Miserable in consulting, how to improve situation?
Hey guys,
Quick background: In college, I interned at BBs (S&T), but went into consulting after graduation. Drudged it out for 2 years; it hasn't been my slice of pie, to put it politely.
I miss the pace and simulation of finance, and miss the amount of interaction I got there, but don't want to hop on a trading floor again. I'm thinking that investor relations / BD might fill my itch, but I'm open to considering other possibilities, like PB/PWM, too.
Is this sort of thing feasible? And if not, where else in finance would consulting and communication skills be valued?
Best,
Dan
Dan Egan, have you checked out these or run a search:
No promises, but maybe one of our professional members will share their wisdom: Matt-Devanney Kev24 @yesbrainer"
I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.
Thanks, but they don't really answer my question.
B-school is always an option to restart your career and learn more about different jobs and companies that might fit what you are looking for.
It's certainly my goal in the next 2-3 years, but I don't think my 2 years in consulting gave me the skills for the roles I'd want to do post-MBA. I want to work on the buyside, and passed my CFA level 1 already.
Unless everyone is on a level playing field for Associate recruiting, where experience doesn't matter and we're all clean slate MBA students?
If I'm not mistaken, you start off as an IB associate post-MBA regardless of your background (though of course there are always exceptions).
I should have clarified: will only having 2 years of experience hinder me from better post-MBA opportunities?
For instance, if I'm submitting my resume for an Associate role at Evercore and so do my classmates, Ms. 5-Years-With-the-CIA, Mr. 10-Years-of-Military-Service, Mrs. MF-PE-Associate, and me, will we be viewed as equally inexperienced (since we're all MBA students) or will their additional years of experience trump my relatively small amount of post-college experience?
When I was talking about how an MBA restarts your career, I was referring to the accessibility to OCR where all of these banks would come to your campus to recruit. If you get selected for an interview at Evercore for the Associate role, then just like any job interview, the interviewers will be assessing you and your background compared to other candidates. In some sense, an MF PE Associate (with 2 years of IB analyst experience at Evercore) would look more impressive and qualified for the role, but that's always going to be the case at a job interview. At the same time, the most qualified candidate is not always the one who gets the job. Similarly, if you are able to pitch yourself well enough and the interviewers love you, then you would get the job over a possibly pretentious MF PE Associate.
In terms of your overall work experience compared to a typical MBA candidate at an MBA business schools">M7, most people have an average of 4-5 years of work experience. I would personally think that you should do work that you really enjoy, given you don't like consulting. Things will work out well for you if you do a job you enjoy and can clearly explain how your prior experiences have led you to pursue an MBA to do whatever you plan on doing post-MBA.
I hope more experienced and knowledgeable people (especially those who have been in your shoes) are able to chime in.
Understand this is a hypothetical but there is virtually no chance a pre-MBA MF associate is going to be looking to become an IB associate so I doubt that’s something you need to consider.
Would recommend working for 2 more years before trying to go back to school though.
Why don’t you tell us a bit about what you don’t like about the consulting side? That would help narrow the fields/advice to be given.
Lack of training from the get-go. I expected a Powerpoint/Excel/Word overview as part of new hire training; didn't happen. I took classes on my own.
Project work is specific to the point of being myopic. In the broader sense of the client's world, we're working on very infinitesimal things (if we were building a house, we'd focus on a scratch on one of the basement floorboards). It's concerning when I ask the others what they do in a role and they answer, "I don't know."
Lack of interesting work. It's 99% updating Powerpoints. I very rarely can point and say, "I saved the client $X; I helped bring in $Y of revenue; I saved my team Z amount of of time."
Hopping from project to project. I really want to focus on one thing and do it well, instead of being a jack of all trades (even that's a bit generous).
To summarize, I don't think I'm building the skills I want/need, but am just flung back and forth between various projects to fill a seat. I came into consulting with the mentality of a happy warrior, knowing it likely wouldn't mesh with my personality but that I'd give it a shot anyway.
For a more positive ending, I'll tell you what I like: I love interacting with people, especially in person. I like writing and networking. I like structure and knowing where I'll be and the resources I'll have there (having a permanent seat/desk, a monitor set up). I enjoy analyzing documents (financial statements, research reports, news pieces) deeply and then summarizing what I found, in writing or verbally. I really enjoy Excel and modeling. Funnily, I enjoy the process of finding a consulting project (networking, interviewing, preparing for the meetings) much more than the projects themselves.
Have you considered Corp Dev? It seems to check off most, if not all of those boxes
thebrofessor APAE IlliniProgrammer @jtbbdxbnycmad" I'd love to hear your input, too
S&T - I don't think you can make it back there. For whatever reason, you didn't return after your internship, and they'd rather snap up kids fresh out of school.
