Living away from the home office

I was wondering if any consulting firms would let first years live in a different major city than the office?

After just searching around online, it seems like people have suggested that this happens but I haven't actually heard of anyone being allowed to do it. Is it something that's possible after a year or two instead?

Thanks

 

This is very very rare in the first years, MBB at least. And the ones who do usually live within 2 hours of their home office, there is no office near their residence, and only have that arrangement because they are considered top performers. The office usually frowns upon this because 1. it limits local staffing / support on non-case work 2. it is considered bad for your personal development to not see people at least on Fridays

Honestly, at least in the states, most players have offices in major cities. And most people find it easier to just transfer there rather than permanently based out of another office

 

Ok that all makes a lot of sense, thank you. Do you know of any non-MBB firms that allow this?

For family reasons I'm ideally trying to live out of Denver (I probably shouldn't have said "major city") while everything career-wise is pushing me to living in Houston. There were fewer consulting firms based out of Denver than I thought and no MBB offices.

 

Out of Denver but living in Houston? That's a tough one. Answer first: I think you'll struggle to make it work as a new guy.

Explanation: Living within a few hours of the office happens (e.g. LA office, living in San Diego; Boston office, living in small-town New Hampshire), but that's what you're suggesting is more involved.

I know of two people who live a comparable distance to what you're suggesting. Both try to make it into their office once a month (they pay for the flight, although they try to reduce this cost by optimizing path home from engagement), and both are at least Engagement Managers (one level above post-MBA). They both used to live locally.

Long story short, you could probably get away with very occasional office visits (less than once per month) if you worked at a place like Accenture or Capgemini. In my experience these large firms are less about the local relationships. At MBB, as a new guy, you'll want at least 2 Fridays in the office each month. More for the first six months.

Also, if you get staffed locally, it's on your own dime until you develop the relationships with the guy selling the work (partner or similar) who you can maybe sweet talk into letting you expense hotel on the project. But this uses up a little bit of your valuable-and-limited partner favor points.

So yeah, that's a tougher one. Good luck, sir. You'll figure something out.

 

Big Picture, thanks for the detailed response. So as a new guy, if I was staffed out of a Houston office but needed to be in Denver for the weekend occasionally would it be reasonable to spend Friday in the office then fly to Denver Friday night or Saturday morning (on my own dime) and then Monday morning fly out to the client site from Denver (on the firm's dime)?

 
Lerg:

Big Picture, thanks for the detailed response. So as a new guy, if I was staffed out of a Houston office but needed to be in Denver for the weekend occasionally would it be reasonable to spend Friday in the office then fly to Denver Friday night or Saturday morning (on my own dime) and then Monday morning fly out to the client site from Denver (on the firm's dime)?

I've heard many firms let you do alt travel, so you could fly back from the client site to Denver directly (and work from home on Friday).
 
kingfalcon:

I've heard many firms let you do alt travel, so you could fly back from the client site to Denver directly (and work from home on Friday).

kingfalcon, I've heard that too but I can't seem to find out if firms let brand new consultants do it or which firms allow it? Can you give me a few examples of firms that allow it? And what do you think my best route for finding out more is, informational interviews? Asking recruiters directly? (I haven't seen anything addressing it on any firm's website).
 

I messed up the quote nesting, so I'm just repasting my response here:

kingfalcon, I've heard that too but I can't seem to find out if firms let brand new consultants do it or which firms allow it? Can you give me a few examples of firms that allow it? And what do you think my best route for finding out more is, informational interviews? Asking recruiters directly? (I haven't seen anything addressing it on any firm's website).

 
Best Response

Lerg,

Flying to Denver instead of Houston on Thursday, and back to the client on Monday, on occasion (once per month?) wouldn't be a problem at all, with a couple of caveats:

(1) You're staffed on a project. If you're doing proposals or something, then no.

(2) The project you're staffed on isn't in Houston. So you're flying somewhere.

(3) Your trip to Denver is cheaper than your trip to Houston. I have the travel agents document this when I book alternate travel, and I get partner approval before I do so (via email not verbal, just in case).

(4) Your trip times won't be all effed up. If your trip to Denver means you fly at 3pm Thursday instead of 6pm...not going to happen.

Also, keep in mind that for (3) above, you don't want to piss the partner off asking for alt travel every few weeks. Not a big deal, but those guys are more important than us grunts, so it's something to keep in mind.

Finally, the part I think is lame, is that you can't use "extra" money for other stuff. For example, if your normal flight home is $1,000, and your alt travel is $300, you can't use the extra $700 on other expenses for the weekend. Lame, I agree.

Last thing: most firms are fair and reasonable, I think. They realize the lifestyle is tough, and if you are a good employee, they'll try to help make it work. If it doesn't cost them more, doesn't make you leave the office early, and it makes you happy...they'll generally be all for it.

 

Do you have an actual offer from any firm yet? Not sure about MBB, but Deloitte, Accenture, etc. have Denver offices and my guess is other Big 4s and IBM do too. They probably don't take in as many as say NYC or Chicago, but it's still an option and demand for placement there is lower. Not sure why are you set on Houston career path wise, but most firms have national staffing model so if you want to do O&G, you can always get on a travel gig and then if you really want to live there long term, move there once the family stuff is done (office transfer is relatively easy).

EOD, Denver is a United Hub, meaning it's a consulting city. Otherwise, flex trips like everyone already mentioned is an option and pretty much everyone allows it. I didn't bother with approvals like BigPicture does. It's all good unless you have some real nosy person looking at charges or you are charging $900 flights or something. One warning is that Denver from/to East Coast staffing may result in red eye flights.

 

Ok cool, thanks guys. This has been really helpful. I don't have an offer from anywhere yet besides O&G but I'm doing a fulbright next year instead of starting work anyway so I'm gearing up for recruiting now. I'm really interested in working in O&G engagements so I'll be aiming for the Houston MBBs. I'm definitely going to apply to the big 4 offices in Denver as well as Navigant and IBM. Thanks for all the great advice, I really appreciate the help.

 

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