Consulting compensation for MBA's - 1st year Associate Forum

[imchuckbass58]

To be fair that 98% is only of the people who reported salaries. The more correct number is lower. But, regardless, just LMAO, LMAO @dingbat. If he really did look up the stats recently, then god save his soul.

Try 89.6%: http://poetsandquants.com/2011/04/25/be ... ing-a-job/

Also dingbat, that's 89.6% THREE months after graduation whereas the law school metric is NINE months. Please save us your research.

It's actually of all students excluding sponsored students and those starting their own businesses (the asterisk "of those reporting salary information" refers to the actual salary information). Business schools are actually required to tally up information on all their graduates, and assume that any not reporting are unemployed (which doesn't matter, since they have nearly 100% response rates):

https://mba-csc.symplicity.com/files/ea ... e7850b8234

As a side note, this is something for law school career services offices to aspire to.

[Anonymous User]

-I think saying "as long you get into a top 10-15ish program you have a great shot at one of these lucrative jobs regardless of grades" is wrong, or at least misleading. First, there are ways to get at whether you have good grades - most schools have dean's list, or some other demarcation of academic merit even if you have a nondisclosure policy. A disproportionate amount of people who get these jobs have those credentials. Second, even at a place like HBS, a sizable amount of people who want consulting don't get it at all (i.e., strike out), and a very small portion (well under a third of those who interview) get any of the big 3 (McK/Bain/BCG). So it's not like you're going to waltz in. Not to mention if you're from a non-target school, it's almost impossible to get in. I'm looking at the summer class list for the largest office of one of these firms. Upwards of 80% come from 5 schools (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, and Columbia), with only four other schools represented at all - all with 1-2 people.

Assuming that's NYC, is it more difficult to get an offer there? I'm considering adding the MBA to my JD due to an interest in MBA careers, including consulting. My school is in the Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, Duke, Cornell grouping (so lower half of the T14 law school, lower half of the top 15 business school), but placement into consulting is over 30% with almost 10% getting MBB. Unlike big law where NYC is the easiest market, are these consulting positions likely in those schools' regions?

As an aside since you have consulting experience and I haven't found a TLS-like message board in which to ask these questions: if someone applies from the schools I mentioned and gets an interview, is it true that the case is what matters at that point? Or is it still an uphill battle relative to the candidates in the schools you mentioned?

[bdubs]

Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, Duke, Cornell grouping (so lower half of the T14 law school, lower half of the top 15 business school), but placement into consulting is over 30% with almost 10% getting MBB. Unlike big law where NYC is the easiest market, are these consulting positions likely in those schools' regions?

There are some significant differences between the business schools in the grouping that you mentioned. There are also significant differences between the recruiting methods for MBB (particularly Bain's organizational structure is much different than McKinsey or BCG). I wouldn't apply to a JD/MBA program in order to get a better shot at MBB. If you can't land it as a JD, you probably won't fare significantly better as a JD/MBA (or at least not so much better that its worth the time and money).

[lawlcat4179]

Got a question for someone who is familiar with management consulting.

Say you go and get your JD, decide you don't like law and happen to get a position with a consulting firm. I hear that these firms have forced attrition at a much higher rate than biglaw. So if you take the risk and go consulting, but get forced out after 1 year, what do you do from there career wise? I'm assuming it would be too early to have meaningful exit options into management, and you would be basically blacklisted from law. Would your options be dependent on the prestige level of your consulting work, or would it not really matter since you've only been there for a short time? Assume in this case the person has no meaningful pre consulting work experience.

I'm trying to gauge the risk level if someone was to pass over biglaw to go that route.

[Anonymous User]

Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, Duke, Cornell grouping (so lower half of the T14 law school, lower half of the top 15 business school), but placement into consulting is over 30% with almost 10% getting MBB. Unlike big law where NYC is the easiest market, are these consulting positions likely in those schools' regions?

There are some significant differences between the business schools in the grouping that you mentioned. There are also significant differences between the recruiting methods for MBB (particularly Bain's organizational structure is much different than McKinsey or BCG). I wouldn't apply to a JD/MBA program in order to get a better shot at MBB. If you can't land it as a JD, you probably won't fare significantly better as a JD/MBA (or at least not so much better that its worth the time and money).

