Bounced between consulting and industry pre-MBA and decided to go back for more consulting post-MBA. I recently received/accepted an offer from MBB after a grueling recruiting process. Happy to answer questions about my path to-date, my b-school experience and the recruiting process.
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I was typically on the road 4 days / 3 nights per week and all of my time with S&O was on travel projects (including one lengthy project in the suburbs of my home office city where I typically stayed at a hotel). The projects were a bit mixed, with some really great projects with great people and some not so great projects with people I really didn't like. As a result, the staffing process was stressful, as I found myself always worried about what was the next project and whether I would like it. Earlier in my time at the firm it felt like this was mostly driven by luck, but after a certain point you kind of make your own luck by building a network that is strong enough to keep you staffed on good projects. Even so, there were setbacks if the timing just didn't line up with what your network had available.
Despite the staffing stress, I was learning a lot overall and largely enjoyed the travel (much easier at 22 vs. 32 or 42). That said, an opportunity came to me through a recruiter in an industry I was really interested in, and it didn't cost me anything to at least explore. As I learned more, I realized it was a cool opportunity to join a company that was enjoying great success in a challenging industry. I also knew I wanted to pursue an MBA and figured the corp. strat gig would at least keep my MBA admissions chances the same as S&O, if not improve them. Importantly, the company that was recruiting me knew I wanted an MBA and promised to fully support me in applications if I agreed to stay 2 years with them. So, while I could have gone to MBA one year earlier from S&O, I felt it was worth the delay to get an interesting experience under my belt.
Looking back, I am glad I took the chance to do so. I can't say too much about the specific project work I did without giving away too much, but it was similar in a lot of ways to my consulting work, but with better work/life balance. The most exciting thing about the gig for me was getting regular exposure to senior executives (c-level or just below). I feel that I improved my communication skills and executive presence quite a bit through these experiences.
I think it is a couple of things. First, you simply work more hours in consulting and consequently learn more and develop skills faster. A big part of the reason people leave consulting is to find a better work/life balance and this was certainly true in my Corp. Strat gig. While the people were just as smart and capable on my team as in consulting (if not moreso), we worked ~40-45 hours/week vs. 60+ in consulting.
A second aspect of it is around how hiring works for ex-consultants. When you are a consultant exploring exit opportunities, you are negotiating from a position of strength. Assuming you are doing ok at your firm, you have a pretty strong outside option when considering a given job, which is to just remain in consulting until the next good opportunity comes along. You can also specifically target opportunities that will place the most value on your specific skillset/expertise. I think this drives many companies to essentially give consultants some "title inflation" vs. internal promotion timelines. This will vary by company of course, and at my specific F500 it was not that pronounced. If I had to put a number on it, 1 year in consulting might equal 1.25 internally at my F500, but anecdotally i've seen higher ratios out there.
In terms of best path to c-suite, i'm not sure I have enough datapoints to say that one path clearly wins out. Certainly there are companies where the only way to get to that level is to have a 20+ year career and rotate throughout the entire business. Then you have your Valeant's of the world that hire a McK partner to be CEO. At my F500 you had examples from both sides, such as a CEO that was a 30+ year veteran and a COO who was a former MBB partner. I think the other thing to consider though is that Strategy is often not a clear path to the C-suite. It varies based on what drives a company, but at an engineering driven company like Google for example, rising up through engineering is probably better than Strategy. At a media company, it might be rising up through the content side of the business (just guessing). Ultimately, even though you are internal, Strategy mostly just provides advice and is not a "doer" that owns a P&L. Strategy CAN be a good way to transition into a serious "doer" role, but I doubt you see many people going from a head of strategy type role directly into the c-suite. Now, some people would prefer to be the Trusted Advisor to the CEO vs. actually being the CEO, but it is a different type of job.
OP - I hope you don't mind if I add some of my 2c.
While I agree that mgmt consulting and other FO roles in the financial services industry helps accelerate your career. If you are dead set on what you want to do, and by that, I mean you understand where you want to be from a industry/sector perspective, then I don't think working in a corporate strategy/development capacity is a bad option. Of course, developing your skillset from having the opportunity to work within a consulting or banking firm would help pad the resume so to speak, build (and expose you to) a high level understanding of the industry, and develop industry contacts from different firms, but I believe when all that is said and done, many of the c-suite that I have encountered have a deep understanding of the business they are managing. That said, this is what I would suggest if you are in your early twenties and decide that you want to be in a management level position one day and have all the options at your disposal and you know what industry you want to be in:
1) put in the hours ("your time") at a mgmt consulting firm, bank (IB or ER, I did ER), or land a role in corp strategy/development; I personally believe the former helps "accelerate" the learning of the industry quicker than the latter, and mostly due to the fact you are performing a service to companies (plural) and learn the industry (i.e., drivers, big hot button topics, diff subcategories within each industry, etc).
