot of business acumen which might seem common sense to you, but not for people outside the business world (i.e., it already puts you ahead of the PhD student who has spent all their time in academia or the Art History major who is just learning about fixed vs variable costs). The reputation of bankers being quantitative and analytically strong also works in your favor. 

With only a short timeframe to prepare, focus on doing case interviews with people in consulting at the firms you want to work at. The feedback you get from them is invaluable because its not about how many reps you can do, but how much you improve each time. Skim Victor Cheng's Case Interview Secrets if you haven't yet, and if you're willing to pay up for his "Looking Over My Shoulder" recordings, those will give you a good idea what a case should sound like (if you don't wanna buy it, just watch a few example cases on youtube). 

Lastly, you probably already have this down but make sure the story is tight. People know banking sucks and you probably wanna leave, but they want to hear a story about how you've enjoyed and learned a lot at your current role, but you've become very interested in understanding how business decisions are made/how management thinks about long-term strategy (something like that, with your own flair - maybe referencing a deal you worked on). 

I recently started a youtube channel discussing my experiences in IB and MBB consulting, and I'll probably make a video soon about the transition. Feel free to check out if interested - also don't hesitate to shoot me a DM with any other questions. You got this!