| Topic Name: |
I-Banking AND Consulting before MBA? |
| Message Name: |
A Few Things |
| Date Posted: |
02/14/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
Sorry, it was late and I wasn't thinking straight. My revised options are:
1) Leave after 1st year to generalist BA in consulting
2) Stay for 2nd year and then do PE, Corp Dev or generalist BA.
My personal preference has always been consulting, but as I said, I did banking for the finance skillset, not to actually have a lifelong career in finance. PE and corp dev sound interesting as something to do prior to b-school, but why not do consulting as soon as I can instead of waiting until after business school?
I can see why not:
1) No career progression (I am only considering generalist, not corpfin practice)
2) Decreasing marginal returns (if I were to be an Associate in consulting after MBA anyway)
3) Quitting banking after 1 year may earn me the nickname of "quitter" with the b-school AdCom. Waiting until finishing 2nd year before consulting would delay b-school by a year when DTA will already take 3 years.
Hopefully this clears up my situation somewhat. I'd appreciate any comments or further questions regarding how switching to generalist consulting after the analyst stint may be positive or negative (a) in the eyes of the AdCom and (b) for my own career development. This is assuming I plan to be an Associate in consulting regardless of pre-MBA jobs. |
| Message: |
You should consider posting this message on the Investment Banking board. You'll probably get more responses (although, your thread may also get derailed into some sort of insult-fest.)
Anyway, my suggestion is to not be so quick to throw away your IB experience...unless you're going to PE; in which case it will be many of the same skills. The point I am trying to make is that your concern should be less about the "Adcom" viewing you as a quitter and more about the fact that you have ALREADY gotten into the madness of being an Analyst, why not just finish the 2 year program??? You have a long career ahead of you. Don't be so quick to declare yourself as having finance and accounting skills and skip to the next thing. You don't risk being viewed negatively by the Adcom, rather, you are simply throwing away a component of your skill set that could be regarded positively in the future....especially in consulting. Finish your 2 year program!! It is the hallmark of an entry-level Wall Streeter. (with the obvious exception being that you resign after 1 year to go to KKR.) The next opp. will still be there in a year.
My other question is: Do you have an offer or a well-designed strategy to get a job in consulting? It is not going to be very easy to just ship your resume over to McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz Allen, Mercer, Monitor, etc. You better have something figured out or you might be in for a surprise.
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