Moving to Consulting at 40 without an MBA?
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In all honesty, it would be incredibly difficult. Not impossible, of course, but definitely not easy.
Just to begin deconstructing the solution, I would first advise answering what positions within these firms you're targeting. This can be answered by asking yourself what skills you bring to the firm from your tenure in the retail/consumer sector. Once you've targeted the most realistic, ideal position, then find other individuals within the practice, team, office location you're targeting. Reach out via LinkedIn to ~30-50 people across 10-15 firms. In these chats you want to understand the day-to-day tasks and projects, whether you'd be a great fit (both technical skills and culturally) and the big question: whether their team is hiring in the short term. This deconstruction will help you identify the market map, opportunities and potential connections. Once you've had these chats, you'll have a clear idea of whether the jump is feasible and may be (probably) have a referral to one or two firms.
Once you've gotten here, you will need to run the circuit of casing and mock-interviewing through RocketBlocks, PrepLounge, Case Interview Secrets, Crafting Cases, and University-crafted case books. The inconvenient truth is you'll be competing against people roughly 10 years below your age since you're going from Industry to Consulting as opposed to the other way around. With that said, you have a lot more seniority and depth in industry experience - it is possible to come in as an expert for the Retail/Consumer space.
My two cents.
Big bold thanks, quite insightful indeed. Appreciate taking your time to respond.
I've seen it. It essentially has to be a networking hire from a partner, no recruiter is actively looking for candidates at that stage of their careers.
The case I saw was someone who had known and worked with a partner a long time ago. Partner was able to push hard to get them hired at the manager level (any higher, you would probably need to be a partner at another consulting firm). Essentially what you will need is a partner who can make a really strong case that you will be able to make the transition to consulting, and if you end up being awful it's on them.
This hire eventually left the firm fairly soon. The consulting learning curve was a lot for them at that stage in their career. Even tougher was that this partner was the only "sponsor" this person had and so they struggled to get staffed - no other partners were willing to take a chance on them when they had plenty of other managers who they trusted to lead their projects.
Don't mean to discourage you, but wanted to provide an anecdote.
Very clear, thanks a ton for sharing!
I have seen this once in my entire career so far. A key client was working with MBB, and one of the strategy guys (head of level seniority) got an offer from the consultancy. They really liked him when they worked together and made that offer based on the area he was in (he did innovation, scouting, in-house strategy, etc). So he was very much an in-house consultant anyway and well-connected. No MBA.
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