MBB vs IB which is more doable for a non-target?
I'm a green card holder studying at a top Asian university and was wondering which job in the U.S. would be more attainable.
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If only looking at MBB, i.e. no other strat/management consulting firms, then definitely IB given there are 20/30+ firms to target.
That being said, gotta be keeping options open as much as possible. Best of luck :)))
Thank you so much! Even considering T2 firms like kearney and oliver wyman, IB would be more attainable I guess? Anyways, best of luck for you too!
IB I think, MBB are very elitist. In the UK, the majority of candidates come from Oxbridge.
maybe I should consider applying for offices in the APAC region where my college is a target and internally transferring from there? Thanks for the response btw.
Transfers aren't guaranteed though… you need to be a strong performer to even apply. Then you’re competing with all the other strong performers for the popular offices
Your best bet may be Mck or BCG in Asia (since you will presumably be a target there) for a year then transfer to US, both are very good about international transfers if you work there for over a year. Will be even easier since you have a green card and don't need sponsorship.
Also generally speaking, smaller regional offices of MBB in North America are easier to get into than NYC/SF/DC
Yeah I definitely should look into this. I was planning to apply to an MBA program to join as a C but if I could transfer I could save 200k+. Thanks!
BB IB is way easier to break into than MBB. The comparables would be the EBs. Simply way more spots in IB and a much easier interview process.
Would definitely push back on much easier interview process
As someone who has been through the interview process and received offers at both, I would not. You can reasonably prepare for an IB interview in a single weekend since its 90% memorization. Case interviews take significantly more practice. The only caveat would be if someone had zero background knowledge of finance or accounting, which would make it much harder. I was able to prepare for IB interviews in a week. My first MBB interview I put in the same amount of effort and flubbed hard, and had to prepare much better for the next
Also, the sheer numbers of IB analyst spots at good banks are far far more than at MBB firms, which still holds true even if you add in the T2 and other strategy consulting firms.
Maybe for the level you were interviewing for. Any more experience and they can become highly technical and not quiz you on things you would just memorize, instead testing understanding of concepts. Case questions are very intuitive for someone with basic economics or business background
I also had interviews/superdays at both MBB and BB/EB IB and I actually felt the opposite: my IB technical interviews were significantly harder than my MBB case studies. The MBB interviews u could easily logic and common sense your way thru but for IB technicals some of them were fairly tricky, and if u don't know then u don't know, no way to BS ur way thru them. Just my experience/opinion though.
Also, we need to factor in that MBB literally has offices in almost every city so it's actually quite a bit easier to get into consulting, say in MBB middle-of-nowhere Alabama, than IB which is concentrated in NY.
If we're talking MBB NY vs IB NY, I don't think it's fair to be comparing MBB to UBS or Citi IB. If it's pound for pound, head to head, we should be comparing MBB to GS TMT/PJT RSSG/CVP, etc. and I would say that the EB interviews are definitely much harder from both my and my friends' experiences. Not to mention I also go to a target business school (Wharton/Stern/Dyson) and already have solid accounting/finance fundamentals and still felt that the IB interviews were more of a grind.
I think the more relevant comp would be MBB vs GS/JPM/MS/EVR/PJT. If you want to add in other BBs and MM then the equivalent consulting firms are Deloitte/S&/ATK/EY Parthenon and a ton of others.
As far as interviewing difficulty, it just depends on the person. IB interviews are probably a steeper learning curve for someone who doesn't have a finance/analytical background (because of all the accounting), whereas case interviews are more about logical and hypothesis driven problem solving (the idea is you should be able to solve a case in any industry with the basic principles and frameworks). There's math involved in case interviews but it's more quick mental math that doesn't require any accounting knowledge.
wow i didn't know eb was that much harder to break into. I've heard of this guy from my college who graduated from M7 and joined as an mba associate. i assume the chances are way better that way?
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