Investor Relations - I think they're great gigs so long as you're clear on the career path, and it sounds like you'd be a good fit for them (they usually fish talent from ECM, and next tier would be Equity Research, S&T, and strategy consulting, so you have two checks going for you). I cold-applied for an Investor Relations job at a mid/small cap that I thought I was perfectly suited for, and I did get some attention in return, but then they went silent and ended up hiring a much cheaper (more junior) girl from my same bank, and she's definitely more 'connected' than me.
Those jobs don't open up very often, though, so you're going to have to network a lot plus have a healthy dose of luck. Sounds like you enjoy networking, so you better get going.
What's the brand like at your consulting firm? The zero training sounds kind of fishy to me. I'd be upset too in your place. That said, more importantly, is it a brand that a future (investor relations) employer will be attracted to?
Thanks for your response (and everyone else; this is all very solid advice with lots to think over)!
Yes, my trading days are over. I loved the companies I was at and recommend the experience to everyone.
I'm happy to hear that consulting is an IR recruiting pipeline; this is news to me. And I'm happy to start at the entry level as an IR scheduler and work my way up. I've also seen a few "IR Coordinator" roles floating around, which I guess are similar to entry-level IR?
It's one of the big firms, T2-T4 depending on who you ask. I don't think it would elicit any sort of reaction from an IR employee, but it elicits very strong reactions from consultants.
I am an analyst in IR at a S&P 500 company so hopefully I can help answering some questions you have? One thing that you should know is that IR teams are usually very lean and often recruit from ER shops covering their industry.
I think it's an underrated career path because it provides you with incredible access to the executives at the company, and IMO these are the people you learn the most from. I personally get a lot of opportunities to prove myself, and I am on a first name basis with the CEO, CFO etc... these guys get compensated based on stock performance, trust me they want to know what's going on in the market! The lifestyle is pretty great even though you get pretty busy around earnings and have to travel to a lot of conferences (at the director level mostly).
Negatives would be that it's difficult to find a spot at a relevant company with a good business model and a good outlook (you don't want to be fighting to convince investors you're not a dying business) and the pay at the analyst level is less than IB/consulting etc...
Monsieur Macron, I'm disappointed to hear. I thought you were a fantastic President, but you must pursue your own path.
Joking aside, I'm really excited to hear that! I have lots of questions for you.
1) What was your background prior to IR, and what drew you to the space? 2) What tasks make up the majority of your day (I heard IR Analysts schedule calls, make Powerpoints presentations, and update Salesforce; is this accurate)? 3) I realize outlooks for companies could change quickly; is it better to stick with an established business in a relatively safe industry (eg, healthcare vs some hot new tech firm)? 4) What would you like to do after this / what are typical exits from your firm? Can you move internally? 5) Same question as @jtbbdxbnycmad" : I've seen a few "IR Coordinator" roles floating around, which I guess are similar to entry-level IR. Is that accurate?
I’m glad we agree that Macron is a fantastic president... unfortunately I did not make MD at Rothschild in 2 years like he did!
Quick background I was a foreign student athlete in college, full ride non-target but great GPA at least. I met the VP of my company at my Investor club in UG and was tasked to produce an equity research on the firm. The company is in the TMT space and has had incredible run in the past 20 years. Long story short, I did a good job on the report, they gave me an internship in the summer and I joined full-time after graduating.
To answer your questions:
2) It’s a bit of a hybrid position where my group cover all capital market transactions ( share buybacks/ debt funding, input on large M&A deals ) and Investor relations ( earnings call, conferences etc ). So my daily activities aren’t repetitive which I like. Obviously you deal with a lot of PPT presentations for conferences, but also rating agencies for debt issuance, and the usual supplemental packages for earnings. One of my favorite functions is to go through the models of the 20+ banks following us quarterly, and you’ll be amazed how bad these guys are, and the number of mistakes they made which convinced me that ER as we know it is dying and niche boutique research shops will prevail in the long run. Anyway, it is important to keep the Street consensus in check with our guidance, so I spend a lot of time addressing issues with sell side analysts. I can confirm that I never had to deal with a CRM software or setup calls for my VP, they have assistants for that. You have to answer queries from buy side guys which really helps you learn the business inside out.
3) This is where you have to trust your guts. Did you specialized in an industry while consulting? I really believe in my firm’s business model, and I think that joining a smaller firm on the rise could be a smart move as you can move up the chain quickly.
