IB vs Consulting post-MBA?

What do you think? It seems to me that the PE recruiting advantage no longer applies to IB post-MBA, and the exit opportunities for post-MBA Consulting are broader. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

31 Comments
 

At least at my T20-T25, the most impressive people tend to gun more for consulting vs. IB.

Wouldn't agree that exits are necessarily stronger for IB. If you want a finance related exit, yeah - IB is better.

Comp is true in terms of a huge variation. My school recruits fairly well into MM and I think average first year package has been around ~270-300K (I do believe one of our graduates went to a boutique recently, not an EB, and possibly cleared 400K their first year while consultants seem to average around 185-190Kish, B4/T2/MBB are 200+ all in).

 

After the recent IB pay increases, the comp difference between IB and consulting is huge. PJT for example is $225k base, $70k signing bonus, and approximately 100% bonus (obviously depends on the firms performance, but 100% bonus is the norm at EBs). Consulting on the other hand is $175k base, like $30k signing bonus, and about 25% bonus. BBs don't pay as much as EBs, but it's still way more than consulting..

 

Had people at my school who picked consulting because they thought it paid more since the employment reports only showed base salary #s (this was when it was typically 165 top consulting vs 150 IB associate) they were absolutely astounded at the total total comp differences once they found out

Also it’s pretty funny how much consulting recruiting centers around billing it as the WLB option. Sure it’s better than banking on the margins but still rough and a steep steep discount

 

This is actually incredibly common. I can count 3+ instances where close friends going into consulting thought banking bonuses were 15-35% of base (like consulting) and were shocked when I said its more like 75-125% of base depending on bank and ranking, sometimes 150%+. 

Lol saw same. And there are people at tio

schools. Like how little due diligence did you do man

 

The hours are absolutely not comparable. Where in the world are you getting this information from? Both my siblings as well as other close friends work in consulting (MBB and T2) and they usually work 60hrs on regular days and 70 when it’s busy (this INCLUDES travel time). There’s a significant difference between 60-70hrs and 80-100. In consulting, you have time to workout daily and sleep a full 8 hours almost every night. Lets not kid ourselves here. Consulting undoubtedly offers better WLB.

 

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