Consulting is a joke

Pay 300+ in tuition for a top target only to make literally 120k all-in at MBB (and even less than 6 figures at lower tier firms), which is literal shit. The work consultants do--making random powerpoints: basically stretching reality with fancy writing and fonts, amid vague requests and vague proposals--is all vapid, glib nonsense that's thrown out the moment the engagement is over. You can literally graduate a no-name state school with a 3.3 gpa in cs and make 200k at minimum in tech while working on some interesting problems.

Yes, there's a real discussion to be had as to whether tech has surpassed IBD for the average performer. However consulting shouldn't even be sniffing this. It's a joke career.

Edit: This post is targeted for high-achieving college students at top targets, for whom 120k--especially in high COL areas--is quite literally, peanuts. If you are making less than 120k, you have no right to insult me.

 

$120k all-in directly out of undergrad is a blessing. Mommy & Daddy usually incur cost of $300k tuition, and fin-aid helps for those who didn’t grow up rich. Virtually no kid is taking on that much debt (except perhaps middle/upper-middle class households) to not have 6 figure salary be more than enough as a starter. Most people don’t make that in their lives.

 

What's the alternative? 120k on 300k is a 40% ROI Y1, assuming your income would otherwise be 0. Let's say with no college you can earn 50k (generous), so the difference is 70k - that's a 23% ROI (I learned how to do all of this in college btw!). 23% is pretty good. But the point of all of these careers isn't what you make out of college, it's about providing a springboard to your career to faster earnings growth.

If your question is tech vs. consulting vs. IBD, then that's a different question. But you need to zoom out and view it from the lens of the big picture. There are more CEOs that come from consulting than from IBD

 

120k out of undergrad is literally average for any engineering degree from a decent school. And you don't have to pay a fortune to get that degree. I think the value comes mostly from career progression and possibilities for advancement than actual money. On an ROI basis, almost any engineer will do significantly better. But it's not about the average ROI, it's about the possibility for the max salaries in consulting/IBD which are much much higher than engineering. 

 

Not true at all. Engineering jobs don’t pay that much. Most don’t break 6 figures lmfao. The only lucrative one is petroleum which is relatively dying and that’s 100-110k at best. SWE and IB are the only fields where you can make that much. 

   
 

Making 200k in tech right out of undergrad is not nearly as easy/common as just majoring in CS and having an ok GPA. Those types of salaries are reserved for the very best going to work at the biggest companies. I go to a top target for big tech and also am friends with lots of CS majors at non-target, bigger schools. Those coming from the non-targets are typically making more like 90-110k. Not saying that I agree/disagree with other points made in this post, but the implied commonality of huge salaries in tech straight out of undergrad is exaggerated.

 

I agree that it’s very possible to receive 200k offers from big tech while coming from a non Ivy/MIT/Stanford and having an average GPA. Like you stated though, there is a lot of other effort that goes into receiving those offers (becoming an excellent programmer, doing internships, doing applications). OP made it sound like the only requirements to get an offer like that are having an ok gpa from an ok school and majoring in CS. In my personal experience, my friends that have done that and haven’t really put in the extra effort to become excellent programmers have not gotten those 200k+ offers, but have gotten (still awesome) 90-110k at smaller, lesser-known places.

I actually love that tech hires more based on actual skills than the prestige of the background of a candidate, in contrast with IB or buy-side firms which seem more focused on the prestige factor. Though, there is often (but certainly not always) a somewhat close correlation between the type of people who are driven enough to become good enough programmers to get those huge offers and the type of people who are able to get into top schools and achieve high GPAs in college. I admire both those who fall into that correlation and those who did not focus as much on college and instead learned how to be excellent programmers in a more internship/side-project/self-taught kind of way.

 

Also ~40% of the total comp is stock options that often have a vesting period of 3-4 years. So the take home pay is similar or less than IB and Consulting. Given the current market environment, a lot of these stocks options are worth way less now.

