I was fortunate enough to receive multiple consulting offers for post mba roles, and trying to make decisions now.
Deloitte
+ reputation
- offer in a mid sized city office Id rather not move to
KPMG
+ small and very new practice
+ partners and managers I spoke to were brilliant, future sounded promising
+ less travel
- not as established as Deloitte and strategy&
Strategy&
+ was impressed by people I interacted with
+ offer is in the city I want to move to, and practice is my top choice
- uncertainty around merger
- some culture issues I have been hearing from other monkeys here
Any remarks? Appreciate your input.
I think it's clear that the top two are Deloitte S&O and Strategy&. Deloitte S&O is more established so if you go that route, it is a very clear defined path with strong clients, leadership and culture. However, Strategy& is growing quicker and PwC is currently #1 of the Big 4 in terms of revenue. I think that you have more potential for earnings at Strategy& if you work hard and the practice continues to grow. If you are risk adverse, I would go with Deloitte.
The mid-sized city thing may be an asset. If you're going to be traveling anyway, you can save a lot of money on rent.
I think KPMG and Deloitte offer an interesting decision and depends on your risk appetite. Deloitte is more established, will offer better short-term exit opps, pay will likely scale higher. If KPMG takes off you could be in a great place at a great time but, even if they do, it might take a few years so you'd want to be in there in for at min 5 years or so. However, you stand the chance of being short-listed to a senior role in the practice. S&, on the other hand, has an opposite trajectory and carries with it issues that are discussed in detail in other threads.
Overall it really depends. I'd probably go Deloitte (because I prefer a more established shop), then KPMG, then S& (I'd rather be in a new, up-and-coming group that doesn't have the current luster than an established, prestigious brand that's been dragged through the dirt as of late but maybe because that's because I've been advising a start-up and it's starting to re-wire me....).
Why do you think S& is lagging behind? I would pick S& over KPMG in a heartbeat.
@Communist: ^this
These seem like minor issues to me. Shouldn't the bigger issues be the projects, clients, and how much an engagement is billed?
If you lose top talent, you lose projects...both because your rainmakers are gone, and because you're under delivering on existing projects. If your reputation decreases, you recruit worse talent (which is happening). Likewise, if your reputation decreases, exit opps for employees get worse.
It's a MAJOR issue, because the only thing consulting firms have are their reputation and human capital...they aren't manufacturing any physical products. Strategy& is destroying both.
Hm interesting. How would you rank Strategy& in terms of the Big 4? Obviously Deloitte Consulting is first but how about KPMG and EY?
Strategy& is definitely still above EY (excluding parthenon) and KPMG, and I expect this to be the case for a while. It's a relative decline...Booz used to be the almost unanimous "number 4 firm" after MBB, but it lost this mantle to Deloitte S&O already, and could very well fall further (depending on what ATK and Accenture Strategy do in the short term). The goal with the Booz merger was to bring PwC up to Booz's level, but instead it's bringing Booz down to PwC level. That said, PwC was probably the 2nd best Big-4 consulting after Deloitte, so it's not like it dropped to the bottom of the ocean or anything.
Apologies for not having much to offer on that actual topic, but just as a quick sidebar, I often see people debating between one firm or another based on the desirability of the office. I am wondering how this happens - are people not applying to the locations they actually want or are firms coming back with offers like 'well we don't have any spots in x, but there is an opening in z." Is is just a result of following best networking channels and sometimes those lead to different cities during the search? I see this a lot here and have been wondering.
I think, if we where talking on a short haul basis, S& would be the one to go, the problem is that the future is blurred and vague by messages coming from ex-Booz partners who says S& is not being diluted into PwC and PwCs partners who argues is much better to do so in order to "strengthen the PwC brand" and sell Strategy and implementation in just one brand.
Try to get your S&O offer moved to a city you want to go to. Doesn't hurt to ask and companies are usually able to accommodate.
From personal experience, Deloitte S&O is pretty supportive of office transfers, particularly if they make sense for personal reasons. If you take the offer in the mid-sized city, you can save money, alt travel on weekends, and transfer to your city of choice after 1 year. SF is the one office that is a little harder to transfer into due to demand, but if you spend your first year making connections in that office / region its not impossible.
I worked at KPMG Strategy this summer and was likewise very impressed. I agree with @Canadiens16 about needing to put in the time to see the investment pay off. I am in a similar position myself with offers from at least KPMG Strategy and Oliver Wyman FS, and am curious to hear how you're feeling.
Do you want to be a consultant forever? If so, KPMG Strategy might be for you if you are a risk loving person. Other brands have stronger reputations which means stronger exit opps to industry and cushy 9-5 jobs.
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