Are you thinking of going into management consultancy? Maybe working for McKinsey instead of Goldman Sachs? Maybe specializing in Powerpoint presentations instead of Excel?
Don’t.
Not only will consulting be bad for your wallet, it will almost certainly be detrimental to your relationships.
As exhibit one, we have the charts below, produced by Emolument.com, the pay benchmarking specialist.
Exhibit one:
As exhibit two, we have an interview with Brian Rolfes, an Oxford and Cambridge graduate who’s McKinsey’s global lead for recruiting.
Exhibit two:
Brian Rolfes
In an interview with Poets and Quants, Rolfe explains that McKinsey is addressing consulting’s notorious work-life balance (‘never-ending travel [to client offices’] away from loved ones’), by operating a “local office-driven staffing model where staffing people on projects with local leadership is the default.” In simple language this seems to suggest, that as a McKinsey consultant, you’ll be working with clients based close to your home office, and will be able to return to your family every night. That’s all very well if you’re based in the US – where McKinsey has 22 offices, but the consultancy only has one UK office - in London. If you’re staffed on a project in Manchester you’re therefore still very likely to be away from home all week, and to find yourself travelling back to work on a Sunday night.
Is it really worth it for a fraction of what you could be earning in banking?