2) After you put your 2-3 years in, I would pursue an MBA or MS (I did the MS in Finance, and it worked great for my situation - not a Top 7 either). Build your network more and try to land a job within corp strat/development at a respected firm. However, if you feel you want to come in at a higher level within the services industry again, I would do this but I would imagine transitioning to corp strat/dev could be easier from an internship through an MBA program.
Yes these are just two steps, and simplified, but I think that's the way you want to look at it in general, or at least how I would. Of course, I had a very unconventional path but this is how I would have re-did it. Also from my experience, corporate looks at banking/consulting exp as 1:1, although may be a little more lenient in terms of getting you in at a higher level relative to someone who has been corporate for the same duration as your mgmt consulting/banking tenure.
And just by way of background, I went from: BS Bio major -> medical researcher -> corporate (and completed MSF) -> equity research -> F50 corp strategy
Again, hope you didn't mind if I chimed in a little OP.
Cheers.
Would you be able to expand on your experience in Corp. Strat? A few questions....
What type of company (start-up, mid-size, F100, etc.)? What industry?
Other than the learning curve, what else did you notice as major differences between consulting and in-house? I'm sure it must be nice to not worry about client development and having to constantly be at the beck-and-call of your clients / pitching / making them feel good.... one of the things I hate most about consulting.
Were your in-house projects of the similar "type" as S&O (i.e. M&A due diligence, growth strategy, new products, etc.) or did your types of projects change? I've seen come company keep the "sexy" consulting work in-house and farm out more menial tasks to consultants as well as the opposite - companies that farm out the sexy stuff and leaving the menial tasks to internal teams.
Had you stayed in corp. strategy what would your path have looked like? Stay in strat? Eventually exit into an operating role? I know some companies where the strat team is a bunch of hacks who can't be trusted with a PnL and others where they are close advisers to the c-suite.... really hit or miss it seems.
What did the pay scale of the corp strategy hierarchy (that is, Analyst > Associate > VP > MD....) look like compared to S&O? Compared to MBB?
Sorry for all the questions and thank you for doing this!
1) F500 but not F100, don't want to say the industry as I think it would start making it easy to triangulate the specific company.
2) Work/Life balance is probably the biggest difference. It felt like there was a general understanding in the group that people had made a tradeoff in terms of salary / career progression / exit opps but that the compensation for making such a tradeoff was much better hours and lower stress. We worked with a lot of external consultants and it was a real luxury to be able to dump work with a tight deadline on them as you head out of the office at 5:30. I left my laptop at the office most nights and NEVER worked on weekends and this was the norm on the strategy team. This was a nice to have for me, but a total game changer for folks with kids who had been on the road 4 days a week in their previous jobs.
Your point around client development is also true, but is more something I heard from folks higher up the chain than I personally experienced since I didn't have to do too much client dev work as an analyst in consulting. Some other not so nice differences were the lack of formalized training and less than stellar support resources (limited access to research reports, crappy IT support etc.)
3) There were basically no projects that we totally farmed out to consultants. We used a couple of different models depending on the project and team bandwidth, but often we would be working hand in hand with the consultants "two in a box" style. There were also cases where we drove a project internally and brought in consultants as SMEs or for specific capabilities, or cases where the consulting team drove the work but a VP or Director would have significant input into deliverables before they went anywhere. There were sexier and less sexy projects to be sure, but strategy played a real role across nearly every project.
4) If I stayed, I would probably had continued to advance within Strategy rather than exit into an operating role. It did happen in some cases, typically when someone was working with the business on a project and there was a good mutual fit. It was not like other strategy groups i've heard about where there is an expectation that you "rollout" into the business after a certain time period. In terms of how the strategy group was regarded by the c-suite though, it was definitely a close advisor type relationship. Despite the fact that it is not the norm, some folks have exited to pretty impressive roles like head of marketing and chief-of-staff to CEO type role.
5) Definitely a flatter trajectory. Don't have great visibility past the lower levels, but for me personally I got a decent raise when I joined (~15%) but that was partially driven by the fact that I was moving to a high cost city and was going to get a promotion/raise soon at S&O. After that bump though, raises were more like a 2-3% cost of living adjustment in non-promotion years vs. a consistent 10-15% per year in consulting. This was a big reason I felt that even if career in corporate strategy was my goal, it still makes sense to climb the ladder a bit further in consulting before making a final transition over to industry.