4) That’s a great question. Apparently moving to ER in the same sector happens. Moving internally seems doable. I work with the director of strategy on a lot of small projects, because he knows that I understand the vision of the company dealing with investors on a daily basis, and I would like to move in Startegy or CD in a couple of years. I’m confident it is doable with 2-3y experience in the sector.
5) I’ll be very careful with these roles, you want to look at the head of IR and check his/her background. I interviewed for an IR analyst role at another firm and the head of the dept had a marketing background...
Anyway, corporate startegy looks very interesting so I would look into that also.CFA is also valued in IR, both of my bosses are charter holders. I passed lvl 1 in December, going for lvl 2 in June. Best of luck, you seem like a bright guy!
On a side note: current structure is VP > Manager > Analyst. The VP was in BB ER for 12 years joined as Dir. the manager was in BB IB for 2 y then joined as Sr Analyst but quickly rose up to manager.
Can confirm. I had the opportunity to be a part of a BB rotational program in Corporate Finance. One of the rotations was Investor Relations. The entire team consisted of eight people, including the two analysts who came from the rotational program. One of the analysts was my mentor during the program and he would constantly tell me how all of the C-suite knew him by name and he had their personal cell numbers. He said he was not afraid at all to ever reach out to them.
I personally don't think there is too much upside in terms of pay. I know the analysts in IR were being paid less than a T2-T4 consultant would be paid, but I don't know how much the top head of the IR group would be making.
Since the team is very lean at every company, I would imagine it would be hard to move up as people would just remain in their positions (unless there is a lot of movement between different companies' IR divisions that I don't know about).
Analyst pay is lower than consultants/IB that's totally fair and I was clear about that in my first post. No debate. I did not come from a target so I am fine with the pay as I would not be able to get wall street money. But I get a pretty decent package with base, stock and bonus and they are paying for my CFA. Obviously, the pay and equity grants rise up nicely or we would not be able to attract BB/ER exits (you make less money, but still decent and great life balance). And I think this progression makes sense as you're building up relationships with sell-side/buy-side investors first, and also learning the business inside and out, but once you've got a good grasp of the function it becomes very hard for the firm to replace you and very expensive to train a someone new. You definitely have leverage on them for raises.
Example: My VP literally comes in the office 2/3 times a week for a few hours if he feels like it or needs to take a look at a deal we just closed to be up to speed for investors. Rest of the time he's catching calls from investors in his PJ or walking his dog around. He has to travel to conferences often (once every other month) but that's a pretty unbelievable job.
I think there is movement between companies IR divisions as they usually don't recruit straight out of UG. I've been contacted by 3 other companies, 2 F200 and 1 PERE shop to join as an IR analyst and I have not been at my firm for a full year yet.
Truth is I really believe each IR department can be unique in its structure, so you have to do your due diligence and get lucky also. You won't be a rainmaker at 30, no doubt about it, but if you make VP in your 40s like mine did, you can have a pretty sweet life just my 2 cents...
You have a background very similar to a friend I was pretty close with for the year before and after graduation. He had a HYP degree, interned on a top BB trading floor in a non-revenue role (research, structuring, etc.), had back luck getting a return offer, and moved to boutique consulting where his experience sounds very similar to yours: a slower-paced environment, no institutionalized resources, poor visibility on career progression, and a shortage of transferable skills.
Take heart, your cause isn't lost. What I recommend below isn't what my friend did, but the point I'm going to make is that anything you've been through can be sold as a positive if you speak from a place of humility, sincerity, and conviction.
Let me quickly get this one out of the way:
In the current recruiting climate (past four cycles, so class of 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019), anyone who wants a banking job coming out of business school gets one. I'll quote myself from another thread: So, if you want an investment banking job for any of all of the reasons so well outlined on these or any other forums, you can take the next seven months to get your candidacy ship-shape to apply R1 for as many of the top-20 programs as you feel interested in. They will get you a banking job.Yes, some of the EBs have a preference for candidates with strong prior financial experience (the old BX groups were like this, they took people who were finance lifers [their associate interns often had 2+ years of banking experience and 2+ on the buy-side, albeit in MM or LMM roles]). Few take candidates like that to the exclusion of others. There is just about always someone with no prior finance experience in the intern class.
Reading everything you've written here, I'd recommend you look into portfolio operations roles. They combine some of the most interesting parts of private equity, venture capital, and consulting into one role. It is not a collection of the very best of each, but you get bits and pieces of the better half of each of those roles while enjoying a much higher floor in terms of volatility (safety on your career prospects).