 
Most Helpful
  1. If $120k first-year is a laughably low number to you, then unfortunately there are exceedingly few career options that you might consider financially viable
  2. I believe you're massively underestimating how competitive the high paying tech jobs are
  3. Being a SWE is a very different type of job vs consulting or IB and will often attract people with very different preferences or skills, so it doesn't really make sense to just say "don't be a consultant because SWE pays more"
  4. I don't believe you actually have a decent understanding of the work consultants do. There are reasons that companies spend a ton on consulting and consultants are viewed favorably for many business management roles when they exit. Given how sensitive P&Ls can be, it'd be such an easy place to slash spending if hiring consultants wasn't producing value
  5. If you work for a major strategy firm (MBB/T2), over 2-3 years you'll probably get a much more varied set of experiences vs almost any other job. Consulting is attractive to people who don't really know what they want to do since each 3-6 month project is sort of an internship in a new function/industry, and you can camp out/get promoted for ~5 years (usually until manager) before you really start thinking about specialization. I don't think it's a stretch to say the breadth of exit options is higher for consultants vs finance or SWE
 

Consultants are largely overpriced paper pushers whose job is just to confirm what management already wants to do - change my mind.

"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly" - Robert A. Wilson | "If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 
PrivateTechquity 🚀GME🚀

Consultants are largely overpriced paper pushers whose job is just to confirm what management already wants to do - change my mind.

I worked in consulting on one project for the US Army. It was $20 million in revenues per year. Our job was to design a distributed learning system for soldiers across the world. This way, they could log in and learn useful skills with their MOS and be battle ready when the time comes. We had a bunch of developers and I managed the financials. The Army couldn't have done this on their own, so they hire consultants.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

A learning management system is less complicated than a battlefield app, for example. That's one downside of consulting. Sometimes one gets staffed on less challenging projects since the project is not deemed important enough to be staffed with the client's personnel. There is less chance of this happening if one works for top tier consulting firms.

 

If you tell a random person you're a banker at Goldman Sachs, software engineer at Google, aerospace engineer at NASA, etc. you will instantly come off as successful, smart, hard-working, etc.  But normal people have no idea what a consultant at Bain is and will assume you're just a generic office worker.

 

If you are playing the 'is it recognizable/interesting/prestigious to the average person' game then lol you are going to lose bigtime in the finance route because trust me the average individual doesnt give a shit about 90% of finance careers. They might know what Wall Street is, or that it comes with money (just like they would think if you said 'lawyer' despite making 75k a year) but it really wont impress anyone. 

Get into finance for the money, sure. Get into finance to impress your peers at an ivy league school, unhealthy but it'll get the job done. Get into finance for the work, if you want to tell yourself that, maybe. 

But to think it impresses 90% of the population or will lead to an engaging conversation at a cocktail party? You will be sorely disappointed. Because the guy next to you that served some random stint in the navy for 10 years or the girl that opened her own cupcake business with 3 storefronts will be much more interesting and impressive to most folks.

 

I'm not sure I understand the complaint.  The work investment bankers do is also meaningless and mostly useless.

Also, 120,000 is a ton of money for a 22 year old to be making.  Even if you are paying the 300k in tuition, that is still a deal most people should take running away.  That ROI is insane, since your salary is only going up.

TL;DR - OP is an out-of-touch moron who probably isn't sniffing a top tier consulting job, let alone anything in tech or IB

 

Lmao actually an incoming BB IBD SA and a student at a top target, but whatever helps you sleep at night.

Also, 120k is incredibly low in high COL areas. Especially given the fact that if you're an MBB new-grad consultant, you probably could've aimed for tangential roles like IBD or PE--which are both just as competitive. Which is exactly my point.

 
Harvard_GS_HBS_KKR

Lmao actually an incoming BB IBD SA and a student at a top target, but whatever helps you sleep at night.

So you're a summer analyst.  Almost.  We'll see how long it takes you to get a FT offer when you go in complaining about how badly underpaid you are.

Also, 120k is incredibly low in high COL areas. Especially given the fact that if you're an MBB new-grad consultant, you probably could've aimed for tangential roles like IBD or PE--which are both just as competitive. Which is exactly my point.

120,000 is a lot of money anywhere.  The number of jobs that pay that kind of salary to freshly minted college graduates are exceptionally small.  What percentage of new IB analysts live in Manhattan, the most expensive place to live in the country?  Something well above 75%, I'd guess.  It's almost exactly the median income for a family of three (so.... including a lot of two income households) for the New York City region.

If you are trying to argue that you should just work in finance or tech, sure, go ahead.  It's just disgustingly out of touch with reality to suggest that to be making six figures as a 22 year old, doing work of no real value or difficulty, is somehow "underpaid" let alone by a large amount

 
Harvard_GS_HBS_KKR

Lmao actually an incoming BB IBD SA and a student at a top target

hahahahaahahahahahahahahaha zero experience and bitching about consulting - what a joke

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Recruiting for tech is not as easy nor (in general) as lucrative as you described. And even if it was, that doesn't necessarily imply that 120k is "peanuts."

