Career paths

The Perks of Becoming a Consultant

The special perks top consulting firms offer their employees.

Consulting is often seen as a very mysterious role. Considering the range of consulting functions, industries, and day-to-day tasks, it can be difficult to wrap your head around. But before you start interviewing at top firms, you should figure out what you're getting yourself into. I'm here to help.

I spent a summer interning for one of the top management consulting firms in the world. Here's what I can tell you about the role, the perks, and the reasons consulting may appeal to you.

Responsibilities

Many people, especially undergraduates, do not understand what consultants do. In part, this is because the range of responsibilities a consultant may be taking on is incredibly wide. Different cases have different objectives, resulting in different actions the case team has to take.

High-Level

To understand what consultants do, we must first recognize that clients, ranging from non-profit organizations to startups to Fortune 500 Corporations, approach consulting firms when they have a critical business problem. Some problems include how to enter a new market, how to release a new product, or how to increase profits. Clients may require the help of consultants for a number of reasons. Usually, the client will hire consultants, because it does not have the manpower or expertise, or because it wants a fresh third-party perspective on a situation.

In order to solve the client’s problem, the case team will establish a framework for solving the problem. This framework often involves multiple approaches or avenues for analysis that, together, will provide a complete picture of the solution. For example, if a client is experiencing declining profits, a case team will often investigate both revenues and costs. If a client is looking to enter a new market, a case team may look at not only the specific competitors in that industry, but also the industry as a whole. A consultant will generally focus on one avenue, or work stream, on the case.

Day-to-Day

The work stream itself may have diverse requirements, which impact the consultant's day-to-day routine. Some may require a consultant to model projections in Excel, code a statistical analysis in Python, or research the ins-and-outs of a product, company, or industry. Work streams will then come together to discuss their progress and findings, which will hopefully lead to a clearer understanding of next steps. Of course, a significant responsibility of the role is communicating your findings to the client, which is why consulting is notorious for using PowerPoint and editing slides. Consultants are expected to create clear and concise slides that showcase their analysis and findings to the client.

Prestige and Exit Opportunities

Why Consulting is Prestigious

Consulting is viewed by many as a very prestigious career option. A full time position at MBB (McKinsey, Bain, or BCG) is one of the top badges of approval you can have in the business world. This is because it is well known by industry professionals that consultants have one of the most well-developed and holistic skill sets.

Consultants have to think structurally, making sure their methodology and frameworks are not overlooking any extreme cases. Yet, consultants also have to think creatively, considering solutions that have yet to be explored. Consultants need the hard skills to create accurate Excel models or code standard data analyses. At the same time, consultants need the soft skills to communicate effectively with their team and clients. Most importantly, consultants know how to learn quickly and be adaptable. They are thrown into industries in which they have zero experience and often have to work with many moving parts that can be constantly changing. Surviving a few years in consulting signals you have the problem solving skills to take on nearly any task, and professionals recognize this.

Where Ex-Consultants Go

As a result of the prestige and holistic skill set that a role in consulting provides, the exit opportunities are bountiful. A few years in consulting will open nearly any door in the business world. Some consultants will choose to join a startup they feel particularly passionate about. Many consultants will pivot to finance, specifically venture capital or private equity, where they can continue to make use of their Excel financial modeling and business research skills. Some may pivot to tech in software engineering or (more likely) product manager roles, taking the coding and team management skills with them. Others will join corporations or well-known brands, often working on the strategy side.

Compensation

Similar to positions at major finance and tech companies, the compensation that comes with a management consulting position can certainly make the long hours and stress worth it. Typically, undergraduate students are most interested in learning about three aspects of a position’s compensation package: the base annual salary, the performance bonus, and the signing bonus.

Base Salary

Base annual salaries at top consulting firms generally range from $85,000 to $100,000 per year. Most analyses will place a salary of this magnitude in the top quartile, if not quintile, of annual incomes in the US. So, for many, this can be a life-changing compensation package, and it is no surprise that these positions are so desirable and competitive.

These salaries are generally comparable to those of investment banking positions at bulge bracket firms, like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. However, software engineering roles at the big tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft generally have starting salaries of at least $100,000. Entry level software engineering and consulting salaries differ in two important ways:

  1. While entry-level software engineering roles have higher starting salaries, the trajectory and growth for consulting salaries is greater.
  2. Unlike tech companies, most consulting firms have a flat entry-level salary across the US. That is, most consultancies will not adjust the starting salary to the cost of living in the office’s city. So, while it can be exciting to live in New York or San Francisco, you may want to consider the high cost of living when you decide the office to which you apply.

Bonuses

Other components of the compensation package are the bonuses. As a way to incentivize and congratulate a new employee, compensation packages typically include a signing bonus. For undergraduate students, it may be given before the job starts, or up to a month into your work. For entry-level consultant positions, these bonuses typically range from $5000 to $10000. The other bonus included in compensation packages is the annual performance bonus. In order to incentivize strong performance, firms will reward employees with annual bonuses typically ranging from $15000 to $25000, based on their performance that year.

For those interested in internship opportunities and their compensation packages, most firms will typically prorate the annual base salary of a starting full-time consultant according to the length of the internship. For example, a firm that pays a starting full-time consultant $90,000 per year will typically pay their interns between $1700 to $1800 per week. Some firms will include a signing bonus, typically less than $5000. However, no firms provide interns with performance bonuses. Instead, firms will often reward strong performing interns with a return offer, either for another internship or for a full-time position.

