Q&A: MBB Manager Continental Europe

jtbbdxbnycmad:

Hi, thanks for this! Very keen to ask you a few questions.

1) Interregional and intraregional differences: how different is non-German NW Europe to the German market? And how different is NW Europe to SW Europe? Disclosure: my real interest is SW Europe but as I understand it, at some level (more in McK, less in Bain, somewhat with BCG) there can be staffing across Europe.

2) what does MBB have - that appeals to you - that you simply could not find in PE? Based on your academic background I suspect you might have found PE (as sort of a banking off-shoot) too repetitive, but would want to know from you directly. Since the European PE market is smaller and less institutionalized than the US one, how would you recommend one go about making a switch from MBB to PE at, say, the Engagement Management / Project Leader / CTL level? Or at the AP / Principal / M level?

3) Your take on different industries, especially Energy, Industrial Goods, and Consumer/Retail: what's your take on the mix of cases, skills learned, exit options, client expectations, etc? Examples: Similar to above, how do exits vary by seniority? In the US, people at the McK-Associate or BB-Consultant level can exit into Manager/SeniorDirector roles, maybe even Director; at the EM/PL level, higher, etc. Is this scaled down in Europe? Similarly, does the business you exit INTO at a corporate vary by the industry the corporate is in?

Thanks!

I have almost exactly the same questions. Looking forward you reply. Thanks

Hey, some great questions! Let's go one by one (may have to cut this off early, Im afraid its going to be one of those nights again)

1. Based on my own knowledge (which mainly relates to BCG and McK) there are four main regions:

*Southern Europe (Iberia, Italy, France) *Central/Eastern Europe (Balkans, Poland, etc). *NW Europe (Benelux, Scandinavia, UK) *DACH.

In general similarities will be greater than differences between regions. Specifically commenting on the difference between DACH and NW I would mention:

*International character: NW is highly international as virtually all offices do not have a strict language requirement outside of English. Also very sought after for internal transfers due to great work-life balance, compensation and general reputation of the region within the global network. DACH is a lot more internal and focused on the local market due to stringent language requirements (with some exceptions for Switzerland) and the size of the internal market (second largest market in the world).

I have also found that the NW offices seem to do more staffing outside of their own cluster (have myself worked all over Europe as well as in Africa, Asia, Australia and the US in my 3 years here) but this is anecdotal and very dependent on firm staffing models. There is also a lot of international mobility between offices within the cluster.

*Industry focus: DACH has a very heavy focus on Industrials and Financial Services (by the nature of the economy) with some areas (e.g. Berlin) also moving into the technology space. NW Europe has a heavy focus on Energy (most firms have the leadership of their Energy practice based in Amsterdam and Houston) and Consumer Goods. I have also worked on engagements in Financial Services (London) as well as Pharma/Health and Public Sector work. Also see a lot of TMT stuff coming up recently but that might be due to my experience (have a lot of background in integrating some advanced analytics solutions into some of our work and this is highly appropriate to how data rich TMT is). So there is are a lot of opportunities out there and I would not worry to much about industry focus when you are joining up out of undergrad.

*Culture: Here we see a huge difference between NW and DACH. Hours here are 55-60 hours with the occasional peak to 70 + 7 weeks of vacation. In DACH we are looking at 5 vacation weeks and 70+ hour weeks. There is a +/-10k EUR difference in compensation at the undergrad level but this difference dissapears after 2 years whereas the difference in working hours does not. NW is also known for being quite informal compared to DACH. As you can tell I am a bit biased in this respect ;).

When it comes to differences between Southern Europe and NW Europe I would say that in hours Southern Europe is closer to the DACH region (in fact, Italy for example is known for having the worst hours, perhaps only second to some Asian offices). Language requirements make the offices themselves more nationally focused. Compensation is also quite a bit lower than NW Europe and DACH but on a COL basis the difference is quite small. Don't know too much about specific industry focuses, have seen a huge variety of engagements come up from that region over the years and their partners also seem quite spread out over practices.

