Consulting exit salaries?

Strategy roles in F 500 seems like a mix bagged. Some of these roles are highly visible and involve a good deal of work that makes its way to the C-Suite + helps shape overall corporate direction. Others, however, seem more like second-class citizens at their companies relative to executives in more front-line or direct revenue-generating roles such as Marketing, Finance, General Management, etc.

In terms of pay, your range seems directionally accurate for Director level. The one thing to note though is that these roles can be spring boards into company executive leadership teams, where pay is much more variable and top-line ceiling is higher. This transition is very do able and can easily cause one's comp to jump to north of 1 Mil per year, and quickly.

Source: have line of sight into these roles as a Consultant who often works with VP/SVPs of Strategy or Business/Corp Dev as a primary client stakeholder

Not sure I would agree with everything you've suggested but here is my opinion.

You really can do most things after MBB. In my analyst class, of the ones who left the firm, people did strategy/bus dev at F500, business roles at start-ups, social sector work, grad school (MBA and other) and PE (those who went after it got roles, including top tier shops). Now, some roles like PE and VC may be easier coming out of banking (probably harder out of S&T), but are more than doable if you put in the time to studying and respond to all the headhunters.

In terms of comp, it will really depend on the position. Keep in mind the director level roles you referenced would be for someone who is 5+ years or so at MBB and not an analyst after 2 years. For director of strategy comp, that will be dependent on industry and COL. For a tech firm, someone after 2 years of consulting will clear $160 and probably close to $200. For something like retail, you are probably going to be closer to $125. VC is probably going to start closer to $180-200 all in (can be much lower if at a lower tier firm) for an associate level.

In terms of the work, its kind of up to what you find interesting. I like a lot of the strategy work I do and find other parts tiresome. Overall though, I am happy with my choice and see a clear lane to grow in the company/industry. The other side is most well-performing consultants can go back to MBB and have B school paid for if they go back for a couple years. So if you don't like where you ended up, you almost get a redo.

Last thing is I would be ready to explain going from S&T to Consulting. I really only saw that with a couple MBAs who used that as their transition. It is a very different focus so I would be able to articulate a bit more than just about the exit opps. If your GPA is solid, come from a target and are coming from a top level bank, you should get an interview for sure. But they wll want to understand the rationale for switching so I would think through how to answer that.

interested

I feel compelled to answer this as someone who was in the exact same position last year (graduated in May 2020). I was at a top BB doing S&T, hedged my risk but thinking about consulting recruiting and ultimately went through with it. I did not get an MBB offer but got the next best thing (say between S&/OW). While I haven't started on the job yet, here are a few thoughts I have.

1- If you liked your internship (as best as you could tell with it being virtual), don't underestimate how great of a spot trading at a BB is. Like you said, the desk matters a lot. If you have an offer from a good desk, in an asset class you like, in a team you gel with, you have close to a perfect job. If those things are in place AND you have a strong interest in the markets/trading, take the BB job no questions asked. I did NOT meet the parts of team I liked/trading interest. 

2- Consulting is a great way to start a career. Like mentioned above it really is a solid way to set yourself up in the future. You said you were a technical major so I assume that you would be potentially interested in FAANG/startups even in non-technical roles. Consulting is great for this. Consulting also preserves the option of PE which is probably somewhat important considering you are on WSO. 

3- On salary, if you look at salaries just a few years out, the salaries will track relatively closely between trading/consulting. Once you start getting to the VP level in trading and the equivalent in consulting, the numbers diverge a lot. Trading pay pretty much continuously scales well until the MD level. In consulting, the pay tapers off for a while until Partner, then it gets more even. However, if you are on a good desk, you also have the option to go buyside in which case you will make more than a partner in consulting assuming equal seniority. 

At the end of the day, the career options are actually fairly different. It should be somewhat clear if you really think about what you really want. If you have a strong enough affinity for finance/trading, you will want to stay. If you are strongly considering a bunch of other options like F500, VC, startups, etc... consulting is the clear winner. I would also not worry a ton about exit opps. I would say the only real thing that would be very difficult to get would be PE. If you decide you want to do PE, pretty much the only option would be to internally transfer to banking and recruit out of there. F500, VC, startups, etc can all be solved with varying degrees of difficulty between networking and any decent B-school. 

Just to give you more concrete paths on what I am talking about S&T -> startup, S&T -> MBB entry level (with networking), S&T -> B school -> MBB/F500/startup/VC. Those are all viable career paths. VC is probably the hardest one to break into both as a whole and with the S&T background.