economic consulting is a highly different, arguably irrelevant skill set and doesn't involve schmoozing/building models. Economic consulting is more academic but if you network your ass off anything is possible.

 

It's a pretty easy transition to make post-Bschool. The ec consulting skill set is very transferable to IB, especially if you find yourself working on a number of valuation/corporate finance cases. A number of recent MBA hires at the economic consulting firm where I work were summer associates at various BB's and they said that MBA students with an ec consulting background have no trouble making the switch.

Making the switch without Bschool will be trickier, and I'd imagine that it would depend largely on your network.

 

funny you ask because i just did it. also several members of my analyst class (08 and 09) did so as well. top econ consulting (top 6, Analysis Group/Cornerstone/LECG...) -> solid banks (Citi/Deutsche). No one wanted to jump down to MM status, and the people in my class were all pretty much superstars who had turned down banking full time (e.g. summas/magnas from Wharton & Princeton). if you have any questions feel free to PM.

 

pre-mba... generally transition as a lateral. some kids got dinged a year but a couple managed to lateral as a 2nd year or senior analyst. obviously networking helps, but in my case i primarily went through a couple of job-hunting sites, lots of headhunters, and my school's career website. also i have previous finance summer internship experience (MS/JPM) s&t and had a high gpa from a target. had banking offers coming out of senior year but decided banking was lame. however econ consulting has been lamer

 

yeah all ibd. my firm tends to be more finance focused (so Hayek you could probably guess which one) but given we do a lot of securities/valuation/mbs work, it was fairly easy to spin it during interviews with headhunters and wihth firms themselves

though just to be clear, in my case and my coworkers', most people chose econ consulting because they either 1) didn't consider finance to begin with or 2) chose consulting over finance/investment banking. I think at top places it is highly unlikely someone chose econ consulting because they couldn't get into banking. they may have wanted management consulting, but people as a whole sorta look down on bankers as the work is definitely more analytical here

 
myblackberryblinks:
yeah all ibd. my firm tends to be more finance focused (so Hayek you could probably guess which one) but given we do a lot of securities/valuation/mbs work, it was fairly easy to spin it during interviews with headhunters and wihth firms themselves

though just to be clear, in my case and my coworkers', most people chose econ consulting because they either 1) didn't consider finance to begin with or 2) chose consulting over finance/investment banking. I think at top places it is highly unlikely someone chose econ consulting because they couldn't get into banking. they may have wanted management consulting, but people as a whole sorta look down on bankers as the work is definitely more analytical here

Bullshit. EC is for people who can't get into management consulting/ibanking. Talk to any senior who is going through recruiting, and no one will tell you that EC is their first choice.
 
Best Response
SirBankalot:
myblackberryblinks:
yeah all ibd. my firm tends to be more finance focused (so Hayek you could probably guess which one) but given we do a lot of securities/valuation/mbs work, it was fairly easy to spin it during interviews with headhunters and wihth firms themselves

though just to be clear, in my case and my coworkers', most people chose econ consulting because they either 1) didn't consider finance to begin with or 2) chose consulting over finance/investment banking. I think at top places it is highly unlikely someone chose econ consulting because they couldn't get into banking. they may have wanted management consulting, but people as a whole sorta look down on bankers as the work is definitely more analytical here

Bullshit. EC is for people who can't get into management consulting/ibanking. Talk to any senior who is going through recruiting, and no one will tell you that EC is their first choice.

A better choice would be to talk to people who received offers from EC firms. A large part of the hiring process at my place involves separating the people who would rather do MC from the ones who genuinely want to do EC.

 

Getting a finance-related experience in IBD or PE is the best way for you to land a full time IB position.

You will face the question of "why didn't you do finance this summer if you knew you wanted to work in IB?" And regardless of how you cut it, the interviewer will be thinking that you are undecided on consulting vs finance, whereas other applicants are set on doing banking.

That said, econ consulting is great too, you can't really go wrong with it.


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honestly just get what you can. consulting isnt bad and you can spin it to your advantage in an IB interview: 1. you wanted to see what else is out there (i.e. consulting) and so now your sure you want to do IB OR 2. econ consulting got you interested in the advisory aspect of finance and that , along with the fact that you want to work with transactions, is why you want to do banking. i did an it consulting internship my soph summer and still landed an IB gig

 
1styearBanker:
Do not take anything but IBD junior year if you want to do IBD. I went to a target and trust me, econ consulting is second tier shit. No bankers are impressed by it.

He's a sophomore, but for junior year I'd agree

Reality hits you hard, bro...
 

Oh ok, for soph year take what you can get. Junior year, no excuse for a target kid not to get IBD. Also I love how the mature mods agree with me but the butthurt 2nd tier kids give -1's to the post, as if I care about some "banana points" on an internet forum. Just deal with the fact that no one cares about crappy jobs, I speak the truth even if it hurts your ego to hear it.

 

I don't think you can lateral to IB from something like that. There is no common skillset. Your best bet with be an MBA after full time economic consulting. I between economic consulting would look good for MBA programs.

 

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