IB VS Consulting
I am a freshman studying Finance & International Business and I'm in between choosing either the IB or consulting route. Many of my colleagues have said to be to go through the rigorous path of IB and do 2-3 years, then venture off into consulting. But, recently I have been doing my own research and have found it hard to be consistent in trying to understand everything there is within IB, but still want to go forward with it. Although, I am very interested in consulting due to the problem solving, not as much work hours, and the many industries there is.
If there is anyone that can provide feedback/tips for clarity as well as if anyone who experienced this could shed light on their experiences, that would be great!
There are a million existing IB vs consulting threads on wallstreetoasis and other areas of the internet. If you post specific followup questions you're likely to get good answers, otherwise it'll just be rehash of existing comments
> Many of my colleagues have said to be to go through the rigorous path of IB and do 2-3 years, then venture off into consulting
This is a weird suggestion, I'd press them more to learn why they believe that would be beneficial. Doing one for a few years then switching to the other doesn't really make sense as a deliberate career path. Neither industry really has exclusive skills highly valued in the other, nor do many exits look for people with both industry backgrounds. If the plan is to go into consulting in 2-3 years then just do consulting, you'll be ahead from both a level/seniority perspective and a relevant skills perspective
I do know people that have switched from one to the other, but that's usually because their first job didn't work out for some reason and they wanted to pivot
What is normal in both IB and consulting is to work in the selected field for 2-3 years then exit to jobs looking for those skillsets that either (a) have better WLB and/or (b) pay better, so maybe that's causing confusion with what you heard?
Thank you for the advice! My confusion would be understanding which I like better for me and what skills are needed for each career path. This is why I ask for advice in terms of what is there to expect from each job.
For a more sustainable and wider spectrum of career options, I'd say go into consulting. You'll find the IB route has a narrower set of career options (corp dev, PE, more IB). There are always exceptions of course, but having gone through my round of recruiting, I'm seeing more and more of a convergence between corp dev and corp strategy with mgmt consultants being sought after to lead the group and former bankers filling in the junior ranks in corp dev. Also by nature of the work you do in consulting vs IB, consulting is more widely applicable to many corporate roles whereas hiring managers see IB experience and believe it's only helpful for certain types of work.
Thank you for the information!
Purely from extensive networking with ex-banking consultants, but I found that MBB people are typically nicer. All the ex-banking consultants complained about the intensity of finance in one way or another when I asked what motivated the switch. The actual work wasn't really a difference maker it's more the people
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