Is the access to MBA OCI not worth the additional year? I wouldn't be doing it strictly for consulting. Aside from corporate transactional, most MBA options seem much more interesting than law.

As far as schools, maybe Haas and Fuqua place slightly better into consulting than the rest based on the most recent P&Q numbers, but the grouping seemed comparable.

[20130312]

Uh, where are you getting these numbers from? Also, the prospects for most MBA candidates to get a job at any of these companies, let alone the positions that would pay this much, are fairly low. Let's not forget that MBA candidates that get these jobs typically already have at least 5 years of experience in the field already.

Are you even in business school?

This is absolutely wrong....I know management consultants at MBB that have engineering backgrounds. And keep in mind that you're not competing w/ the entire class for these jobs,...large numbers of people don't want anything to do with management consulting.

We have a good lawyer on our hands - (s)he placed a qualification.

The qualifier is also wrong. I've actually found that many folks going into b-school with consulting experience are repelled from management consulting, because they've just grown tired of it. I don't have stats,..but i'd guess a good number of management consulting recruits don't have any consulting experience.

Oh, so you're not in b school yet. Thanks for posting.

[moose]

The OP who started this thread is on crack. I worked in consulting prior to law school. Those total compensation figures ARE TOTALLY DISTORTED.

Base salary is $75-$120k depending on the firm. Signing bonus? In this economy? Puh-lease! If you are so lucky. And it would most likely not be $40k...Then year-end bonus? Puh-lease! In this economy? Consultants are lucky to even have a job, let alone receive a bonus.

Lastly, consultants usually have business experience that they gained prior to their MBA. Law students usually do not have full-time experience. And your salary at a consulting firm can also be tied to what you did prior to your MBA.

I agree the OP that started this thread is on crack, but the starting salary figures for BCG/McK are accurate/actually a little low. Not basing this on hearsay - actual offers. Signing bonuses are $20k.

Also Bain/BCG/McK certainly do not tie comp to pre-MBA work experience - all associates get the same base comp and bonus potential.

So the figures are accurate but I'm on crack? Look, obviously you work in the business,...but take the stick outta your ass,..I was just starting the convo,...I never claimed my original post was the comprehensive authority on B-school job opportunities. If you feel something is off,....by all means correct. I just thought i would share some things I learned,..it was merely a conversation starter. And it looks like it worked because we actually have some folks interested in B-school (or jd/mba) asking some serious questions,....go figure.

[imchuckbass58]

There are some significant differences between the business schools in the grouping that you mentioned. There are also significant differences between the recruiting methods for MBB (particularly Bain's organizational structure is much different than McKinsey or BCG). I wouldn't apply to a JD/MBA program in order to get a better shot at MBB. If you can't land it as a JD, you probably won't fare significantly better as a JD/MBA (or at least not so much better that its worth the time and money).

I agree with this entirely. It's going to depend whether those are target schools. For the firms I'm familiar with, some of the schools you mention are, some aren't.

But placement into consulting is over 30% with almost 10% getting MBB. Unlike big law where NYC is the easiest market, are these consulting positions likely in those schools' regions?

As an aside since you have consulting experience and I haven't found a TLS-like message board in which to ask these questions: if someone applies from the schools I mentioned and gets an interview, is it true that the case is what matters at that point? Or is it still an uphill battle relative to the candidates in the schools you mentioned?

The type of work you do at MBB tends to be higher level (more strategy or at least ops strategy, bigger impact, higher level clients) than some second tier firms (do more tech and ops, less important projects, lower level clients), and the exit options are far and away better compared to some second tier (Deloitte, LEK, OW, Monitor, Booz) or third tier (Accenture, E&Y) firms, so that's worth considering. I don't mean this in a douchey way - I used to work at a firm most would consider second tier.

If you get an interview (which is extremely hard coming from outside of a target - you basically have to have an in), from there on out it's basically how you perform in the interview process. They'll still look at your resume but it's probably 80%-90% interviews.

[moose]

Oh, so you're not in b school yet. Thanks for posting.

Are you adding anything of value? Seems like there is some good information being shared in this thread, regardless of whether i'm in b-school or not. I plan on attending this fall,..but whatever.

[imchuckbass58]

Got a question for someone who is familiar with management consulting.

