How does Consulting compare to BO?

In terms of pay, prestige, exit ops, etc..

I dont mean TOP consulting like MBB, but more of 2nd tier firms.

How would these types of jobs compare to a BO role within an Investment Bank? If your end goal is still to be a banker, should you do BO or Consulting ?

16 Comments
 
shorttheworldwhy wouldnt you be satisfied being a consultant? if you think youre going to only be able to get back office then im not so sure how well youd be able to get even 2nd tier consulting

some 2nd tier consulting firms recruit at my school but only BB come here for BO roles.

 

How can you compare consulting with BO..even tier 2 firms...are much harder to get into than BO

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 
Best Response

by consulting, what kind of consulting do you mean? Management Consulting? IT Consulting? Healthcare Consulting? Human Resources Consulting? Real Estate Consulting? Auto-repair Consulting? there are many.

If you mean Management Consulting, you are sorely mistaken.. because getting management consulting is as hard as getting I-banking.

Also, there seem to be decent number of people who move to FO from BO. Some people have done it. For example, there are some posters on this forum who moved from Operations to Trading at BB, etc. I don't know how easy or hard that process is, but it is definitely possible.

 

Operations is the kiss of death, unless you somehow manage to move up to FO from Ops. I heard the work you do in Ops is incredibly boring and meaningless, lacks human interaction, no incentive, and you work for shitty bosses.

That said, I would go for consulting. Second tier Consulting isn't bad at all. much better than Ops, for sure.

Btw, by 'second tier', do you mean Accenture, Deloitte - type of firms? For example, getting that strategy consulting gig at Deloitte or Accenture is still like 10 times harder than getting Ops. Strategy management consulting is no joke. On the other hand, Deloitte and Accenture -type of firms also have IT consulting branch, such as business technology analyst, etc. Those positions are much easier to get.

 

What about other bo/mo roles such as finance...it seems on this forum everyone just characterizes bo roles to strictly mean operations but surely there are many other positions. I turned down consulting 2nd tier (lower, not s/o deloitte or accenture mc as above poster mentioned) for a finance non-FO job.

 
inspireddudeWhat about other bo/mo roles such as finance...it seems on this forum everyone just characterizes bo roles to strictly mean operations but surely there are many other positions. I turned down consulting 2nd tier (lower, not s/o deloitte or accenture mc as above poster mentioned) for a finance non-FO job.

did u turn down strategy consulting 2nd tier? if so, i think you made a wrong choice....

there are non-operation BO jobs, but Ops is probably the largest division in BO that's why people refer to Ops a lot. I think jobs in Public Finance, IT finance, accounting-related roles also count as BO

 

not strategy but a top D&I consulting firm.

don't know though, many of the VPs and higher in my group have gotten into good MBA programs ie columbia/NYU from this position. maybe not the HSW but I doubt that chances would be any higher at HSW etc from any 2nd tier consulting firm.

 

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