Engineer from Target Gunning for Consulting Offer
Hello,
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Goal: Trying to land consulting position at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, …
Question: What kind of MS program would be most beneficial in this goal? If not an MS program, what else can be done?
Background:
- Education: ivy league target school (2016) with 2 BS degrees: science, and engineering, 3.7 GPA.
- Experience: One year at F500 med device company working as engineer, achieved 220k cost savings
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The Pain: I have good initial comp but promotion ladder within engineering at this company is very stagnant, would be lucky to make six figs after 5 years. More importantly, many managers 2 or 3 grades up have no college education and smallworld view of the company. Hence, I miss the culture of competition and work ethic I had in my undergrad, and feel out of place in my current position.
I applied to all the well-known consulting companies during my undergrad through OCR, as well as off-cycle but never got reply, perhaps because I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point and was spending a lot of time interviewing for heavy positions like Goldman IBD, JPM Strats, Jane St, etc none of which materialized into an offer.
Prior Research:
- I had phone chats with 14 of my alumni at those 3 consulting companies. I found 3 paths, one of which was most popular:
a. Ivy Target undergrad -> 2 years as analyst1 -> M7 MBA -> Associate (2 alumni)
b. Ivy Target undergrad -> Ivy Target PhD -> Associate (2 alumni)
c. Ivy Target undergrad -> Analyst/Associate (10 alumni)
- Topics on WSO
/forums/engineering-to-consulting-should-i-bother
/forums/engineer-thinking-of-getting-an-mba-then-possibly-management-or-it-consulting
/forums/engineer-mba-consulting
... and many others
*Final remarks: *
Been reading threads here on the topic and just can't find too many people on LinkedIn who got their masters in statistics at a top school, or masters of financial engineering (which is what I am interested in) and landed a consulting offer.
Any advice highly appreciated, gents/ladies.
Thank you very much.
You could potentially recruit for the entry level position, my office probably interviews ~10 people a year who are 1-2 years out of college for an entry level role.
I would not do a masters just for this reason, but I believe going back and doing a masters at a target school would give you access to on campus recruiting resources (not just for consulting, other jobs as well).
The most realistic path would just be staying where you are for another year, getting promoted/jumping firms into another role that you can get good experience in, and then breaking into consulting via an MBA.
Thank you, galt2010, That makes sense why I couldn't find too many people with masters pursuing that track.
From my research, it seems you're right that the most realistic path is to stay in engineering and demonstrate some sort of growth, whether it be advancing to management, more savings, responsibilities, etc.
Out of curiosity, was your firm hiring those experienced entry-levels at a particular time of year, or was it on a case-by-case basis when someone would leave or there was a business need for an entry position? I have seen some of my alumni switch from engineering to consulting (i.e. mostly Accenture) pre-MBA in all different parts of the year, so I would assume it's more on a need - basis.
Also, most consulting firms have separate application portals for "experienced" and "entry-level," where the latter is usually tied to OCR, particularly with the more popular consulting firms. OCR, of course, is restricted to matriculating students, not alumni, while "experienced hire" carries the implication of 5-10 yrs industry exp. My thoughts is that if I wanted to break into consulting pre-MBA, it would have to be through a smaller firm with less rigidity in its recruiting structure. Do you think that is accurate?
My experience at my office (MBB, non-NYC/SF) is that people who are typically one year out of school can apply for an entry-level position. If not online I would try to network as much as possible and get in touch with the recruiting team. In this sense, I would not recommend doing a masters other than an MBA. Furthermore, I don't really see the connection between an MFE and a generalist consulting gig (OW FS might be another story, for example). Keeping in mind that you would be "losing" some employment time by entering at the bottom of the totem pole I would try to move fast rather than taking my time. I do not think, however, that you should restrict your options to smaller firms. Apply to the ones that you could see yourself working at and in which you are interested (e.g. kind of work, culture).
As you pointed out, staying in engineering and going for an MBA is very realistic. Your profile is what many adcoms are looking for (successful engineer wanting to take on managerial opportunities) so that route is definitely still open.
Thank you, Ruhm.
My feeling is that breaking into consulting early on out of engineering and working up, would be a better option, rather than breaking into consulting out of an MBA .
Regarding office location choice for MBB, in your experience, do you think it would be more competitive to prioritize lesser-desired locations? For example, I imagine Minneapolis BCG would be easier to get into than NYC BCG, or do you think this premise is fallacious?
(Although a different industry) for example, when I interviewed for IBD Analyst at GS I placed SLC as my top choice on purpose and got that interview even though I was in NYC.
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