If we're talking about work, junior software engineers will edit random lines of code every now and then and push them to their supervisors. Junior bankers are always tinkering with a model in Excel while listening in to arbitrary meetings from which maybe ~1% of the content actually materializes into something meaningful. Like you can make any career pointless if you simplify it that way, right?

Not everyone chooses a career purely for pay - otherwise all of us should be working in quant. Even though I chose banking in the end, I do have friends who prioritized quality of life while still maintaining good pay and diverse exit opportunities. In light of those three, I think consulting is a pretty good option.

I imagine it's not an unpopular opinion to say that paying 300k for an undergrad education is nuts. But the solution to that isn't "just choose SWE." People interested in CS are (in my experience) very different from the ones that choose consulting. Personally, I dabbled a bit in both during undergrad too, and I just found it insanely challenging to grasp the complex algorithms and coding concepts, but found it relatively easier and more interesting to learn about case interviews and try and solve a broader problem for a business.

A lot of SWE is about sitting in a cubicle or on your desk at home and coding on your own. And if you're the type of person who feeds off of human interaction, that can be a suffocating environment. Whereas in consulting you are always talking to and meeting people. Choosing a career is (and should be IMO) a whole lot more nuanced than you made it out to be here.

 

SWE has to produce results. The code works, or it doesn't. It's a binary outcome. Consulting is different. Take CNN+ as an example. McKinsey gets paid despite CNN+ being a massive failure. And that's one drawback with consulting - at times there are no measurable or tangible results, nor do the consultants get assigned long enough to see through the execution phase.

 

My friend worked at a T2 consulting firm, then attended HBS and then BCG. He is CEO of Binance now. 

Am I a joke to you? High resolution : r/MemeTemplatesOfficial

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Harvard_GS_HBS_KKR

Yes, and there was also a college dropout who founded Microsoft.

Not sure what your point is here. Why don't you dropout? 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I don’t disagree that consulting work is stupid but how is it different than 90% of IB work? Answering stupid diligence requests just to confirm the gut opinion of a PE partner and putting absolute BS on a page to sell a crappy business.

Also, $120k is obviously less than IB but they don’t work weekends generally. Not sure how $120k for 60 hours a week vs 160k for 80 hours a week are that different - and before everyone tells me how first year analysts now make $250k let’s talk after this years bonuses when we aren’t in the greatest M&A market in history.

Comp scales quickly too, easy path to making $400k+ in your mid 20s and a few million a year at the partner level.

Would argue the true value in MBB is exit ops. As much as it might pain this forum to say it, they have way broader exits than IB. Lots of PE firms hire a ton from MBB (Bain, Advent, H&F, Berkshire, etc all accessible), but also way better corporate exits as well as things like tech strategy, startups, VC, so on. The other perk is they can actually exit at the senior levels - IB VP+ exits are generally not super interesting, but MBB partners go on to be CEOs.

 

When I was interviewing for my current IB role, I had a take-home case study to complete as a part of the interview. Got stumped and asked my consulting buddy (3-years experience at a top shop) to help me out. He says "fuck yeah, I'll send you one of my models you can use as a template." 

He proceeds to send me a 100% hardcoded model that looked pretty with firm colours and everything. It was at that moment I realized consulting is a joke.

 

Maybe more relevant at the post-MBA level when about to start a family, but consulting isn't as tied to high COL cities as finance and big tech. Tech salaries are inflated heavily because of where they are located.

 

Great post and all, but it seems you missed this small little thing called interest in the work itself and common sense. 

There are some people who enjoy the work of CS, IBD and Consulting and are more or less indifferent to all three. I'd argue that many, many, many people would struggle to earn average or above average salaries if they fundamentally didn't enjoy the work. 

This debate and constant nonsense about going into the field that makes you richest assumes that high performers will remain that regardless of where they go, but that's a huge assumption. I, for one, hate working in CS and can't fathom doing something like that for a living. I also know my mental and physical limitation to consistently be "on" as required in IBD since the average hours extend around ~70-80 hours on average. With that said, if I pursued a career in either of those, I'd be at average or below average and wouldn't earn the all-in comp you're using as your benchmark

The other notion you completely ignored is the exit opportunities and interests of the individual. If someone wants to develop skills for VC, Industry or build their own business, consulting (specifically business consulting within operations or strategy) provides a great lens for what to keep in mind. Not every high-performer wants to keep at the grueling pace of IBD in the long-run and the exit ops of IBD are limiting. Not every high-performer enjoys or sees themselves pursuing tech as SWE or PM as well. 

