Management Consulting Firm Tier List 2024
- Perspective of college senior who just wrapped up consulting recruiting, so feel free to correct me
- Listed in order of preference amongst the tiers
- No RX/Econ considered, RX firms on here are only considered for their regular consulting practices
- Criteria based on general reputation/prestige, pay, exit opps
- US focused
Tier 1: MBB
- The best
Tier 2: Oliver Wyman, Kearney, PwC S&, EY-P, LEK
- Still top-of-the-line firms, but starting to make some sacrifices
- Less generalist: Kearney is an operations shop, EY-P and LEK specialize on CDDs
- Capital One Strategy would be in this tier
Tier 2.5A: Accenture Strategy, Deloitte Strategy
- At this point, a choice has to be made: Option 1 is joining a large professional services firm where one can punch above their weight if they play their cards right, or get stuck doing tech implementation, Option 2 is joining a "Diet-MBB" boutique where you are guaranteed "strategy" projects and high-pay, but you must specialize by industry/product and exit opps suffer due to lack of firm recognition
- For me, Option 1 is slightly better, but others may disagree, which is why the A-B distinction is given
- Both shops do strategy, as well as a lot of low-level implementation: not easy to get the former
- Deloitte underpays post-undergrad, but MBB-tier MBA sponsorship makes up for it somewhat
- Capital One BA would go here
Tier 2.5B: ZS, OC&C, Clearview, Simon-Kutcher, RB, Altman Solon
- All have strong industry/work type specialties (life sciences, TMT), harder to do anything else, still strategy tho
- OC&C is pretty unknown, but is bumped up by MBB level pay and less rigid industry focus
- RB is Tier 2 in Europe but falls to here in the US
- Altman Solon drops to the bottom of the tier because of reneged offers last year
Tier 3A: Non-Strategy Big 4 + Accenture Consulting/Advisory, A&M, Alix, FTI, Booz Allen Hamilton
- Mainly implementation, Booz does purely gov work
- Non RX practices of RX firms go here
Tier 3B: Keystone, Mars, Kaiser, etc.
- Unknown, but not completely unknown strategy boutiques, TC >100k
Tier 3.5: Lake Partners, Gotham Partners, Teneo, Alpha FMC, etc.
- Completely unknown boutiques whose "strategy" focus is dubious but TC is still surprisingly >90k
Tier 4: Non-Big 4 Consulting/Advisory (RSM, GT), IBM, Mercer, Protiviti, Huron, any boutique <80k TC
- Would seriously consider doing something other than consulting at this tier
- Very few upsides with massive compromises in pay, exit opps, and nature of work
Where would Dalberg/Redstone/Wellspring/Bridgespan/Camber Collective be on this list? - All Social Impact Firms
I would put Dalberg/Bridgespan at MBB level. If anything, potentially even harder to get in.
del
As an incoming Capital One BA, can you explain to me the difference between BA and strategy? From everything I've heard, you can request strategy projects (focused on whitespace thinking rather than data analysis) as a BA, the pay is the same, and the early-career WLB is both unmatched.
I’ve never worked for Capital One, but I assume demand for strategy projects >>> supply in BA, as opposed to them being guaranteed in the strat group. For consulting-adjacent experience specifically, BA strat, but I agree with all your points
Pay is not the same, at least as you progress
Strategy is a much smaller group
Basically report directly for the ceo (who is ex strategy himself). Had an offer w them and final round w BA which I declined. The way it was positioned was the strategy had the best of the projects
Obv biased because this was coming from the strategy interviewers / head of strategy but that’s how they framed it
Additionally, the background of the strategy ppl was different. Of my four final round interviewers, three were ex MBB managers I think
Ok so now we need to know which tier you ended up in!
2.5
A or B? Might want to message you about it.
Yes I ended up in 2.5, sure :O
So where is KPMG Strategy (not KPMG Advisory)
Mid asf
3.
Slightly disagree though? I mean, KPMG strat > KPMG Adv and they get similar deals etc as deloitte & accenture with =+ tc
2.5
Beg to differ for AlixPartners for the PI (Management Consulting) space --- tons of intelligent folks and at par or better pay than MBB with great progression -- deserves T2 imo at least for the post-MBA role. Alix just started hiring undergrads a few years back which is maybe why it's not as well known at the undergrad level.
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