Are all consultants insufferable?
I’m a student at a semi target and it feels like everyone who is trying to go into consulting is completely insufferable—they are always trying to wordsmith to sound smarter and oftentimes just say a lot without saying anything. Some guys in banking do this as well but the skills necessary are much more tangible so it’s not as big of a deal. Have you guys have had this experience as well?
This has been my experience so far in consulting so this hit home for me. Currently trying to lateral to ER or IB
It sucks even more when you work with them
One of the reasons I like banking culture is for the most part everyone is pretty open about being a dick and being there for the money. In industries like consulting and tech for example everyone whines on about "making an impact" and pretends to be altruistic when in reality they're just as self centred and egotistical as bankers but at least bankers don't lie to themselves
Like "I am extremely passionate about leveraging technology to build products that tackle the most pertinent issues facing our society." just shut up man
Would make an argument that a lot of smaller public companies that focus on digital health / healthtech attract altruistic people.They usually pay a discount vs. FAANG/well paying tech firms.
Lol agreed. Wish all the consulting / recruiting hoes would get “extremely passionate” about shutting the fuck up from time to time
Exactly as it filters and creating stupid emojis have an impact on society
So when you go into banking interviews, and they ask you why you're interested in banking, do you just say you're in it for the money?
Yeah! We’re bankers, we don’t lie to ourselves! We lie to clients, and to investors on behalf of clients, to make everyone richer!
Based.
Based
I’m a student as well and feel the exact same way
Well I definitely think that’s an interesting question, let me put that in brackets and get back to you so that we don’t reinvent the wheel here. I think there are many synergies that can create real value adds and possibly better align our vision boards to really get a Birds Eye view of the situation, I don’t think we should be too afraid of digging in the dirt to find diamonds here
From experience, hardo bankers are way worse
But rarer
It seems as though every young consultant is insufferable
Sure, the banking ones are worse, but much less common IMO
Definitely not true in my networking experience. Each his own.
It could just be chance, but I haven't come across many consultants who let their career define their personality. I know a shitload of people like that in finance, you can typically tell what area the hardos work in within 5-10 minutes of talking to them.
My experience is the same.
You’ve clearly never spoken to someone who worked for MBB. Doesn’t matter if they’re currently there or worked there for a year two decades ago, they will somehow bring it up in every conversation you ever have with them.
i think both banking and consulting are pretty self-selecting roles.. but totally agree with the sentiments above haha the pomposity of the average consultant is jarring
wait until you actually work with a banker / for a bank
Dicks in IB are at least open about being dicks. People in consulting, in my experience, are pretty two-faced and fake. There are many things wrong with some people in IB, but being fake and putting on a facade, which I find to be insufferable, is not one I would say is a shortcoming of IB folk.
Chuckled at this because of the emphasis that bankers put on "polish/professionalism/respect" during company presentations and sponsored recruiting events. As the process wore on, it was interesting how their personalities reverted to the norm behind closed doors, during interviews, coffee chats, etc.
Targeted IB in uni wound up in consulting. Yes this was my experience as well.
not all, but a big portion. I'm pretty much the opposite and I'm doing just fine. and yeah, IB is also big on talking without saying anything.
“Mission-critical” products. Like dude, your customer could buy your shit from Home Depot, but for 5% more
what do you mean?
I must dissent from the notion that consultants possess an unjustified sense of self-regard. Our industry's core competencies, such as cognitive flexibility, analytical acumen, and strategic foresight, are vital to realizing favourable business outcomes.
Though anecdotal instances of egocentricity may exist, they do not represent the wider consulting community's normative values. Our work is founded upon delivering optimized solutions, bolstering stakeholder engagement, and driving systemic improvements that create measurable value for our clients.
Not bad, but tbh ChatGPT could've probably done about as well. ChatGPT will likely replace u consultants but IB will be safe since it can't crank out a DCF or any financial model yet.
Generally speaking, consultancy firms are used to justify major business decisions. It’s a lot easier to tell executive / shareholders. “We decided on X and MBB did this analysis for us that shows it will be a good idea provided we undertake it in Y manner.” rather than just saying you are going to do it without any rationale.
With this in mind, ChatGPT is never going to replace consultants or any client services industry. The trust level for something that is a black box will always be low. The counterpoint might be people giving hft firms money to trade, but they have very clear math that operates their systems for a very specific use case. It isn’t a one size fits all system that chatGPT claims to be.
did you just make a conclusion assuming that bankers get mandates by complex financial model and that your client can't do it better than bankers?
Yes. Not only are they insufferable, they’re useless.
