I started writing this article a few years ago and got CRUSHED by a few people on the internet (anyone remember @oneminuteout on Twitter?). Well, I feel a lot more confident in my reasoning and support now, so going to come back to this.
Before everyone freaks out, I am going to follow this up with a piece about why you SHOULD go into consulting as I want to present both sides here.
As a note, this article will mainly focus on post-MBA consulting opportunities, namely with firms like McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, Accenture, and EY Parthenon. The focus here will not be on government consultants like Booz Allen Hamilton or your aunt who is a garden consultant. “Consultant” can have a very wide meaning, so for brevity and clarity, I am going to focus the definition.
What is consulting?
Here is the funny thing, when you ask a consultant this, they usually joke that even they don’t know what exactly consulting is.
In the simplest terms, someone has a problem and they need help solving it.
![Image - 252845] | What People Think I Do / What I Really Do | Know Your Meme](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8179a87c-e161-431a-8d00-06ce92d88898_1056x792.gif "Image - 252845] | What People Think I Do / What I Really Do | Know Your Meme")
Typically, post-MBA consultants are working on strategic problems like:
- Conducting due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, and then follow-up services on how to integrate those new businesses
- Big strategic problems such as why a new product isn’t meeting expectations in the market
- How to improve profitability in a company
These problems are usually complex, may or may not be well-defined, and don’t have a clear answer. Consultants are hired to identify (or even define the problem) and provide potential solutions to senior leadership at a company.
Why Do MBAs go into consulting?
What they will tell you at a recruiting event:
“I am really excited about working alongside a diverse team of ambitious and talented people to solve complex and multi-faceted strategic problems to increase value for all stakeholders.”
What they really mean:
“I want to get paid.”
Ok, that’s probably an oversimplification, but not always that far off.
In the post that follows this one, I will identify some very real benefits of why people go into consulting, but for now, you should know that there are some tremendous benefits for your career, the benefits are excellent, and the top consulting firms are often thought of as a breeding ground for the future leaders of corporate America.
So why should you NOT go into this route?
1. The job is incredibly demanding
Look, I am not saying you should avoid hard work. But know what you are getting into when you start consulting.
A typical work week looks like this:
Gone from home Monday-Thursday (Friday is usually WFH or the local office)
Late nights.
How late?
I will share three anecdotes from friends of mine who went to a top-tier firm after getting their MBA:
- A former SOF veteran I know usually had to decide between staying up late to finish his work or waking up early to get a workout in. He had to make this tradeoff constantly.
- I have a friend who works at a top-tier firm and was recently on an exceptionally demanding project. She would fall asleep in her bed at 2 AM with her computer and then wake up to start working again until 2 AM and did this for weeks.
- Had a friend who got called while on his family vacation and ended up missing half of the trip to address the needs of a client.
So hey, this can all happen in ANY industry. But you can almost guarantee you will have stories like this as a consultant.
As a consulting friend told me, being on a bad project is its own form of Hell.
Anecdotally, I will tell you that at my 1-year MBA reunion, EVERYONE I spoke with at a top consulting firm said they didn’t enjoy it at all.
2. You Aren’t In Charge of Anyone
This can especially be a detractor to veterans. Many of us liked leading teams in the military and look forward to doing it again.
After a few years at a consulting firm after an MBA, you can get promoted to an Engagement Manager, which is very similar to a project manager and you will have more leadership over a team.
But when you start, you are an individual contributor.
3. You May Never See Your Impact
Let’s say a consultant spends months working with a client on a big project and they develop several courses of action that then get presented to leaders at the company. A few things could likely happen:
- The suggestions get implemented right away. Awesome! They get to see the impact of their work quickly.
- The executives like the ideas, but now isn’t the right time. They decide to shelve the work you did until a better time and it takes months or even years for the work to see the light of day.
- Thanks, but no thanks- your ideas never see the light of day. Maybe there was a new executive hired and they want to go a new direction. Maybe they just hired consultants to get the board off their back and had zero intention of ever listening to anything the consultants say.
Living and working in this type of environment can be tough. It can be hard to grind and grind and never see your work make the impact you hoped it would.