Say you go and get your JD, decide you don't like law and happen to get a position with a consulting firm. I hear that these firms have forced attrition at a much higher rate than biglaw. So if you take the risk and go consulting, but get forced out after 1 year, what do you do from there career wise? I'm assuming it would be too early to have meaningful exit options into management, and you would be basically blacklisted from law. Would your options be dependent on the prestige level of your consulting work, or would it not really matter since you've only been there for a short time? Assume in this case the person has no meaningful pre consulting work experience.

I'm trying to gauge the risk level if someone was to pass over biglaw to go that route.

First of all, it's extremely rare to be forced out after one year. You really have to fuck up (or experience an economic disaster like 2008/2009). The first real cuts are at the 2-year mark, and even then, it's pretty low. Between years 2-3, probably 40% of people leave, with a pretty even mix between voluntary and involuntary attrition (maybe 50/50, it's hard to say). People tend to say if you're middle of the pack, it's not too hard to make the first promotion point (to engagement manager/project leader/whatever they call it) after 2-3 years. It's the second one (to principal/associate principal depending on the firm) where the really brutal cuts happen. But by then you have pretty great exit options.

After 2 years, you will actually have pretty good exit options, at least at MBB. The big three paths are "industry" (strategy role at a company), private equity (evenly split between transactional and strategy/ops roles), or another consulting firm. There's also a smattering of government, starting your own business, or academia, but these paths are relatively rare. Unlike in law, you actually do meaningful work and meet people your first 2 years in consulting, so the experience is actually considered pretty valuable.

[Blindmelon]

This is your potential compensation if you work at one of a very, very small handful of consulting firms. Outside of the firms you listed and a few others, you're looking at starting around 80k a year with an MBA. There are many, many more bigfirms that pay 100k+ than there are consulting firms that do. Yes, legal hiring is rough, but MBA hiring is arguably worse.

Also, interesting work as a 1st year consultant? Sigh... the myth continues. A lot depends on the project you are on. Much of the time consulting is more tedious and brutal than even document review.

[20130312]

Oh, so you're not in b school yet. Thanks for posting.

Are you adding anything of value? Seems like there is some good information being shared in this thread, regardless of whether i'm in b-school or not. I plan on attending this fall,..but whatever.

You're posting inaccurate data about consulting compensation on a law school/legal employment forum. So not only are you saying things that are wrong, you're not even doing it in the right spot.

[imchuckbass58]

Also, interesting work as a 1st year consultant? Sigh... the myth continues. A lot depends on the project you are on. Much of the time consulting is more tedious and brutal than even document review.

Agree it depends on the project. It also depends on what you find interesting.

To clarify, it's not like you're going to be hobnobbing with CEOs and expounding your thoughts on strategy your first year (though you may meet some CEOs). You'll probably be cranking excel and powerpoint, and working with junior clients to get data/do interviews/otherwise collect information. Some people may very well find excel/powerpoint less interesting than doc review, but I would say it's much better, personally.

[moose]

Oh, so you're not in b school yet. Thanks for posting.

Are you adding anything of value? Seems like there is some good information being shared in this thread, regardless of whether i'm in b-school or not. I plan on attending this fall,..but whatever.

You're posting inaccurate data about consulting compensation on a law school/legal employment forum. So not only are you saying things that are wrong, you're not even doing it in the right spot.

The data is accurate,..even chuckbass (who disagrees strongly with my OP, and who is obviously knowledgable about the business) says that the data is accurate, even on the conservative side.

Also,..it takes nerve for you to say this post doesn't belong in this forum. There may be some (perhaps many) posters who are contemplating a JD/MBA who may not know anything about the consulting options. Likewise,..there may be some posters still undecided about attending law school or working for 4 years and applying to B-school. This simply gives them something to think about,..a couple of the posters on this thread (even if you think i've contributed nothing) have already shed some great light on the business. We have many posters asking serious questions about MBA/consulting opportunities,..so again,..quit being a dick.

[Morgan12Oak]

lol just lol. someone needs to go into an MBA forum and start a thread like this and only use first year compensation at the following firms:

Wachtell, Boies, Susman Godfrey, Quinn

I don't quite understand the motive behind a post like this - it's clearly not to inform potential JD/MBA candidates of their options, but only a subset of them which is entirely misleading.