“A consultant borrows your watch to tell you the time”
Consulting club at my school was having an open house type thing. I pop in, I'm a junior. Club only takes freshman & soph. I'm talking to some officers or some shit and one of them asks what year I'm in, I reply I'm a junior. Awkward pause and one of them says "I apologize, this opportunity may not be suitable for you as we only accept freshman and sophomores into our junior analyst program" Like what the fuck? Why are you trying to sound like a rejection letter from HR. Just say sorry man we dont take juniors. You are 20 years old.
10/10 times yes
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The short answer is yes. They are all insufferable. Consulting is one of the only professions which ,at least at an entry level, involves quite literally zero skill or knowledge. So what it takes to get those jobs is really just looking good on paper and being able to talk about how worthy you are because you have to convince people why they should budget all this money to do a job that a stick with a hat could do. Bullshitting is a job requirement essentially so of course you are gonna get a lot of insufferable people.
Damn, quite a crowd of salty bankers that got rejected from MBB interviews lol
Deeper than that, it goes back further to their rejections from the college consulting clubs during their freshman year
I chuckle, but I know far more consultants who missed out on banking than the other way around
Just my 2c
You know a bunch of kids who landed at MBB after striking out in IB interviews? They really lucked out
Consultants are pompous and fake and bankers are fratty douchebags, but the coolest consultants are cooler than the coolest bankers. My experience.
On hinge (in Chicago) the number of men who put their job title as “(an actual) consultant” is bizarre. Why are the parentheses necessary. Like okay stfu. Touch grass.
when i lateralled from ib to mbb, i had a talk with a fellow mbb-er about the douchebag factor in both:
Gotta say, genuinely shocked by the majority of the replies on here. Consultants like any field full of high performers definitely have some Type-A, know-it-alls, but the % isnt skewed materially higher when contrasting with tech / big law / finance etc.
Friend of mine went out and ran into a GS IBD Analyst. The kid was literally saying shit like "I am God" and talking about how he is "Built Different". There will always be the brutal one-offs that can make an entire industry look cringe worthy.
I think the main thing to understand is that 90+% of consultants dont work at MBB. Sure, you have the T2s and other strategy consultants that might relish being condescending or try to demonstrate their intelligence whenever possible, but these "elite" consultants really only account for a small fraction of total consultants.
I want to distinguish lets say "elite" consultants from "standard" consultants because there really is a huge difference in personality type. The average IT, supply chain, economics, operational excellence, etc. consultants are usually pretty laid back and well-intentioned. And many of the "elite" consultants fit this mold as well.
With that said, there are plenty of brutal consultants out there, and some of the most cringe people I know went on to become consultants. They were people that made honor role at mediocre schools, got above average standardized test scores, but were nowhere near the top 1% of the intelligence spectrum. These are the people you are referring to.
Just like the IBD GS kid my friend ran into the other weekend, you cant use these folks' off-putting personalities as the baseline for the entire industry's.
Yes, consultants will always be the kings and queens of using fluff jargon to sound sophisticated without saying anything that can be used in a meaningful, actionable manner, and many of them are candidly the worst, but I would say the majority of consultants are actually pretty down to earth people. The average consultant works at a firm you either dont know or dont think that highly of (think KPMG) and doesnt have a huge ego or desire to sound overly sophisticated due to an above average level of self awareness with respect to where they fall on the career-oriented totem poll.
Lastly, the really really impressive consultants never act in a condescending manner and avoid speaking with excess jargon because theyre actually good at their jobs. The best MDs I worked with in consulting always spoke in simple, plain English, in such a manner that most sophomores in college could understand their approach and arguments.
To OP, sorry about the brutal folks you've spoken to in consulting. Certain firms (e.g., Deloitte / Kearney in my experience) will always be worse about this than others. I hope you continue trying to network because consulting is a very cool space and a lot of consultants do extremely interesting work.
The sheer amount of hate KPMG gets is so funny. I don’t get what’s so bad about it compared to big 4.
Nothing is so bad about KPMG. I was not trying to put the firm down. My only point is that if you work at KPMG you likely know where you stand, and you are cognizant of the fact that as a middle of the pack consultant you have no right to be a condescending douche. There are of course, exceptions, but if you're acting as a holier than though wunderkind at KPMG you are clearly out of touch with reality
Whole business model is based around sounding smart and appearing to add value without any skin in the game. I have the same gripe with finance professors/academics.
Investment banking is no different tbf.
Good point, guess this could apply to any service business.
Finance, consulting, and law tend to attract the most hardos. My experience in all 3:
1. Law = Bitch about there being too many lawyers and law school being so expensive
2. Consulting = Act like they’re the smartest even though it’s just googling stuff
3. Banking = Most openly dickish. Weirdly insecure seniors at the lower BBs (at the one I worked at)
Think that is an important skill. At later stages of your career its all about selling. Selling your product, selling your skills, selling your self. You might not like it but you will pick it up. Every one is in it to make money whether IB, Consulting or Tech.
