I made a post on Blind a while back about my disengagement from the tech industry (SWE) and expressed my interest in pivoting to consulting. I went on to seek advice on whether I’d need an MBA to pivot. Most people said I’d need one. However, one McKinsey guy commented saying that I actually don’t and that I should just go for it and apply! Well, I took McKinsey guy’s advice, polished my resume (geared it towards working with PMs to deliver features and the skills I gained to bring products to completion. Really focused on making my resume more “PMey” and not SWE. I could do that because I work with PMs everyday and sometimes have to do their tasks so I just used this experience lmao). I mass applied to about 50 Consulting firms, and got interview help from my friends in that field as well as a few MBA students from my college (I was in a consulting club on campus despite being a CS major so I know a dozen kids who are pursuing MBAs). Well, all said and done, I am lucky to have received 1st year analyst offers from: 1. McKinsey 2. BCG 3. Bain 4. Oliver Wyman 5. ZS The pay is shit, obviously (since I’m not joining as an associate but as an analyst). However, I spent the weekend thinking about whether this switch is worth it and I came to the conclusion that it’s not. Having said that, I now do know that if push comes to a shove, I can still make something out of my career. McKinsey guy, thanks for jolting me to apply. Happy Monday! TC: 190k
I did consulting for a few years. Lots of pros and cons. Biggest pro - if you make a name for yourself you can strike out on your own and potentially make great money. Requires a lot of networking so not something I've persued, but nice to have that option in the back pocket. I had no MBA BTW
My acquaintance who works as a McKinsey consultant has an MS in Computer Engineering, not an MBA. Congrats, OP.
Congrats, OP! Just wondering, what kind of school did you go to?
Pretty good that you got offers from MBB and some T2s! That's a strong data point. To get hired as an Associate you'd probably need the MBA or ~3+ YoE.
Agreed. Post MBAs start as associates with 190k TC. I make that as a new grad SWE at Microsoft. The offers I got were for pre-MBA analysts so like 110k lmao (that’s like lower than my base salary at Microsoft). Still, it was a great experience and preparing for case interviews definitely made me a stronger person in terms of varied skill set. I now understand how to interpret earnings call 😂