[moose]

lol just lol. someone needs to go into an MBA forum and start a thread like this and only use first year compensation at the following firms:

Wachtell, Boies, Susman Godfrey, Quinn

I don't quite understand the motive behind a post like this - it's clearly not to inform potential JD/MBA candidates of their options, but only a subset of them which is entirely misleading.

A couple of posters have already asked some good questions,..and seem to be learning valuable info. If you don't think its much use,..by all means don't read or post.

One of the mysteries of internet forums, people bitch about posts they don't have to read or reply to.

[Blindmelon]

lol just lol. someone needs to go into an MBA forum and start a thread like this and only use first year compensation at the following firms:

Wachtell, Boies, Susman Godfrey, Quinn

I don't quite understand the motive behind a post like this - it's clearly not to inform potential JD/MBA candidates of their options, but only a subset of them which is entirely misleading.

A couple of posters have already asked some good questions,..and seem to be learning valuable info. If you don't think its much use,..by all means don't read or post.

One of the mysteries of internet forums, people bitch about posts they don't have to read or reply to.

His point is that this thread is misleading, which it is. I worked in consulting pre-LS and MBAs made 80k/year with a small winter bonus. Very, very few MBA grads will make this type of money coming out. To choose to get an MBA over a JD for a 1% chance of making good money in a great consulting firm is like going to law school to work at Wachtell, Boies, or Susman (why is Quinn in that list?).

[moose]

lol just lol. someone needs to go into an MBA forum and start a thread like this and only use first year compensation at the following firms:

Wachtell, Boies, Susman Godfrey, Quinn

I don't quite understand the motive behind a post like this - it's clearly not to inform potential JD/MBA candidates of their options, but only a subset of them which is entirely misleading.

A couple of posters have already asked some good questions,..and seem to be learning valuable info. If you don't think its much use,..by all means don't read or post.

One of the mysteries of internet forums, people bitch about posts they don't have to read or reply to.

His point is that this thread is misleading, which it is. I worked in consulting pre-LS and MBAs made 80k/year with a small winter bonus. Very, very few MBA grads will make this type of money coming out. To choose to get an MBA over a JD for a 1% chance of making good money in a great consulting firm is like going to law school to work at Wachtell, Boies, or Susman (why is Quinn in that list?).

Fair enough,..the intent wasn't to mislead.

[Morgan12Oak]

I don't doubt the legitimacy of these jobs. I doubt the context in how they are being portrayed. In the initial post it comes off as if you are saying these jobs are available to anyone at a top business school generally whereas these are relatively elite consulting jobs.

[EMZE]

I worked with a bunch of head hunters while I was trying to figure out my best option out of my current job. I spoke with a couple of these companies, and most of what I got was that they take MBA's or JD's or JD/MBA's just the same. They also take those with only a B.S./B.A. that have good work experience. The program I applied for was 1 year at 90k, 2nd yr at 110k, and 3rd year at 160k. At that point you were at the same level as someone coming in with an advanced degree. From what they told me, they would rather take those with 5+ years leadership/management experience and culture them around their own model than have a school do it for them.

If you want to work in law, go to law school. If you want to work in business, go to b-school. That's really the best way to go about making that decision. And if you don't know which one you want to do, you might as well get some work experience while you figure it out. Or just get an MBA, since that's not nearly as career limiting. I'd venture to say that if you wanted biglaw, a career path that would probably set you up well would be undergrad -> work -> MBA -> better work -> J.D. That is by no means necessary, but you can shelve an MBA more easily than a JD. The downside is that the greatest benefit of an MBA is the connections you make, much more so than what you learn.

[20130312]

I worked with a bunch of head hunters while I was trying to figure out my best option out of my current job. I spoke with a couple of these companies, and most of what I got was that they take MBA's or JD's or JD/MBA's just the same. They also take those with only a B.S./B.A. that have good work experience. The program I applied for was 1 year at 90k, 2nd yr at 110k, and 3rd year at 160k. At that point you were at the same level as someone coming in with an advanced degree. From what they told me, they would rather take those with 5+ years leadership/management experience and culture them around their own model than have a school do it for them.

Spot on. This lines up with everything I've heard as well.

[imchuckbass58]

lol just lol. someone needs to go into an MBA forum and start a thread like this and only use first year compensation at the following firms:

Wachtell, Boies, Susman Godfrey, Quinn

I don't quite understand the motive behind a post like this - it's clearly not to inform potential JD/MBA candidates of their options, but only a subset of them which is entirely misleading.