Perks

Many consultants would consider the perks of the job as an asterisk to the compensation package. After a summer internship in consulting, I can certainly see why. The monetary value of some of the perks I received during my eight week internship alone totaled thousands of dollars.

Corporate Credit Card

One of the most significant perks was the corporate credit card. Because I was on a traveling case, I was given a corporate credit card that I could use on expenses incurred during my weekly business trips to the client site. As one might expect, I could use the corporate credit card to cover my round-trip flights from my home office in Chicago to the client site in Los Angeles and the three nights at the hotel in which I would stay while in Los Angeles. Of course, Ubers to and from the airport, the client site, and the hotel were also expensable with the company credit card. However, I could also use my company card on food throughout my travels. This meant that every meal from Monday breakfast to Thursday lunch (in addition to my morning coffee and afternoon snacks) was completely covered by the firm.

While I was surprised by this perk at first, it made more sense to me as the internship went on. I realized that the most important assets to every consulting firm are its people. While a factory may require tending to its machinery for maximum efficiency, consulting firms must take care of their people. Clients pay large sums of money for consultants to solve incredibly complex problems, and strong performance on one case with a client can often mean more cases with the same client in the future. Thus, firms are incentivized to treat their employees well, so they can put forth their best work possible.

It is important to note that there are limits to this perk and policies are set by firms for expensing purchases to the corporate card. These policies can differ from firm to firm and even from case team to case team. During my internship, everything that I expensed had to be submitted in a reimbursement report, detailing the transaction and its purpose (food, flight, transportation, hotel, etc.). For some expenses, a receipt was required. For my case team, I was given the guidance to “be reasonable but not worry too much” when it came to how much I could spend on meals. However, on other case teams, there may be a more strict budget, and at other firms, there may be a per-diem policy.

Loyalty Points

Another significant perk (related to the corporate credit card) is the loyalty points or rewards. Because consultants travel (and purchase) so much, there are many loyalty programs that can be taken advantage of, and most consultants have thoroughly thought about the best practices for optimizing such rewards. Some of the most notable programs to sign up for right away are the ones for airline points and hotel points. A consultant’s typical travel schedule consists of two flights and three nights at a hotel per week. As a result, consultants are able to accrue loyalty points incredibly quickly. To give you a sense for how quickly consultants can progress in loyalty programs, I successfully reached Southwest A-List status in addition to Marriott Silver Elite at the end of my eight week internship.

However, it is important to note that during my internship, I only traveled for seven weeks, my first two weeks of flights were on American Airlines instead of Southwest, and my case team switched from a Marriott hotel to a Hyatt hotel halfway through my internship. I had not optimized for these loyalty programs, yet I still reached some sort of status. Status and points with these programs are valuable, because they can be used towards flights, hotels, or upgrades for personal travel. In fact, with the points that I saved from my internship, I was able to purchase my flights to school for the entire academic year for free.

Travel

As I have mentioned, and as you have likely heard, most consultants do travel as part of their job. Being able to work at the client site allows for much more efficient communication and transfer of information. Additionally, being able to observe the client itself can sometimes help diagnose issues. However, the future of the traveling consultant culture may change after COVID.

Standard Travel

Before COVID, the typical travel schedule was as follows: You take a flight early Monday morning from your home office city to the client site. For clients that are very far, it is sometimes possible to request to fly in Sunday night instead, which means an additional night in the hotel. Then, you work at the client site during the days and spend your nights in a hotel. On Thursday, you take a flight from the client site city back to your home office city. The departure time of this flight will vary depending on the demands of your client and case team. Due to time zones, I was allowed to take a flight from Los Angeles around 1 pm, so I could arrive at Chicago around 7 pm. This also meant that I would work on my flight. Other teams would spend a full working day at the client site before leaving for their flight. On Friday, consultants on the case team work out of their home office, and they cycle repeats the following week. It is important to note that firms do assign consultants to cases differently. It is possible that your cases, and thus travel, will be restricted to ones in your region. It is also important to note that you can indicate that you would prefer to be on a local case, so you do not have to travel. However, if you are in management consulting with one of the top firms, it is nearly guaranteed that you will be required to travel for at least one of your cases.

Alt Travel

The other aspect of travel for consultants is what some firms may refer to as “alt travel” or “flex travel”. This is a perk that allows consultants to travel for personal reasons on the company’s dime. As with nearly all of the aspects of the role mentioned, the policy for this perk differs from firm to firm.

One common way that this perk is implemented is that consultants are allowed to use the budget from their round trip towards one of three alternatives: a hotel at the client site city for the weekend, a round trip to and from the client site city for someone else to visit you for the weekend, or a round trip to and from any city for yourself for the weekend. Note that if the budget is used towards a flight, hotel or other accommodations will have to be paid by you. But also note that you can use your accumulated hotel points for these accommodations, making many of these weekend trips essentially free.

This is definitely one of the most appealing perks for someone like me who likes to travel and visit my friends in their respective cities. However, I would also caution on using this perk too often. Using alt/flex travel does mean that you will be absent from your home office on Friday. An important aspect of consulting is being part of a community like your home office, and it is difficult to be part of that community when you are not there.


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