- Definitely worth it for career building. This might resonate less on WSO, given ppl here are more interested in finance, but my biggest learning from my experience at MBB is how diverse the exits are. If you're interested in finance, your exits are great into PE and VC. But more importantly if you're interested in specific industries, non profits, government, etc. the exits are incredibly vast and virtually everyone will at least extend you an interview given your resume.
- Fly out M morning around 7 or 8am. Fly back Thursday afternoon or evening, depending on flight schedules and the team. You can expect to be in your team room at the client site until 5 or 6pm M-W, then go back to your hotel to eat / order food and then work for another couple of hours by yourself. Probably averaged about 70 hours a week across really 4 days of the week (you work 6-8 hrs on Friday), so the hours can be long. The biggest thing is that you're also always on - there's absolutely no downtime while you're awake. There's always more analysis to do, or another page to make. This is the biggest difference with banking, is that the intensity of the hours are substantially more in consulting.
- Did probably 10-15 cases before my first interviews. Then while you're interviewing you'll probably do another 10 across a bunch of firms before you get second rounds and offers. Recommend what most do - Case in Point, Case Interview Secrets, and Look Over My Shoulder audio recordings.
- Staffing works differently across the different MBB firms. At least where I worked, teams generally staffed people based on their strengths. So a project that required really good client hands would want to staff people who've demonstrated they're good at meeting and talking to clients in person every day. More analytical projects would try to find people who could use Excel. Politics was definitely less of a thing -> it was really more about everyone trying to find the best fits for the team based on interest, ability, strengths.
Authored by: Certified Hedge Fund Professional - Investment AnalystCertified Hedge Fund Pro