Look at KKR Capstone. They were the first to really institutionalize this, and by that I mean to invest eight figures into wooing away superbly qualified partners from McKinsey et al. to build out a brand new franchise. Firms have long done that same sort of thing (slotting operating or consulting executives onto a bench that the portfolio companies can access if they need it), but (a) those executives weren't selecting that at the apex of their career as the final thing they wanted to do for the last 15 years they worked, (b) the executives weren't often supremely prominent in their fields, they were often strong social connections of the partners at the PE shop, and (c) there was no emphasis on institutionalizing it into a business of its own.
KKR did all of that, then used the platform to begin billing the portfolio companies and thus created an entirely new revenue stream for the KKR management company. The logic was sound; why have the portfolio businesses you own giving away tens of millions annually in consulting revenue to MBB firms when you could build a quasi-MBB shop in-house that captures that same fee revenue?
Blackstone is another good one. Dave Calhoun runs their portfolio operations group. He spent two or three decades at GE (ended as Vice Chairman), then ran Nielsen for a decade after its PE takeover (Blackstone was part of that deal) before joining to lead the group.
I'm running out of time so I'll wrap this up. Take some time to look more into this field. Most of the megafunds have this type of thing internally, though the title of the group will vary.
I can think of two paths that would be doable for you and a booster for your career.
One: you could consider trying to lateral as a consultant to a better franchise (even if it's a specialist platform like Capco or a Big 4 shop) to get another two years of experience, and 15 months from today apply for admission into b-school for the class of 2022. Your resume would have two-ish years at your current shop and one-ish year at your hypothetical new shop.
You'd be bang-on target given that the median amount of prior experience for b-school students is now 3.4 years (last time I checked), meaning everyone has either four or three years of work under their belt at matriculation (and thus only three or sometimes even two[!] at application). You could then recruit out of business school for these PE portfolio operations jobs.
The downside I can see to this is that unless you were at an HSW school, you may struggle to attract the big MFs as a candidate. Ultimately though your experience would match what every MBA student faces: the career component of school is one of those 'you get out what you put in' things. You are in the driver's seat, if you're chasing anything other than banking or consulting where everyone shows up and force-feeds you, it's really self-directed.
Two: Get whatever portfolio ops job you can now, sit in it for 2-3 years, then apply solely to the MBA business schools">M7 bracket by selling yourself as the guy that loves the pairing of financial wizardry, operational excellence, and complex project management who can use the platform the school offers to gain the management skills and polish plus the network that will help you as you transition to a more senior role in portfolio ops.
That would let you recruit very specifically for the sterling ops programs like KKR and Blackstone, and you could even try your hand at consultant-friendly PE shops like Golden Gate and Bain for a traditional PE investing role.
Either way, from all you've shared the first thing that leaped to my mind was portfolio operations. Explore it and see if it could work for you. Keep your head up.
APAE, you blew my mind wide open with that response.
I completely agree -- you can say/do almost anything as long as you're sincere about it.
I'm surprised that finance lifers would go back to IB post-MBA, but I've certainly read about it in Monkey Business. Was the rationale to use the position as a way to get into BX?
I didn't even think about portfolio company ops; this is a fantastic idea! Looking at the profiles of people there, it's really the creme de le creme of backgrounds (mainly MBB) and it appears that they do take MBA interns, given our discussion of those programs. I'll keep digging.
I'm at a Capco-like firm now, and was told to reapply with more experience to MBB, so I could suck it up and try for that in the next few months, as you suggested. An MBA is certainly something I'll be pursuing, but I have a very conservative mentality towards that: I want to have enough experience and brand names to really make a splash in recruiting. The con there is that I wait too long and wait myself out a program entirely...
What do you think about private banking or a family office role, given my b/g? Or would that be a career stall?
I really appreciate the "not all hope is lost" perspective; you have a very positive perspective on things, from what I've read of your posts.
You're welcome. I have a positive perspective because I've seen firsthand how the unconventional is actually possible.
Don't be surprised about people returning to banking. For the people who know they want to make a durable career out of banking, a two-year hiatus that allows them to (i) develop the very sort of network that creates dealflow for the following decades and (ii) upgrade the caliber of firm they work at for that duration, it's a no-brainer.
One guy I know did two years at a Wells Fargo / HSBC / Standard Chartered type place, then three years in LMM PE in a regional city. He attended a non-HSW MBA business schools">M7 and went into one of the two legacy banking groups at BX. They loved him because he possessed both the sell-side and buy-side perspective, had exact experience in the cap range the group made its bread and butter in, and was not a flight risk at all. He knew the what and why behind his decision to do banking for the long run.
Yes, the bespoke-clad, prestige-dripping budding titan of the universe who progressed steadily from Yale to Morgan Stanley to Carlyle is highly unlikely to pursue a banking job at Evercore or PJT after attending HBS. The MM guy who did three years in an industry group then two years in a product group at a solid shop not in New York is probably going to be pretty happy to use Columbia as a stepping stone to Goldman or Moelis.