Thanks for the AMA and congrats. You produce some of the best AMA content on this site IMO. Knowing what you know now and how things have turned out for you, if you could go back a year and attend any b school with no scholarship, would you? What schools would make the cut? Conversely, are there lesser ranked schools that you would instead choose to attend at no cost (full tuition scholarship) if you had the chance?
Trying to figure out how to weigh a full price at Wharton, half scholarship at Kellogg, full ride at Colombia type scenario. I know it depends on geographic preference, target industry, etc, so I'm only asking for you to opine on your personal situation.
Would maybe consider HBS/Stanford with no scholarship, but not any other schools. There are clearly some unique opportunities from those schools that you just don't get at the rest of the M7, but there is also a TON of overlap in terms of what people go on to do. I simply don't have the background to go to PE/HF even from HBS/Stanford, but do think it could have been interesting to explore the startup route there and I do think they have a substantially better ecosystem for founding or joining an early stage startup.
I will say that having the scholarship I have makes a HUGE difference in terms of the fun I am having in school. If I had no scholarship, I would constantly be worried about debt (even with a solid job offer) and would be turning down a lot of the experiences that have been the highlights of my MBA experience (awesome weekend trips, nice dinners with friends, summer travel, treks etc.) If I personally were in your situation, I would turn down Wharton for sure and honestly would probably go to CBS unless you can get Kellogg or Wharton to match. Hard for me to say b/c I do love Kellogg and there are some real cultural differences but not having financial stress really frees you up to make the most of the MBA.
Thanks for your answers. I'm surprised this AMA isn't getting more traffic, but I am happy to contribute more questions if you're willing to respond to them.
Are there any industries / roles after b school that are getting hyped by MBAs right now that might come as a surprise to those outside b school? I've heard Asset Management is getting a lot of love lately, as well as search funds, etc. Any companies getting more love than you might have expected (Amazon?), any getting less (Tesla?)?
Let's say you had the option to attend b school while still working part time / remotely (maybe 10-15 hours / week) for a current / previous employer (and effectively hold your position open for your return post MBA) - is that a terrible idea, or could it balance out if you just spent less time recruiting because you instead plan on returning to your current / previous team?
For you, at what point do you think current pay / career trajectory would have kept you from attending b school? For example, if you were making a post MBA comp package at your last job, would you have left? or if you could have transitioned to MBB without an MBA would you have? OR is the MBA experience (at a top school) just one of those valuable life experiences that regardless of short term cost / opportunity cost, it enriches your life enough for it to be worth it regardless.
What, if any, percentage of your classmates at Kellogg are surprisingly unimpressive? Do you get a sense that any industries / companies produce lower quality MBA students relative to others?
What's your personal "walk away" dollar amount, where you'd give up the consulting / MBB / career grind and spend your time working on things you're actually passionate about without having to consider compensation. It sounds like you have an interest in entrepreneurship, and have also spent a good amount of time volunteering.
Thanks!
Will answer in bits as time allows:
1) I've been a bit surprised by how popular healthcare is, although it makes sense when you think about how big a chunk of our economy it is. Also, I frankly don't understand why brand management is as popular as it is (very popular at Kellogg), given how low the pay is and how uninteresting I find it, although that is my personal bias. I've also been surprised by the number of folks willing to take good jobs in shitty locations (e.g., Walmart in Bentonville), but again that is my big city preference showing through. Amazon does get a lot of love, but I think that is for good reason, they are a juggernaut that is going to swallow the world. I've been surprised to hear a lot of negative things about Apple, Google and Tesla. Have heard bad things about the recruiting processes and lots from Apple/Google don't go back after the summer. Don't even know anyone who's gone to Tesla, they only seem to hire for supply chain roles. Take all this with a grain of salt though, you can probably learn more by comparing job reports across years and schools.
2) Think this is a bad idea, as it would be a major distraction. Even though I am past recruiting, I can't see where I would find 10-15 hours free as I am now over-indexing on all the fun stuff I put on hold for recruiting. If it's for the money, I don't think you would be able to earn enough to make it worth what you would lose on the overall experience. Also, if your employer likes you and you make it clear that an MBA is a personal priority, you should be able to secure a return offer without working part time, maybe even with some sponsorship. I was able to do so from my F500 even though there was no formal program, although I did have support from colleagues who had MBAs and saw value in it. If the company doesn't see value in an MBA then you should be asking yourself why you are getting an MBA only to return to that company.