4. You Don’t Have Ownership
At the end of the day, consultants do research and make recommendations. That’s it. They don’t own the follow-on of what happens after their solutions.
Let’s be real, this may be a huge attractor for you.
I know a consultant who said they like consulting precisely for this reason. At the end of the day, the responsibility for the decision is not on their shoulders.
That’s on you to decide where the power of owning your decisions matters for you in life.
5. You Can Get Seriously Spoiled
Consulting is known for high pay, great benefits, expense accounts, and staying at first-class accommodations when traveling.
How much?
You can take a look at my alma mater’s employment report here and see that the median base salary for the 46% of the class of 2023 that went into consulting was $190,000.
And even in the work, the world is at your fingertips.
Need a specialized industry report? You got it.
Want access to that niche data? All yours.
After working like this, everything else might seem like a letdown.
6. The Golden Handcuffs are Real
As mentioned above, consultants can make some serious money. After a few years, they can find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Not everyone can match that level of compensation and the exit opportunities that can match are limited and highly competitive.
I recently spoke with a veteran who has been at a top-tier consulting firm since graduating from business school a few years ago. I told him I was going down the path of trying to buy a business. He told me that sounded awesome and that he would probably love to do it, but he just couldn’t justify taking that type of financial risk.
His options are limited.
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7. You May Not Be As Marketable As You Think
I know someone who did consulting for a few years after business school and then got a role in tech. He ended up making less than what he was making in consulting before.
Why?
As an industry insider told him, “You don’t really know anything about tech.”
Consulting makes great generalists. Maybe you focused on a particular industry and did learn some more about that industry, but just like having an MBA isn’t a golden ticket, neither is being a consultant.
You still have to have actual value for the business.
8. You May Be Punting Your Decision
I speak with A LOT of veterans considering an MBA. Many of them say they want to go into consulting because they don’t know what they really want to do and consulting allows them to gain exposure to several different industries to then decide where they really want to spend their time.
This MAY be the right approach for you.
It may also be that you are just lazy and don’t want to take the time to really think about the life you want to create and where you want to work.
Think hard on what your real reasoning is.
9. It Doesn’t Help You Run a Small Business
I hear this one a lot:
“I plan to go into consulting for a few years and then go buy a small business. The lessons I learned from consulting will help me run the small business.”
Um, ok.
Tell me how working with a Fortune 100 company on their Asia go-to-market strategy is going to help you manage a team of plumbers in Kansas?
Yes, at some level, business principles are business principles are business principles. But I think saying that experience in consulting related to a small business is a bit far-fetched.
If you want to own a small business, go do that. Don’t wait out time as a consultant.
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10. You May be Doing It Because it is Expected
Here is a story I’ve seen play out a number of times:
Military Academy Grad→Elite unit (SOF, fighter pilot, etc)→ Top MBA→ Top consulting firm → Few years into it and realize they are doing what everyone else expects of them and not what they want
I think I see some veterans gravitate toward consulting because it seems like the SOF of the business world. They think:
“This is where all the top-tier people go and if I want to really be Alpha I have to also go here.”
But here is the thing- you don’t have to. You have nothing to prove to anyone except yourself.
Just because you have been on the flywheel of accomplishments your whole life and that has propelled you into thinking that you HAVE to go work at a top consulting firm does not mean, in fact, you actually have to.
I am here to tell you that you can do whatever you want.
If you would like to hear two interviews I recorded where veterans talk exactly about this, you can check out the two interviews below:
Conclusion
My job here is not to convince you of what to do. My job here is to give you frameworks and knowledge to use to make informed decisions about what to do with your life after the military.
Do I have some opinions of my own? Yeah, for sure. And they leak through in my writing without a doubt.
But ultimately the choice of what to do is up to you.
Whatever it is, go crush it.
– Mark
Interested in learning more? Here are a few podcasts I’ve done where we talked about life in consulting:
Ep. 175: HUGE Launch of McKinsey’s DoD Skillbridge Program and Life in Consulting with Lewis Martin
Ep. 87: Service to School, Wharton MBA, Consulting, and Climbing Denali: Alec Emmert
As well as two articles here: