Hey guys, just wondering this out of curiosity. Do many people see Consulting at one of the MBB/Deloitte/OW as a possible long-term career path? Do many people choose to stay in Consulting and shoot for Partner like many law and accounting firms or is it more like IB where you get your experience and get out?
The lifestyle at the MBB looks pretty good when compared to Biglaw, IB or other high-paying, high-stress jobs since you get weekends off as well as Friday being a 9-5 day with little work to do. Once you get promoted higher you travel more but once you get to Partner I assume it comes down a bit once you get a decent book of clients.
So, do most people consider Consulting as a long-term career and if not, why?
I personally do. Not at the same firm and maybe not in the same industry but for sure for quite a while. Some people stay in the business then open their own boutique shop and most get poached to strategic positions in a company in the industry they ended up specialising with. Consider also that long-term and making Partner or even staying partner are not the same; imagine starting work at 21. In 9ish years you can make Partner if you're good and if you stay Partner for 5-7 years after, you leave latest at 37 years of age. Still quite young.
Do many Partners only stay for 5-7 years? I thought most stay for 15+ because they bought into the firm.
I have an Uncle who's a Big 4 Audit Partner and he's been there for about 16 years now and he's not thinking about retiring soon. Also the average age of a Biglaw Partner is 52 which means that they stay long term as well. Is Consulting unique in this aspect?
No, most stay 10+ years but even factoring in 15 years in you would leave as a 45 year old. Just making the point that a long-term career doesn't mean older. When I think of long-term career I picture a career ending when you're 55-60.
If I were an audit partner with a few solid clients I'd milk them forever. Recurring revenue streams, baby. Easy work.
I work in a slightly different area of consulting (Restructuring) and I will say there are plenty of people in their 40s and 50s who have worked in RX Consulting all their lives.
That said travel and 70+ hour work weeks aren’t for everyone and your calculus changes between being single and getting married and having a kid. If you go the family route I think you are more likely than not to leave Consulting within a few years. Especially since you typically have solid exit options.
I’m married with a young family, and whether to stay in consulting is something my wife and I periodically evaluate.
Lastly, no matter what anyone tells you, my experience is that partners generally work nearly as much as junior folks and their jobs are considerably more stressful. Sure they might have more flexibility, but they still
1) Travel a ton
2) Spend a large amount of time on business development (Pitching work, going to social events with a PE partner or attorney or whatnot)
3) Manage or participate in a lot of projects they are the lead on. (Sometimes 5/6 at a time)
4) Spend time on employee development and administrative crap like billing, utilization and practice management.
The point of the above bullets is that making partner comes with more money, but similar hours and more stress. So you have to weigh that against the alternatives as you think about consulting as a long term career path. And that is aside from the fact that many people never make partner. In M/B/B you are forced out if you don’t at some point, but there are many people in firms like the Big 4 and mine where you can have professionals spend 8-10 years at the level right below Partner.
Great insight, but did you just type "your calculus changes"?
Is this a fancier way of saying math? lol
Haha, I assumed that was a common expression. Maybe it’s not? I suppose we all live in a bubble of sorts at some level.
It generally means your approach to life or the situation.
Remember that consulting isn't just a homogeneous firm career path. It is somewhat common for MMB types to transition into industry and take a project consulting type role at what would be considered a client type company. It is becoming more and more common for large extremely complex firms to bring in consultants to essentially do the exact same job but just in house. It is essentially an extension of a consulting career just with a different work flow structure.
Are they compensated more or get better hours when they are hired in-house?
Better hours yes, compensation no unless they make it to the C-suite.
Yeah, there's a pretty symbiotic relationship between most corporate level services gigs (banking, consulting, accounting, law etc) amd the corporations they serve..
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