A couple of posters have already asked some good questions,..and seem to be learning valuable info. If you don't think its much use,..by all means don't read or post.

One of the mysteries of internet forums, people bitch about posts they don't have to read or reply to.

His point is that this thread is misleading, which it is. I worked in consulting pre-LS and MBAs made 80k/year with a small winter bonus. Very, very few MBA grads will make this type of money coming out. To choose to get an MBA over a JD for a 1% chance of making good money in a great consulting firm is like going to law school to work at Wachtell, Boies, or Susman (why is Quinn in that list?).

Well, very few MBA grads will make these salaries, but most of the people who go into consulting from top b-schools go to these firms, so it's not misleading if you're considering an MBA at Wharton, Columbia, or Kellogg.

At Columbia, there are 750 students. 20% went into management consulting, so 150 students. Of these (these figures include sponsored students):

-68 went to McKinsey
-15 went to Bain
-15 went to BCG

So 2/3 went to MBB. If you count Deloitte (11), Booz (11) and Monitor (4), you're up near 83%. So from a top-b school, this is very realistic.

[bdubs]

Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, Duke, Cornell grouping (so lower half of the T14 law school, lower half of the top 15 business school), but placement into consulting is over 30% with almost 10% getting MBB. Unlike big law where NYC is the easiest market, are these consulting positions likely in those schools' regions?

There are some significant differences between the business schools in the grouping that you mentioned. There are also significant differences between the recruiting methods for MBB (particularly Bain's organizational structure is much different than McKinsey or BCG). I wouldn't apply to a JD/MBA program in order to get a better shot at MBB. If you can't land it as a JD, you probably won't fare significantly better as a JD/MBA (or at least not so much better that its worth the time and money).

Is the access to MBA OCI not worth the additional year? I wouldn't be doing it strictly for consulting. Aside from corporate transactional, most MBA options seem much more interesting than law.

As far as schools, maybe Haas and Fuqua place slightly better into consulting than the rest based on the most recent P&Q numbers, but the grouping seemed comparable.

I haven't gone through the recruiting process for JDs or MBAs yet, but this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that I know MBA to work.

People generally don't come to business school without some substantive corporate work experience. This work experience, along with where you go to school and how well you've done there, has a big impact on where you are competitive for jobs. People in business school refer to two general camps of candidates "traditional/experienced" and "industry switchers." (i'm sure there are all sorts of other terms, but this gets at the basic concept) If you've worked in an industry before, like finance, you're generally more competitive for positions in that industry because you can sell your skills and experiences. If you're an "industry switcher" you face an uphill battle from the start. You have to craft a story of why you want to go from X to Y. Lots of industry switchers use their summer internship as a transition from their old industry to their new one.

Consulting, generally, is the most open to people who switch professions because it uses a broader and more basic set of skills than most MBA jobs. However, you shouldn't interpret this to mean that experience won't factor into consulting recruiting. Experience is still a big deal. If you are an all around rockstar and can nail the case, you might make up for a relative lack of experience but for 90% of candidates that won't be the case.

If chuckbass disagrees with me though, you can totally take his word and ignore me.

[ajr]

Got a question for someone who is familiar with management consulting.

Say you go and get your JD, decide you don't like law and happen to get a position with a consulting firm. I hear that these firms have forced attrition at a much higher rate than biglaw. So if you take the risk and go consulting, but get forced out after 1 year, what do you do from there career wise? I'm assuming it would be too early to have meaningful exit options into management, and you would be basically blacklisted from law. Would your options be dependent on the prestige level of your consulting work, or would it not really matter since you've only been there for a short time? Assume in this case the person has no meaningful pre consulting work experience.

I'm trying to gauge the risk level if someone was to pass over biglaw to go that route.

What you can do with an MBA after and outside management consulting depends to a large extent on your pre-MBA qualifications and work experience. Do you have a very quantitative background? That will open up a lot of corporate positions. One of my friends is making partner at McK this year; one of them quit as EM and went in-house to a big tech company.

[Anonymous User]

What about a JD/MPA at some consulting firms (especially w/ federal consulting groups)? I assume its nowhere near a JD/MBA but maybes around the $100K range? And does it depend on the level of the MPA?