Consultants are more liberal. More "career women" who can't wait to take down the patriarchy (as they graduate from an elite school that has a higher female graduation rate overall). More dorks who never played a sport in their life. More "volunteered at Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign" proudly displayed on their resume.
Not to mention the whole case study culture is peak cringe. Youtube videos...study groups...frameworks..
Hard pass on the whole group
Much higher % of “pronouns in signature” types
Yes how could I have missed it.
Ahhhh the good Wellesley types (aka the "men are nothing to this world" paradigm). Most consultants I've spoken to are right in line with the liberal F500 diversity playpen of corporate staff. You know, the types whenever you meet them for a campus tour/interview at their HQ and they act way over the top (fake nice btw) and morally superior. I don't belong in that arena, I hope banks aren't like that (what I mentioned were CPG companies). They can call me a loser all they want, but I'd rather work for a no-name, ten guy shop any day over that bullshi*.
frankly I think most people are insufferable. In general. I mega-hate them all.
As for professionals - it's not just consultants who are insufferable. Many bankers are particularly awful, because banking doesn't really penalize you for being a dick. Most BB cultures are petri-dishes for douchebaggery infestations. Consultants at least have to know how to pretend to be decent so their clients will like them and the rank and file of the client company will cough up the data and insights for the consultants to repackage.
“petri-dishes for douchebaggery infestations” :-D
People act differently in the real world after gaining some some poise and humility. Trust me on the humility part. If you think you are better than everyone or know everything, you will have those thoughts crushed once you actually start working. I have not encountered know-it-all or cartoon-ish behavior all that much with anyone with more than a year or two of professional experience. There are outliers of course but most people don’t act the way you described.
Did an 1 year offcyle with one of the MBBs but spent most of my professional life in Sales & Trading/Research/Investment related roles. IMO consulting ppl are more insufferable than banking ppl, but S&T ppl probably the best out of all three (in terms of fluffiness/having two-faced personalities). S&T ppl do have quick tempers but there is a lot less useless meetings (which also means less need for BS, your pitch needs to be quick to the point), and a focus on delivering results, you see execution prices/MTMs moving all the time (measurable, attributable, and harder to find excuses).
Also echo the sentiment that consultants rarely provide anything beyond surface-level, many of the ideas they think of I can replicate just as well, as a business major without working significant time there. I do feel like they have a knack of organizing these stuff (and also organizing events in general) better though (my recent experience doing a case interview w/o much preparation: the feedback I got was that I had great ideas but seems a little disorganized and not fit into a framework, so harder to follow). Also second that finance people are more honest with themselves in terms of being there for the money and prestige, gotta respect that.
I do caveat with the fact that all of those who can climb to the top ranks, irregardless of which of the S&T/Banking/Consulting professions, are mostly very charming, witty, and definitely capable people. My observations above mainly applies to junior and mid-level.
Again when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
I was at a bar with two buddies of mine, one of my friends girlfriends and her sister. The sister was a straight 10, one of the hottest girls I’ve met and I was going through a dry spell as a very busy analyst so so was all in on nailing her. Until she opened up her mouth. She was at Columbia business school and had an internship at McKinsey. Literally every second sentence out of her mouth, “I want to do something strategic.” WTF.
it doesn’t matter how hot she is, I gotta leave this shitshow. End up with my friend at a dive on like 46th and 10th and take down like 15 jack daniels on a work night.
20 years later, I still remember how hot she was, how annoying she was, and the hangover. Hate consultants.
You have to realize that wordsmithing is quite literally the tangible skills required to be a consultant, and why businesses bring them in. Have someone qualified to come in and wordsmith, and so have a scapegoat to point fingers at when decisions go south.
The value add of a consultant is to be able to wordsmith, play politics, and deflect blame. Which is actually very valuable
Pretty consistently, the most annoying and obviously self-serving people are going to MBB after graduation
Yes, different strokes for different folks but I found bankers to be less “bullshitty” than consultants.
In banking you do have to bullshit, but you largely use facts, research, and hard work to back up what you say. Consulting is more wordsmithing/making things up. Half of me is jealous for not being good at that, and half of me is happy I’m not good at that because you don’t add any real value
Yes, different strokes for different folks but I found bankers to be less “bullshitty” than consultants.
In banking you do have to bullshit, but you largely use facts, research, and hard work to back up what you say. Consulting is more wordsmithing/making things up. Half of me is jealous for not being good at that, and half of me is happy I’m not good at that because you don’t add any real value
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