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I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're only asking this because you're equally interested in both industries and not simply looking to stroke ur ego with some sort of cross industry prestige dick measuring contest.
IB summer internships are easier to land and consulting FT is easier to land. Go for IB in the summer and recruit for consulting full-time if you still want to.
I'm not really interested in IB due to the WLB, I was just curious. But thanks, I actually assumed the opposite!
Other comment has lots of good info. I would just add that in general, it depends a lot on your background and the story you can tell, in my experience. For example, it seems like you need a resume that points to a specific interest in finance, while consulting is a lot more encompassing of different backgrounds (ie. high level research, public policy internships, etc), meaning that IB would be infinitely harder to break into without a finance-esque backgroud. It also seems like there is a higher bar GPA-wise in consulting than banking, and it will of course be easier to break in to whichever field you have more of a network in.
In addition to what you said, I've heard with the "all encompassing" thing they like liberal arts (or stem? Not sure) majors in conjunction with a practical business major? Is that true?
I would agree that liberal arts backgrounds are valued in consulting, from what I've seen. I would say it's less of an advantage or disadvantage, but an aspect that does not really disqualify anyone, provided they have top grades if that makes sense. It seems like a quantitative background is probably helpful for IB recruiting, but I've also seen liberal arts majors do well if they have other finance aspects of their backgrounds.
By all-encompasing, what i mean here generally is that consulting shops are looking at the overall quality of a resume, how impressive it is, and 'normal' resume dimensions. Banking is concerned with those things, but it is also important to have demonstrated interest (finance background, contacts in the industry, etc). Let me know if this makes sense, happy to expand further!
I assume you're an MBA student? I've heard consulting is harder.
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Oh I see! Very interesting. But I thought most consultants don’t really want to break into PE and would rather go into just general companies?
What would you compare MBB SF/BOS/NYC PE (and perhaps HF) placement to in terms of IB?
I got an offer in T2 consulting on my first try with 0 studying for the case study. It seemed very easy. Banking, however, took constant work to break into given the required networking and technical studying.
Edit: everything on my CV pointed to the fact I wanted to be in banking as well.
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