2. My thoughts on PE:

You're exactly on the money concerning my motivations for leaving PE. This was also a result of my fund being very focused on a particular industry (Oil & Gas) and a particular geography. I was looking for more diversity and international exposure. On top of that I wanted to prove I could roll with the best on an intellectual level which lead me to 2 years of research and a move to MBB.

At the EM level the opportunity to move over to a deal team at a megafund (or basically any fund that has a structured recruitment programme/financial engineering focus) has sailed. Most people who I have seen make this move did so just after getting their promotion to the post-MBA level after 2 years and honestly it haven't been many (mostly because people interested in PE tend to self-select into banking, especially with Bain being quite a bit weaker in Europe than in the US).

It is however quite possible to move to an ops focused MM fund and there are quite a few funds all around the continent that almost entirely consist of former consultants. There are 2 routes here: 1) have a lot of DD experience and leverage this to jump to PE or 2) have a strong network and relevant experience in a particular industry that fits with a fund's investment focus. Based on those in my network who have made the jump I would say that 2 is the more common route at this level. Recruitment here is almost entirely based around networking and finding that particular niche for your skill set. For a lot of these funds being slightly more senior (EM/AP) might actually be a pro since so much of the work is based on maintaining and managing meaningful relationships within some pretty tight local business networks. So people in their mid-to-late twenties might raise some eyebrows in that respect.

To end on a personal note: I myself briefly considered making the move to PE in London after 2 years in my role. I however felt that the age factor was working against me (I would have been 27-28 as a pre-MBA associate compared to all the 23-25 year olds running around in the UK). I also enjoyed my lifestyle and felt the compensation difference was relatively immaterial (especially when weighted against the uncertainty of making the move).

On your two points:

Lifestyle: this comes down to personal preference. Purely on an hour-to-hour basis PE is significantly more hours than consulting in this geography (I would say 10+ a week) and you will be working on weekends but you get to be home every day. If you are thinking of settling down that might actually be preferred to fewer hours and free weekends but being in a hotel 4 days a week (or maybe even weeks on end if you're on an engagement on the other side of the world). I've especially noticed that this get hard on colleagues of mine who are in their early/mid thirties and thinking about settling down (I can imagine this kicks in a lot sooner in other countries where culturally people settle down at a younger age).

In my case I don't have many commitments so I actually enjoy the travelling quite a bit and actively seek out as many foreign engagements as I can get under my belt. Instead I just use 2 of my vacation weeks to chill out at home and use the remaining weeks to travel (basically for free due to miles + points). Of course this is not for everyone.

Compensation: PE does pay significantly more at each level, there is no argument here (although the difference drops of quite rapidly with fund size). For me the difference was immaterial for two reasons:

1) Over the last three years I have received plenty of signals that I am good at what I do and that there is a future for me here. At my current pace I could potentially make it to partner in 4-5 years. At that point I'll be in my early thirties, looking at a 7 figure pay cheque. That would allow me to do anything I want to do. Simultaneously I get to travel and work with people I enjoy working with (one thing I really like about consulting is the diversity in people).

2) If I were to transition to PE (or had transitioned earlier) I would be looking at a lot more uncertainty. Sure the pay cheque may be bigger at each level, but there would be a lot of uncertainty with respect to progression since I have never received any signal of my relative ability within PE (although signals of consulting ability are probably correlated with PE ability). Case in point is the many associates that do not get offers to return as VP.

I think a lot of young people make a huge mistake by assuming that they'll be in the top x% of whatever field they choose to work in. You could be, and it is great to be confident, but it is also important to be realistic about your prospects, especially if you have never received an informative and credible signal of your relative ability. A fair and honest calculation of expected future compensation heavily discounts for this sort of uncertainty.

I never really considered it. I completed 2 undergrad degrees (1 in econ, 1 in math/stats) an Msc and an Mphil (Research degree, basically the first 2 years of a PhD). Actively decided not to continue with a PhD after that despite really attractive offers from some of the best universities in my field so I hadalready eliminated that option for myself. Did look into MBAs for a bit and definitely would have done it if I hadn't spent two years of my life getting the Mphil degree earlier.

