Why is the London and Europe job market so much worse?
I was reading a thread on another site about a HYPSM kid who felt like a total failure because he landed Big 4 consulting out of university and everyone in the comments was agreeing? In the UK at oxbridge, Big 4 consulting is a decent outcome? Theres 100-150 MBB spots max for the whole country so its still insanely competitive coming from top targets. Why is the job market so much worse here and what effect does this have on overall career outcomes?
The UK’s economy isn’t in a good spot now, it’s hard to land any job. The US is a much bigger and richer economy, it’s definitely better if you’re in the top 10% (as a side note, we get fked by taxes way more in the UK).
This isn't everything, but two thoughts:
(1) The US is a much bigger economy. Fees are just higher for CO, IB, everything. It's a bigger economy. GDP per capita is higher. And that might lead to more job opportunities for grads in prestiguous roles (on a relative basis), so there's higher expectations
(2) The US is a much more diverse economy. Talent from top universities have much more opportunities in Tech and Science, for example, so there's (in a sense) less competition for CO / IB / etc. jobs. Entrepreneurship is much more widely embraced in the US too.
Long term it's not good for UK folk, but we knew that anyway. There's far, far more global companies in the US with C-suite jobs available, far more opportunities in PE, etc. In PE you'll see "MM" PEs doing multi-billion dollar deals which always baffles me.
Maybe a way to think about it is the UK versus, say, Poland. Higher GDP per capita, etc. in the UK. I'd guess that most Poles (and I hate to choose one country like this but it's purely an example of a big economy big a bit less economically-developed than the UK, and I'm definitely speculating) would be thrilled by a job in Big 4 consulting moreso than the UK graduate, who might view is a "good but not outstanding" outcome
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