Is there a dilution of talent in MBB?
This isn't really meant to be a controversial post, but might be on the consulting forum. I'm a recent graduate of a target school for both investment banking and consulting. When I was a freshmen, I was always under the impression that MBB consulting stole the cream-of-the-crop, well-rounded all-star talent (3.9+ GPAs, student leaders, entrepreneurs, often times all of the above). I found this to be true for the graduating class when I was a freshmen.
But looking at the resumes of people that are landing MBB positions in the recent classes is sincerely (not to be mean/judgmental) unimpressive. Lots of people in the 3.5-3.6 GPA range, not really standouts in class discussions, some club involvement but not top, etc. I'm in BB investment banking currently and have always held MBB in high esteem. As an undergrad, I had interviews with 2 of the 3 MBB, but turned them down to stick with banking. Part of me regretted turning down those interviews, but this recent trend of recruiting trend towards lesser talent (sorry, is there a better way to describe it?) has been very puzzling. For what its worth, I think the top talent at MBB is as good as it was before. I personally have a number of people that went through MBB in the classes above me that I think incredibly highly of and have done very well in their careers. But I feel like the common wisdom that MBB is far more competitive than BB/EB IB is perhaps not entirely correct? I think MBB has far larger range in terms of ability/talent and the ones we see succeed are just the ones that came in stronger. On the other hand, I feel like the BB/EB talent pool has tended to be more consistent over time.
Is this all anecdotal? I could see this as just being a trend at my alma mater, so just wanted to see if others are noticing this? If you're also seeing this trend, what do you think is driving this? Are MBB firms placing lower priority on GPA / "prestigious" clubs? Are MBB firms just increasing class size so I'm just seeing a broader range in the quality of the intake?
P.S. when I'm thinking of the lower quality intake, I don't think it has anything to do with diversity-- these are people of the stereotypical IB/consulting backgrounds...
1. I think MBB talent is as strong as ever given the general rise in interest of consulting relative to banking... this is less apparent at the UG level but at the MBA level they are by far considered the most desirable employers.
2. Consulting placements are in large part based on case interview performance, which not every kid manages to grasp. A 3.6 GPA kid that is awesome at cases has much better job prospects than your notional 4.0 GPA kid who bombs. Without sitting in on the interviews or practicing cases with people you don’t really know who is good.
Very much agree with the desirability of MBB at the MBA level. This applies to undergrad only.
Why so at the MBA level?
From what I've seen, the calibre of people joining MBB has actually improved over time. Processes are now more competitive than ever, and some of the top candidates (3.7+ GPA, target schools, strong internship experiences) end up being rejected from MBBs and join T2s (OW, LEK, S&) instead. Due to the increased talent pool, I would argue that it has become even more difficult to distinguish between candidates that join a T2 vs MBB if you put them together in a room.
On the other hand, I don't have enough info on the talent pipeline at BBs/EBs to be able to comment.
I think it's always been very difficult to distinguish the intake between MBB and T2.
For reference, I have access to resumes/GPAs in some of the recent graduating classes at my school (target for all 3 of the MBB). In the class of 2020, roughly 40% of the class going into MBB graduated with highest honors (>3.8). None of the McKinsey class graduated with highest honors. The class of 2021 has an even lower rate than that, based on sophomore/junior grades. Maybe I've always been overly biased towards GPAs, but I've always understood MBB to take "top-of-the-class" type candidates whereas banking was truly looking for the finance studs and cared less-so about GPA. Moreover, it's possible that my alma mater has a strong finance bias and thus those in banking stood out more than those going into MBB.
Anyways, do those numbers line up with other schools (not understanding monkey shit on this thread but whatever)?
Not even sure what the point is of comparing IB to Consulting to see which one is more competitive.
Looking at a handful of resumes/linkedin profiles isn't exactly a credible way to establish a pattern. Maybe I'm wrong?
It's not. That's why I'm asking here to see if others see this trend? But see above for some data. Graduated from a target school for MBB. The point was to illustrate that banking intake has not really changed while consulting has.
