Financial Consultanting vs Mang Consulting Internship

Hi there,

Congratulations on the offer. In terms of your question:

Q: I will graduate in December, I have an offer for financial Consulting, however everyone says that if I want to get into management consulting, it would be much better to get management consulting experience. How much would financial Consulting improve my chances and resume?

If you just have one internship, then you will have to take the one you have.

If instead you have / could get multiple offers, I would consider the following to decide:

• Where do you want to be in 5-10 years? Look for the company that can help you to achieve that goal faster. You can check LinkedIn for that (see below).
• If you consider the average consultant/partner you talked to in each company, which one would you rather be? You will spend a lot of time with your colleagues in the next years - be sure you choose a company where the people are close to the person you want to become.
• If money and prestige were not a consideration, which company would you choose? This could help you to identify additional elements to weigh you have not considered yet.

In terms of exits (for most people they are a very important factor to join a consulting company), you can check them as follows:

1. Look for alumni of the companies on LinkedIn
2. Check how many moved to your preferred exits in your target region
3. Normalize for the size of the companies in the region

If you want to do extra due diligence, contact Alumni of your university (not current consultants) who worked for one of the companies (bonus if they worked for multiple companies). You will learn more in a 30min call with them than with any online research you might do.

Good luck!

Francesco

Dear,

very interesting question. Very often the consulting world is seen as a unique domain. It's not. Consulting is a general word that comprises many nuances. 

In your case, I can tell you that the role of a functional analyst is very different from the role of a management consultant. The type of activities and output you'll be required to deliver differ from what you'll be asked as a management consultant. In my consulting experience, I often time worked hand-in-hand with functional analysts from other consulting firms because the scope of the project required different skills and competencies.

Trying to stay practical, working as a functional analyst can certainly teach you a lot but it is not a conditio sine qua non for increasing your chances of being a management consultant in the future.

I like to view this case with a metaphor. Think of a restaurant. For all roles within the restaurant, the goal is for the restaurant to be successful and busy. However, the responsibilities of a waiter are very different from those of a chef just as a sommelier has different skills from the restaurant manager.

Therefore, I would favor a work experience in management consulting to stay consistent with your end goal.

However, as always, there isn't a single “magic” path to reach the ultimate goal. And very often achieving it is the result of determination and individual choices (and a dash of luck). I know many examples of colleagues who started out working in totally different consulting fields and ended up working as strategy consultants at McKinsey.

Feel free to DM me to discuss this interesting topic further!

Hi there,

So glad we've been able to help :)

Ok, a few major thoughts here:

1. Do you already have other offers? If not, this is a false choice. Take this offer.
2. Can you get other offers? If so, network + apply to other firms. Ask for a delay on accepting the current offer. Once you have other offers, than make a decision
3. Careful with “end goal” things. My end goal was BCG. I even had this line during week one “We made it guys”. I was the 1st of our cohort of 4 to leave. We still joke about it to this day
4. I did functional consulting (IT) prior to BCG. 100% my functional consulting job lent itself to both my interviews and the BCG job itself.
5. Get experience. Do well. Get promoted. Get lots of responsibility. You can always adjust/pibot your resume/story to match. See point 6
6. Combining point 4 and 5. BEcause of my IT Consulting experience, I can sell myself for a strategy consutlant role, a data anlytics role, and IT Ops role, a developer role, a project manager role…the list goes on. Again, get strong experiences that build up a lot of different skills/responsibilities. I tend to find functional consulting (if for the right company), does this well.

Good luck with your decision. And, remember, you're already “ahead” with 1 offer…that's amazing!

Hello,

Thank you so much for your kind words, glad we were able to help! I think it would be helpful to get a better understanding of your timeline - you mentioned that you're looking for what to do between now and December, are you then planning to apply for management consulting jobs in December? Do you currently have several offers you are deciding between, or just the functional consulting job?

Management consulting positions look for demonstrated leadership, capacity for teamwork, quantitative ability, initiative, and impact. If you can develop and demonstrate some of those skills in a role and then showcase them on your resume and in your interview, that's what you need - you don't have to have management consulting experience to get a management consulting job. So your functional consulting role will definitely be helpful, provided you do a good job and learn some of those skills. Work experience is always very important to have!

Hello,

I'm not sure what your specific question is (whether you are asking what you should do from now until December, or whether you should take the existing job offer and then try and switch later) - so abit hard to give more detailed targeted answers.

Nevertheless I'll share 4 general points:

1. You don't necessarily need management consulting internship experience to get into management consulting
   • What's important is how you frame your existing experiences
   • I myself am case in point on this - i did not have any internships at all actually, during my college years
   • It seems that you already have potentially interesting experiences - craft them into strong points!
2. Management consulting firms often hire people from diverse backgrounds
   • You could always join management consulting again after starting work in financial consulting (or any other field)
   • I've heard and known of people who have joined consulting after careers in the police force, military, teaching, law etc
3. Whatever you end up doing, do it well → excellence and achievement is often recognized widely and does open more doors 
   • It helps if it is something you are passionate about, but it is not always necessary to do something you like. Some people manage to do something well even if they don't really like it
   • If you end up going into financial consulting, make sure you do your best 
   • If you can afford to, explore other potential opportunities that might help you also prepare for management consulting
4. Lastly, there is always another option later to do an MBA and apply again to management consulting
   • If this is a potential path, then point #3 will help you get into a better MBA program

All the best!