Please help: reneging MBB to pursue different career path after college.
Hi senior here currently signed an FTO at a consulting firm. I’m having second thoughts ever since I signed and I really want to pursue a career in public policy. I realized that after my summer stint, consulting is not the place where I can really hone in on public policy/gov. work. Also, generally it was the most lonely and depressing summer of my life and I don’t wanna go back into that postgrad. Also, as someone who is interested in public policy, I think about the stigma of working for one of the “big evil consulting firms”, and how that may hurt me in the long run. Would appreciate any advice here on this matter.
What do you need help with? It sounds like you've already decided you want to renege, so if you're asking how to do it, just let the recruiter know by email. You don't need to explain yourself and its probably better not to say very much. They may be annoyed but you're one of many hires, you don't really matter to them. I'd still advise you to make sure you have a job in your alternate career path lined up before you renege. If you're going to renege anyway and burn a bridge with that firm, you might as well hold off on doing it until you are absolutely sure your backup plan is going to work out. Job market isn't great right now.
Your nuts
MBB is likely the pre-eminent place to start if you want to do government work
Do you know how many people would trade a limb to be in your position right now? At least line up a job before reneging on MBB in a bad year for recruiting.
“Big evil consulting firm” is just another slogan created by the self-righteous ppl in the Washington bubble. Literally, no one else cares.
... outside of the people in DC he would like to work for
Definitely don'e renege the offer without anything lined up, that'd be stupid. I'd start applying for jobs in the public policy space; if you get something you like, take it. If you don't get anything good, you still have MBB to fall back on, which isn't the worst place to be. Even though you hated it, if you gut it out for a year you will definitely have doors open and the brand looks good on your resume.
And if you don't care about being there long term, you can always just quiet quit. I'm not advocating for this bc IMO it's not the right thing to do, but if the work makes you that miserable, you can easily hide on the bench by not acting interested in projects (they'll eventually force staff you), take long vacations, etc... then they'll fire you which means you get a few months of paid search time. It's entirely feasible to have 15-months of MBB on your resume despite only being on a billable project for half that time.
I will caution people who say that MBB is a surefire road into public policy. Yes, people do exit into those orgs, but it's not the typical exit. And Doing 1.5 years of actual public policy work will look better for a public policy career than building a cost optimization tool for a manufacturing company. I think people vastly overstate the exits that MBB can get you.
I think this may be country dependent too. In the UK, I know of quite a few people that have exited McKinsey after a few years for mid level civil service roles (think deputy principal private secretary).
Similarly, ex civil service chiefs (n and n-1 levels are senior advisers)- a friend who wanted a public policy exit has worked exclusively in public sector studies with extensive exposure to these.
A number of senior government ministers similarly started at McKinsey and often come back to give talks.
I wouldn't go so far as to say there is a revolving door, but there certainly is precedent for good exits. I can't speak for the US unfortunately.
In the US it definitely does happen, but they aren't the 'typical exits' like corp Strat or PE Ops
Having a large consultancy will legitimise your resume big time. Why not try it again and just quit if you don’t like it. I don’t think have a year of McK or Bain on your resume closes any doors…
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