Manager in Consulting Firm - Salary question
Friends,
I wanted to test my negotiation skills and see if I did a good job or not.
The Position: Manager Consulting firm similar to Deloitte, Accenture Base: 115K Bonus: 10% variable Singing Bonus: 5% of base
The Candidate (Me): Recent MBA grad - tier 2 school 6 years experience in industry and consulting
How did i do? Did i leave money on the table for coming in as Manager? Or am I spot on?
Feedback is appreciated, thanks!
Sorry bro but you won't like this. I think you really undersold yourself. 8 years + MBA and you should be looking for at least 150K all in. To give you some perspective, I'm at one of those two firms as a Senior Consultant. I have one full year worth of internships, plus about 9 months of FT experience, and I'm sitting on 100K base plus bonus and overtime would make it around 125K all in this year. I don't have an MBA, but I have an MFE which I started immediately after my UG.
I had a feeling I might have. I did my research exclusively on glassdoor.com. I had a typo in my original post, i have 6 years experience, not 8.
Yeah man I think glassdoor is the problem. I find the salaries quoted there tend to be at least 10-15% lower than what I've observed in the market. Either way, 115K base is a great salary in general, and you're better off than 90% of your fellow Americans.
Congratulations. You got a job and in this economy coming out of a Tier anywhere school that's good work. I think you may have undersold yourself a little bit, but I wouldn't be too upset I definitely think you are close to some of the offers I have heard about for my classmates going into consulting. Glassdoor is hit or miss be careful using them in the future some of their numbers seem very odd and a lot of times its due to conflating positions or having an extremely low sample size
I definitely think you are in a unique case. Being in consulting myself for sometime in my career; it is RARE to have someone with less than 2 FT years at the Senior Consultant level. You must be a rockstar! Then again, I've been in industry for the past 3 years, consulting trends might have changed.
Nah I'm not a rock star by any stretch. It was just one of those "right place right time" type things. I was at a very strong boutique for a few months after my MFE making 70K base but bonus range was 20-25%. I was contacted by a headhunter representing the partner I now work for who saw my profile on linkedin. I had an interview with him and we got along great. He basically asked me for a number and I threw out 100K base and to my surprise he agreed. To justify the salary, they gave me the title and responsibility of a Senior Consultant, eventhough my qualifications are probably for a senior BA or consultant. Because of the title though, there's been intense pressure on me to learn stuff twice as fast as other people my age, and I've been given shit loads of responsibility like owning a very important workstream for a high profile engagement. Good thing is that I've been put on the fast track to partnership, and was told that I can reasonably expect a 7-8 year road to partnership if I meet their expectations of me.
You are not too far off, especially if Tier 2 MBA means lower end of Top 20 or after that. Locations matters too. So does relevant experience (e.g. whether you have deep expertise in the group/industry you are joining). Many recent hires at Consultant levels got close to 100K when hired during the high demand last year, but that has been leveling off. If they were to get a promotion, it'd be closer to 15% with their current salary being so high, bringing you in the same level.
Tier 2 as in ranking between 30-60 in the US. I have relevant experience in the group i'm joining. Location is in Texas.
The number you mentioned is for what level Consultant? I will be joining as a Manager level Consultant.
I assumed a ladder of Analyst -> Associate/Consultant -> Manager. So yeah, they'd be coming in a level below you at around $100K. But the ones I know had 5-6 years of industry experience and came in during very high demand time (e.g. early half of 2010). When they get promoted to your level, they should expect a bump of 15-20% which is very close to what you make. So you are not killing it, but not getting robbed either. Unless your previous salary was well over $100K, you shouldn't expect that much more.
Also Top 30-60 MBA, even though nice to have, should not count for special treatment. Only Top 10-15 guys really get the MBA premium. Also Texas is very low cost of living, compared to NYC/DC/CA which might be a benchmark for others. Those cities would have a 15% premium in most cases.
Plus, you're 4 years ahead of everyone else on the partnership track.
Except, very few make partners. In my firm there is a serious logjam at the level right before partner and only 2-3% of them make partner every year, compared to 20%-50% rate of promotion at other levels.
which firm are you in now
Just to add -- if you rock the ice for 6-12 months, you're well within your rights to try and negotiate a "course correction" -- especially if you're performing at the top of managers and you know others are getting better compensation.
Thanks for the responses. I guess the answer really is "it depends". Glassdoor seems like it could be pretty accurate considering the sample size of folks entering their salary info. I pretty much picked the higher average and padded a little to it. This is what a Glassdoor has for Accenture and Deloitte Managers
Deloitte (601 Managers Reporting) Avg base: 112K Avg bonus: 8K
Accenture (144 Managers Reporting) Avg base: 100K Avg bonus: 8K
It sounds some folks think I am coming in undersold, that could be the case, who knows. But in all honesty, MBA is not a top school, and the consulting firm is not a top consulting firm. I like chron3k's comment, go with the flow, rock the ice, and i should gain some credibility.
One reason the average might be skewed is because both Accenture and Deloitte has large system integration practice who gets paid 10%-20% lower on average than individuals at similar level in the MC or S&O side. Another thing to consider.
Makes sense, I guess I didn't elaborate enough. So this consulting firm are system integrators, I will be managing projects from a strategic standpoint. So it will be mixed.
In that case you are right on ballpark, or even above given the position is in Texas.
115 in TX should afford you a pretty sweet lifestyle bro. Enjoy it and congrats.
Dude, all in 130K comp in the south is really awesome. I thought you were in NY or something like that.
That's not true that the system integrator side gets paid 10-20% less at Accenture, Deloitte etc. Sometimes it's even more than the MC side because IT is the bread and butter for these large firms.
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