An MBB intern once told me that she often sees consultants pulling numbers out of thin airs to support their arguments. This got me thinking, do consultants actually believe the recommendations they give to clients?
Total Avg Compensation
July 2026 Consulting
Career Resources
Leaderboard
| 1 |  |
99.2 |
| 2 | |
99.0 |
| 3 | |
99.0 |
| 4 | |
99.0 |
| 5 | |
98.9 |
| 6 | |
98.9 |
| 7 | |
98.9 |
| 8 |  |
98.9 |
| 9 |  |
98.9 |
| 10 | |
98.8 |
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
in short, probably not. though some do after the amount of work they put in. however, the thing is, they might not believe the answers fully but they sell themselves and the client so all of a sudden it’s an echo chamber and everyone believes
Yes.
Not sure how much of an authority an MBB intern is, but this is WSO, so what do you expect.
Reality is that you deal with a ton of ambiguity. It's not like academia where you find a shit ton of data and do super rigorous analysis to get to a heavily caveated, largely inconclusive conclusion to a small problem and you're golden. The kinds of decisions firms like MBB have to drive have to be made, but most are so arcane that there's no mountain of academia-like data to make them with certainty. Even worse, relying exclusively on what data sources are actually available on an ambiguous topic easily leads to false precision (a dilemma for example I'd say that HFs and other fund managers in particular struggle with - if your title is relevant). So you do the best you can with a mix of data, evidence, analytics, expertise, and a rigorous approach to practical problem solving.
That to say, there are a lot of conclusions drawn that would never pass muster in anything remotely close to an academia, peer-review type of setting. Some of which including taking relatively sparse evidence and triangulating a conclusion - which can look like "pulling numbers out of thin air". And that can absolutely lead to incorrect, spurious, or poor conclusions. But there's no other option. The strategic decisions clients struggle with are critical to their businesses, there's no room for anything but a conclusion, because their decisions have to be made. It's best they're at least made with the mix I described above wherever overwhelming evidence doesn't make the decision for you.
Likewise clients aren't asking for MBB to help solve problems where available data rigorously points to the right solution. They ask MBB to help solve problems which are ambiguous and unclear.
So while your mileage may vary, in my experience absolutely we believe in the recommendations we give - and that those recommendations are the right choice for the client. Naturally that doesn't come without its caveats and the understanding that it's a "best possible" recommendation based on the evidence we have.
A lot of people struggle with that, particularly some of our more academically inculcated hires. But being able to come to strong, well reasoned conclusions amidst extreme ambiguity is the job.
Yeah, very good explanation, thanks.
This reminds me of my very first internship (advisory role) where I struggled with the lack of rigorousness - or lack thereof - in the work we did, perhaps it has something to do with me majoring in Physics. My colleague who hapenned to be an ex-MBB consultant and a PhD in natural sciences, admitted that she was guilty of this too when she first started. Her explanation, while not as detailed as yours, was somewhere along the following:
Ab quis eum quos qui a. Deserunt consequatur sunt quam sit. Incidunt ab natus beatae quibusdam.
Soluta qui quis eius veritatis nulla qui. Sapiente ratione dolores quisquam quisquam nam quis. Est qui et voluptatibus ut quis.
Doloribus molestiae doloribus aperiam odit sunt. Alias mollitia fugiat exercitationem nisi sit sed in maxime. Quia sit sit laboriosam facilis.
Nemo voluptas ratione modi modi unde et. Delectus velit dignissimos eveniet. Occaecati omnis cum pariatur necessitatibus sint at quo. Nam veritatis accusantium ratione est possimus sed hic qui. Nam officiis sint est earum quos consequuntur in.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...