I'd say that in my current office MBAs are quite rare among those with a business/econ background, its mostly the engineers/lawyers/liberal arts people who end up going for them. McK and BCG are also actively pushing top performers to skip the MBA, with direct-to-associate and direct-to-consultant and subsequent rapid promotions to manager being much more common these days.

Networking won't get you an interview if your CV is not up to scratch. An unknown person with a better CV will always get an interview over someone with a less impressive CV who we just so happen to know.

Beyond that I feel that networking carries some weight but less so than in the US (dont have any personal experience with US recruiting but just based of the stories I hear). Typically networking is quite structured. An example of this are masterclasses and events that a lot of EU offices organize specifically for getting to know interesting candidates, typically a long weekend away in some nice location. These are an ideal opportunity to get your name out to a core group of consultants + recruiters. Since these events select on CV its also a great low-stakes way of testing whether your CV is competitive. Cold calling/emailing is not really a thing here.

I myself participated in an event organized by the biggest consultants operating in my geography (MBB + S&, RB, OW and ATK). This was a 4 day programme in which all firms presented themselves and we got to do cases with them, as well as plenty of opportunity for socializing over lunch/dinner/drinks. Later I joined a similar event organized by my current firm for students studying at top UK universities which was held in London. Simply applied through the standard channels after and went through the interview process as normal.

Not too familiar with their work directly like you said, will try to give some insight.

Roland Berger primarily strong in the DACH region, not seeing much of them outside that. In the DACH region I would say that RB beats out Bain, so that it is McK=BCG>RB=>Bain.

OW is pretty new to a lot of geographies here. Dont know much about the work they do, seems pretty financial services focused. They are hiring really well it seems, but they are also rumoured to pay more than all other firms so they are probably getting all the best candidates that didnt make it to MBB.

I still believe that academia is the best job in the world if you are the right person for it. The people I have met that flourish in this field are those that love their area, they live and breathe their subject. At that point you essentially get paid low to mid 6 figures (depending on institution/location/seniority) to do what you love. Really hard to beat. On average however this does involve sacrificing essentially your entire 20s to being a student with the associated lifestyle (especially know that 6+ year PhDs are more common).

I realized after two years that I simply didnt love it enough, especially when compared to some of the people around me. I still think it was a great investment in my own personal development and I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for your question! I will try to answer this more generally since language considerations are pretty unique to this geography.

Different engagements will have different staffing requirements with respect to language. So an engagement in Germany for example would be sent through to staffing with a "German preferrred", "German required" or "No requirements" marker. These are set by the partner leading the engagement. These restrictions are largely culturally determined. German engagements will typically require German whereas engagements in the Benelux or the Nordics will typically be fine with English. (On a side note, this can lead to some interesting situations: I once saw an Israeli-American partner and a Swiss director lead a Dutch-only engagement for example). Typically these seem to get less stringent with seniority (anyone above manager level will almost exclusively be in contact with C-level people and English proficiency is a given here in most of Europe).

Based on my experience the Swiss offices are quite flexible with language requirements, mostly because many organizations active in Switzerland actually use English as a working language. I think most pharmaceuticals would fall under that category. I also find that specialists typically are not subject to these language requirements since they are typically brought in for a limited part of the engagement and have less direct client contact than the client team does. Specialists are also relatively concentrated (i.e. pharma in Switzerland, oil and gas in Amsterdam, financial services in London) and therefore often work on engagements outside of their base country to cover the entire geography.

In summary, there are a few things working in your favour: (1) Swiss offices are relatively accepting of English speakers (2) Language requirements are often less strict for specialists (focus on expertise, less client interaction, many international engagements) (3) Requirements get less stringent with seniority.

I would therefore suspect that language is only a deciding factor when choosing between candidates that are otherwise similarly qualified so if anything I would prioritize investing in your sector-specific skills so you can really sell yourself as an expert.

Please take this with a pinch of salt though since I have no direct exposure to the hiring process for experts. All of the MBBs have a pretty great culture with respect to reaching out about their hiring process so I would definitely try to get in touch with someone in pharma recruiting and get their opinion.

I'll provide a simple and crappy answer after having studied abroad in Denmark for a while. They LOVE CBS hahaha

Don't have any specific knowledge about Denmark, sorry!