Any consulting folks?

Great stats. Kudos. I wonder what the #s at HBS/Stanford are.

I would say HBS would be inline with Wharton but maybe a little stronger...at Wharton 190 went into consulting and 135 went to the big 3 (so roughly 70%). So it will probably similar at HBS and Stanford...even there not everyone is going to be at the top companies.

How does Diamond ( formerly DiamondCluster) rank in the scheme of things?

Cool stuff, river. +1 from me, too. Are these stats taken from those schools' employment reports?

from last falls employment reports.

Thank you - Kudos. It seems Wharton has a lot more geographic diversity for the domestic offices compared to Columbia.

Its a good firm, you should definitely consider them. It isn't known especially well - no big 3 for sure - but its a well respected firm. I know many people there, PM me if you have qs.

Hey I work at PwC Advisory doing consulting work. The issue is that since each of the Big 4 (besides Deliotte) sold their practices, and they can't use specific verbiage as part of those deals. Hence the use of word Advisory. But they all do similar work. One of the main differences is Deliotte can actually do implementations. In my perspective and based on people I know working there, I would think think Deliotte is more of a Big 4 that also does implementation work a a la ACN, IBM, and Capgemini (all formerly part of a Big 5).

The type of consulting projects PwC Advisory does focuses on Financial Management, Health care, IT, Risk, Investigations, etc. It isn't strategy work nor technical implementation, but rather in between those two. While majority of Advisory are hired out of undergraduate, there are a lot of MBA grads, including from top schools like NYU, Virginia, Texas, and USC.

Edit: Sorry, I blanked and didn't see all the responses after Page 1.

As an addendum, there are a couple small groups that do true consulting work and go head to head against McK and DC on a regular basis. It is true Transaction Services is a different group, though given the lack of M&A activity, they are moving towards more consulting assignments. I have had the experiences that terp is talking about as well, the work I did when I started with the firm wasn't truly consulting (as I was told I would be doing when I joined the firm), but the work I do now is more under the classical definition. Thus, it does exist and it is growing, but not the biggest part.

Would your partner agree with the term "consulting"?

Also, I'm curious, what groups do these Texas/NYU/etc MBAs work in? What level do they come in at? I saw a few MBAs from lower-ranked schools during my time at the Big 4 and it seemed like most of them came in at senior associate positions (compensation: $62-78k).

Cant speak for PwC ... but here in Toronto our Corp Strat practice and some of the other grps within Strategy & Ops pick up substantial folks from Rotman, Ivey and Schulich (the 3 top Canadian schools). I believe comp starts at 90K ... I am not sure what the band is.

I believe it - they have all sorts of practices in Canada, Europe, and Asia and are allowed to undertake a lot more work. I was speaking only for the United States offices. I would be extremely surprised if I saw a strategy practice or strategy work being undertaken by KPMG, E&Y, PwC, or Deloitte & Touche (with the exception of Deloitte Consulting, which is a separate entity) here in the US.

In the 80s and 90s, these were still desirable places to work for MBAs because of the variety of consulting assignments that they would do. Today, if you ask any MBA at an M7 school whether they would like to go work for a Big 4 accounting firm in the US - they will simply laugh at you. If they are assigned anything resembling a "strategic" assignment, it will most likely take up 20% or less of their year, with the other 80%+ being spent on mind-numbing compliance work.

I would tend to agree with your assessment although all things said .. the Big 4 career path is not at all shabby considering the work life balance that can be achieved.

Lets see ... I will use Deloitte & Touche LLP USA - Audit and Enterprise Risk as an example

Post MBA - you land as a Mgr - comp 80-100K

Spend 2-3 yrs and move up to Sr. Mgr - 100-125K

Spend 4-6yr and move up to Principal/Director/Partner - 275-1Mil

Once you start becoming a senior partner and get responsibilities for geographies I can easily folks making upwards of 1.75-2mil.

So given that you 'can' achieve some balance it certainly isnt a shabby place to have a career.

Starting as a manager post-MBA? I've never heard of that in the US. I must say that I am not as familiar with D&T, I am a lot more familiar with E&Y and KPMG. These firms don't value MBAs - they value CPAs and Masters of Accounting degrees. An MBA does not add a lot of value to audit work.

Your compensation targets seem to be in line, except most (> 80%) of the partners cap out in the 250-750 range and the rate of pay escalations is very slow (i.e. most of them won't see 750 until they've put in at least 20 years with the firm). I don't know if other firms are very different, or if the partners at my firm were just fiscally conservative like most accountants are, but even the senior-most (i.e. practice group head or office head) partners at the firm I worked at lived in houses worth around $400-500k and drove modest American-made cars. Not one of them lived in the city or in an upper-class suburb - this didn't exactly scream seven-figure comp packages to me. You need to be a star to get beyond that. Regardless, there are some nice cushy benefits like a pension, guaranteed retirement at age 60, etc. If you like accounting, it's a good path. But don't ever delude yourself into thinking you're a consultant if you work at one of these places.

My partner probably is more cognizant of restricted terms, so may not use those words outright, but yes, it would be referred to as such. But I agree with your original point about so much of Advisory being transaction related. But I've seen both sides and there is a clear difference. But its still not strategy, and I never claimed as such. In my opinion, there is a difference between Audit/Audit Support projects and the consulting projects.

The two groups I know are Financial Management and Risk (my group). Almost everyone in those group comes in an MBA program, usually as a Sr. Associate.

By the way, you can offer any work you want to a client you don't provide, providing it isn't by limited by other business arrangements.

At Texas for example, look how many go back to Big 4s. I think on Hjort's post about the school, it claims as such.

I am assuming a accounting/risk management background prior to the MBA. Otherwise you wont be an attractive candidate in many parts of the firm.

As far as them not being true consultants - no argument on that fron from me. However - my point was quite different. i.e. this may very well be a satisfying career path for many folks who are unable/unwilling to make some of the sacrifices associated with M/B/B.

What's the point of getting an MBA if you already have an accounting/risk management background and want to go back into it? It's certainly not necessary to advance - and these firms never pay for their employees to get MBAs. They know that once employees get MBAs, they will usually be gone from the firm and they will not return.

I can see what you mean by the differences in lifestyle between Big 4 and M/B/B. However, personally, I don't know if the differences in lifestyle are enough to warrant the difference in pay/prestige. Big 4 partners still travel around a fair bit and work some long hours - although I would venture to guess not as much as M/B/B partners.

Cant speak for the accounting side but in the Risk Mgmt space I am seeing a lot of folks do the MBA (often times an Exec one) as they get more senior.

In any case, I am not in the Acct/Risk mgmt side so doesnt apply to me. But overall I think this is not a bad backup choice for many folks.