Eh, I think there is actually more of a dilution in talent across consulting and banking where truly top people go into tech. There weren't many that I would have classified as truly top candidates from my HYP who went into either consulting or banking, the really really sharp and driven people went into tech. I know a number of people who turned down top buyside gigs to go to startups (ranging from series A to late stage unicorn). I would say the difference between banking and consulting is that consultants are traditionally smarter in that they have better grades, etc but bankers are probably more street smart if that makes sense.
Thanks, I anticipated somebody bringing up tech. My perception has been that tech has grabbed a lot of the "best-and-brightest," yes, but I think finance will always attract a well-defined group (i.e. the finance hardo). Not necessarily street smart, but somebody who can easily form a view on a potential investment, can visualize a more complex model, and very sound grasp of valuation/accounting/deal analysis, etc. To me, that type will tend to stick to finance. Does consulting attract a well-defined type? To me, tech has a far greater overlap with consulting than finance.
Read above posts for my point on grades-- I was under the assumption that consultants had higher grades for a while, but that has not been the case at my school. I would say if you compare BB/EB (lets just say the all BBs besides the two at the bottom and the ~6-8 firms that fall under strong boutiques to be conservative), grades tend to be very similar. Only difference is that the consulting pool seems to be less interested in finance/investing.
I think the types who are very interested in deal analysis etc will always go into finance but, frankly, the people who were truly interested in finance to that depth arent that many to begin with. So many people from targets who get these jobs are just interested in lucrative career paths. Also, this type has some intrusion from tech because a lot of these people find tech investing to be more interesting given how good returns in Cloud etc have been, but VC/growth are also less strict about the finance background and you see more people go into PM/consulting roles.
I agree on the point that consulting doesn't attract a well defind type. There are a few subsets I see pop up (like premed suddenly re-evaluating) but consulting has always been the career path for a smart kid who doesn't know what to do/doesn't want to do IB hours.
Grades wise its hard to tell because you only really know the grades of so many people but at least in my experience, the consulting folks were definitely higher GPA wise (often course rigor too)
I'm always confused by what people mean when they describe others as going in to tech. Are these roles all SWE or is there something that I'm missing?
Yeah I'm confused too. It is basically just software engineering with maybe a few PM roles, but those type of people were always going to be in engineering rather than consulting even 20 years back.
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To be honest, as someone who got a Google SWE offer and an MBB offer, I disagree. If you're a CS major, coding interviews are very straightforward to study for. Also, plenty of FAANG SWE interns decide to go to MBB instead of work at FAANG anyway.
I think conflating GPA to talent at a certain point is just wrong. The difference in intellect between a 3.7 and 4 student isn't huge if the major is the same. If anything, things are getting more competitive as the skillset of applicants is expected to be more robust. I also think we have to keep in mind that grades are a decent proxy for predicted career success, but just because students with high GPAs tend to be successful, that is not always the case. As others mentioned, other industries are also paying very well now and tech is drawing a lot of talent as well.
This is a very fair argument, thank you-- conflating grades with talent is indeed the premise of my post. But to push back, how do you define talent in consulting? The common wisdom (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the skills of a consultant are very ambiguous, but that consulting requires a combination of strong communication and intellectual curiosity. It's easy to point to the 3.9+/Rhodes or Marshall Scholar type and say they fit that bill. But what happens when you deviate from that path? What do you pay attention to?
In finance, the skillset is defined around understanding accounting, valuation, deal analysis, and having strong investor instincts. When I interview candidates, I know what to judge them by.
In my experience, the single most important thing that is directly correlated with success (at my MBB) is the ability to learn things quickly. Hence, the emphasis in case interviews to create frameworks and ask the right questions. In consulting you're always ramping onto new subjects orinteracting with clients who have worked in the industry for 20+ years, and thus being able to take an ambiguous / foreign concept and structure your thoughts / understand the concepts are super important
In comparison, I think in banking you do the same thing over and over again until you become a master at it. In consulting, you rarely do the same thing over and over again (as a junior person - obviously you start specializing as you get more senior)
Maybe the people at your school just suck
Solid point. Not kidding. But at the end of the day, they're still going to represent and constitute a solid portion of the MBB classes... like 10+ at Bain and McKinsey each per class depending on the year...
You don't think this applies to your school I'm guessing? That was the point of this thread.
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