Whether you see the value in consulting or not (you don't) is up to you. There's very little I can type to change that. I could type the fact that clients see an ROI since they continue to request more engagements, or that some contracts include execution phase contingencies or team augmentations. I could even bring up the thousands of cases of consulting firms literally bragging about their successful engagements because of their industry experience, intellectual capital or existing research/surveys in the space. I don't think any of that would change your mind, so I won't bother boring you with the details of a field in which you've already deemed is "beneath" you.

 

state school with a 3.3 gpa in cs and make 200k at minimum in tech while working on some interesting problems.

Don't do CS majors like this. Who told you the minimum wage in tech is 200k...CS is hard and its job market is as competitive as finance's. "Interesting problems"??? Yeah ok.

 

I’m not sure why people are crapping on this, it’s absolutely true that 99% of consultancy work is dog shit, secretarial fluff and aligning PowerPoints. Who cares about the pay when the job is terrible and you are not gaining any skills.

Tech beats IBD in every objective category, but you just should do what interests you at the end of the day instead of quibbling over different comp structures.

Other than very specific types of projects and software implementation consulting is a scam. It really is mind numbing paper pushing and bs-ing but hey if you enjoy that all the more power to you.

 

It depends on the project and the role right?

OPs right that some lower tier firms are asking for MBAs and paying dog shit. Maybe it makes sense for low cost eMBAs.

I did see a top10 MBA requirement on one and the reviews on the company weren't that great.

 

Natus saepe explicabo cupiditate et. Voluptatem voluptates consequatur optio ut voluptatem alias. Culpa id dolorem est aut minus. Maxime et modi est inventore sint. Ut non aut est facere voluptatem voluptatem autem. Rerum cumque quia blanditiis sit qui non sit.

Occaecati deserunt repudiandae autem sed. Exercitationem beatae quo est aut. Hic omnis assumenda consequatur iusto quaerat voluptas qui.

Ab rerum nostrum magni quia sint. Non eveniet cupiditate iure est quae recusandae.

Itaque quaerat sequi illo ipsam ullam voluptas possimus. Est rem dolores nisi qui quasi quis et. Dolor et aut consequatur ea et.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Aut tempora dolorem est rerum modi. Aspernatur aut ab inventore sed soluta quod. In velit inventore ullam quis magnam. Consequatur impedit dolores rerum voluptate ea cum perferendis.

Nostrum omnis laboriosam amet id eos autem. Quasi et assumenda ea quo. Sapiente dignissimos dolor aut repellendus.

Deleniti illo omnis sed illum aut totam. Et quaerat labore est vel ea. Necessitatibus consequatur similique saepe tempore iste eius. Aperiam velit dolorum eum exercitationem rerum velit quia veritatis. Molestiae expedita nesciunt blanditiis saepe sequi maiores. Voluptatibus quam provident sint autem eum. Architecto aut quaerat earum minus porro officiis sint.

Aspernatur at et porro excepturi et est molestiae repellendus. Numquam minus ut esse dignissimos culpa expedita praesentium. Id nisi voluptatem ipsum earum quia nisi. Qui vel aperiam itaque magni doloremque. Quas libero consequatur laboriosam sed. Adipisci odio debitis et.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

Dolor aperiam facilis debitis corporis iste corporis. Exercitationem et eum sed reiciendis voluptatum ea. Qui non ut quos id quam laborum est. Hic enim hic sed consequatur.

Doloremque sed officiis pariatur adipisci impedit et omnis. Non molestiae eligendi cumque id. Aperiam facere rem sed et. Vitae voluptate laudantium rerum et libero est blanditiis. Officia eos eaque quisquam dolorem adipisci inventore.

Voluptatem voluptatem molestiae vitae dicta sint labore facere dolores. Aliquam iusto eveniet quaerat eveniet amet consequatur iure. Corrupti consequatur et et in autem. Laudantium voluptatem sit distinctio maiores consequatur iste minima.

Sapiente asperiores occaecati asperiores cumque. Id dolor ipsum harum sapiente deserunt. Aut velit voluptas dolore.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (85) $262
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (65) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (198) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
5
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
6
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
98.9
7
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
8
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
9
pudding's picture
pudding
98.8
10
bolo up's picture
bolo up
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”