I'm not privy to your resume, but anytime someone tells you 'reapply with more experience,' there's at least a 50% chance you have what they're looking for but are simply failing to demonstrate it.
That comment you made about loving the process of finding a consultancy engagement more fulfilling than the actual work of the project is really interesting. Maybe you need to rewrite your resume from top to bottom.
Seriously, start with a blank file and do it over from scratch without looking at the old one. You'd be surprised how differently you convey the highlights of your experience when you're doing it anew. No shit though, you're looking at it with today's eyes (and all your accumulated insight on the world) rather than being complacent with how you wrote the language with yesterday's eyes.
If you're really at the two-year mark in your current role (and not the 18-month mark thanks to graduating in the class of 2016 and starting in September that year), you ought to have fully checked the box for an experienced hire in the MBB at whatever they call the second tier of employee after undergrad. At this point it's likely not a question of whether you have it, it's whether you're able to articulate that you have it.
In terms of whether you can stall yourself out of MBA success, yeah, that's a real threat, but it manifests itself differently than how you evidently think. You write as if you believe simple years of experience can make you look bad. That's true, but only indirectly. It's about your trajectory.
Someone who applies with six years of experience but only one promotion looks worse than someone applying with three who has already been promoted and gained responsibility. Someone with six years of experience but three promotions and three separate events that weren't promotions but were clear expansions of responsibility (e.g. project lead, increase of headcount supervised, bigger budget oversight, whatever) is by no means locked out of top-flight MBA programs.
Again, it's about your trajectory. If you look like someone whose career has flatlined, yeah, that's the MBA application equivalent of the desperate 36-year-old guy who's throwing himself at every eligible single woman in his social circle because he's trying to get married before it's too late. If you look like you were thoughtful in why you waited as long to apply as you did, you're the 36-year-old surgeon who chose not to settle down because he knew he had medical school, residency, one or two competitive fellowships to pursue, then a rotation in a competitive hospital before he found out where he'd actually wind up living.
I don't know enough about how private banking works as a career to offer any informed comments. The extent of my knowledge ends from what I know being a client.
"Family office role" is far too ambiguous of a term to mean anything. The only rule about family offices that holds true is that no two family offices are alike. Seriously. The delta within that category is unreal. It's also incredibly challenging to break in, whether as an employee, a prospective GP trying to raise capital, or a new family office trying to find like-minded parties to syndicate dealflow or share best practices.
What about doing institutional sales for an investment manager? Good mix of markets, strategy and client facing work. A lot of firms really like the CFA for this role, so I would keep going on that.
That's a really good idea, thank you!
What sort of background do people come from in the field, in your experience?
All over, some come out of college but most firms like to hire people with a couple of years of experience in finance or consulting. Its a client facing role and they are looking for people with some polish who are good writers and public speakers. Outside of the large firms the process for hiring is not as standardized and they will hire people who don't have an ideal background if they like them.
I figured this story deserved an ending: I quit consulting a month ago to join the ranks of the corp dev world. It's been a complete 180, and I'm much happier professionally. Thanks again to everyone who chimed in with ideas, advice, and support.
Winnfield Macronmania Mimbs Entrepreneur Hero APAE s-t-93
What industry did you end up in? Congrats, glad it worked out.
Thank you! It's in the financial services field.
Glad to hear that! Could you update how you found the job / interview processes for jobs you were interviewing for, etc?
I was all over the place, man, in terms of finding the job. Recruiters (GoBuyside and the like), online applications, and networking had a roughly 20%, 50%, 30% split of my time. The offer for the job I'm in now came from a guy I met through homecoming during some alumni event in college. He worked for the company I'm at now, but in a different department, and connected me with a few guys there when I reached back out, leading to interviews. Overall, the people that helped me most were those I kept in touch with for 1-2+ years, though a handful of guys I met recently have been absolute GOATs.
The interviews themselves were all over the place. One went so deep into my background and references that I was 90% sure I was interviewing for the FBI. A few looked like classic bait and switches with low comp, so I noped out of those, and a handful had a good cop/bad cop vibe, with one interviewer being highly technical and the next asking about my time in S&T and my college extracurriculars. A lot of companies ghosted me after 1 or 2 interviews. I also didn't get near the level of technical questions I got in college, but this could be because I passed the CFA level 1 and just took level 2 OR because lateral recruiting is more relaxed, I'm not sure. I think the hardest technical question I got was about levering and relevering beta in the CAPM.
MBA
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