| Topic Name: |
Consulting newbie |
| Message Name: |
some answers |
| Date Posted: |
01/18/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
I'm applying for positions mostly in IB, but I'm also considering applying to some consulting firms to hedge my bets against the fierce competition at my school (wharton) for a limited number of jobs.
1. What are the top few firms in management consulting?
2. Which firms have programs that would be of most interest to a finance/accounting concentrator?
3. What are the opportunities at Bain Consulting to move into their private equity arm, Bain Capital?
4. Do consultants generally move to Private Equity? (Private equity requires good consulting as well as IB skills)
Thanks,
-e |
| Message: |
Like most BB banks, the 2002 full-time hiring season is mostly over for consulting firms. Internship recruiting starts now-ish.
The "top" firms are generally the high-prestige strategy firms, McKinsey, Boston consulting Group and Bain. (Note: Bain is now separate from Bain Cap. There are some cross-hires, but only so far as Bain consulting looks good on a resume. There is no formal cross staffing).
McKinsey has a B(usiness) A(analyst) track specifically staffed to Fin/Accounting type cases. From what I understand, the split is generally 50-75% Fin and 50-25% general strat. BCG and Bain, especially NYC offices, handle alot of work for banks and financial services firms, but they like to say they develop generalists, so getting exclusively fin/acc type cases is dependent on developing relationships with the partners that sell those cases and finessing the staffing folks.
Some notable smaller firms like LEK have specific private equity practices which do a lot of the business management/scouting work for VC firms. Probably a good place to develop contacts. I know a number of former consultants who made the jump without a whole lot of problems.
This might be a tough year to use consulting as a hedge. These firms are facings as much or more financial trouble as banks and have thus ratcheted up standards for acing cases and passing through to later rounds. It might be a time burden to learn and practice cases to the degree that the competitive situation requires. A better strategy is IB is your first love is to spend the time making conections at banks, boutique shops, funds that do not traditionally come to Wharton or deepening networks in the ones that do via career center resources etc.
As for your chances, consulting firms tend to focus more on interview performance (cases) and work experince more than grades or fit as some banks do. Your quant courses for fin/acct major will be attractive to consulting firms, but the majority of their hires come from lib arts programs (running the gamut from lit to econ and applied math) at the other ivys/stanford/etc so in some ways it will be an apples to oranges comparison and you might be disappointed with the inconsistency of results with consulting firms.
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