Top New Consulting MBA Jobs at Non-Big Four Firms
While it’s great to aim for the stars, not every MBA can and will land a job at one of the Big Four firms of KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and PricewaterCoopers. However, there are plenty of other new MBA jobs available at other big-name firms. Here’s a look at some of the best new MBA jobs open at companies like Accenture, Wolters Kluwer, BCG, and more. Continue reading…
Top MBA Recruiters: The World of L.E.K. Consulting
L.E.K. Consulting is a leader in management consulting. Headquartered in London and Boston, the company is known for its services in corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and operations. And with over 1,200 employees across 21 worldwide offices, it’s one of the most desirable companies for MBA graduates—trailing only Google—according to a 2017 national survey and ranking by TransparentCareer.
Founded in 1983 by three partners from Bain & Company, L.E.K Consulting offers MBA graduates the opportunity to work across all major industries including defense, aviation, life sciences, healthcare, energy, entertainment, transport, retail, consumer products, and finance. This wide breadth of expertise provides a unique opportunity to explore many different areas while working at a single company. It’s also one of the reasons L.E.K Consulting made it onto Forbes “2018 The Best Management Consulting Firms” list.
Other awards and recognition for L.E.K. Consulting include:
- Named “Strategic Consultants of the Year” at the 2015 Health Investor Awards
- Recognized by the 2016 Excellence in Social & Community Investment Awards
- Ranked #11 in Consulting Magazine’s 2016 Best Firms to Work For
MBA Recruiting at L.E.K Consulting
L.E.K Consulting looks for MBA job candidates who demonstrate exceptional performance and contributions. As a consultant, you can expect your role to involve:
- Regular collaboration with partners and managers
- Answering critical questions through analyses and structured approaches
- Managing your team’s day-to-day activities
In 2017, L.E.K. Consulting hired around 50 MBAs from U.S. business schools, looking for candidates with a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. However, gaining a position at L.E.K. Consulting can be an intimidating experience. They’re ranked as having one of the world’s most challenging interview processes—ranking 3.4 on a 5-point scale—according to Fortune Magazine.
Salary & Benefits of Working at L.E.K. Consulting
According to TransparentCareer, the average total compensation for an L.E.K. Consulting employee with an MBA degree is $252,500. That can be broken down into approximately:
- Base: $150,000
- Performance Bonus: $25,000
- Retirement & Profit Sharing: up to $30,000
- Signing Bonus: $25,000
- Relocation: up to $5,000
As for employee benefits, it’s a large, multi-national organization, so there are many advantages including life insurance/disability, 401(k), paid holidays, and vacation.
MBA Internship Program
One of the best ways for an MBA candidate to get an “in” at L.E.K. Consulting is through their Summer Associate program. This eight- to ten-week program is available for top-performing MBA candidates who want to experience real casework as part of a team.
Students will dedicate 100 percent of their time to a single engagement, which will result in guiding and managing the client to a solution. As a Summer Consultant, you can expect to complete a range of day-to-day activities, and you’ll be responsible for:
- Identifying critical issues
- Structuring analyses
- Managing Associates
- Communicating insights
- Participating in client communication
Summer Consultants have the support of all full-time Consultants at L.E.K. This means that you’ll have a chance to be mentored throughout the summer with guidance and coaching.
International SWAP Program
One unique opportunity that L.E.K. Consulting offers its employees is their SWAP Program. This program gives consultants a chance to SWAP their position with another associate anywhere in the world for a short period. For example, a Boston consultant might head to Paris while the Paris associate heads to Boston for six months. During the SWAP, you do not change your job. Instead, you change your work location for a unique international experience.
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Working at L.E.K. Consulting
What’s it like to work at L.E.K. Consulting? According to Glassdoor reviews, it’s a “fast-paced, dynamic work environment.” However, it can also be demanding and “hard to maintain a work-life balance.” One thing that most employees agree on is that the work is challenging with great people to work with who are talented, smart, and fun.
According to one consultant who has been at the company for three years, “L.E.K. runs teams lean compared to other consulting firms, meaning all team members will have meaningful step-up opportunities and more responsibility/ownership relative to their peers at other firms, earlier in their careers. The work is generally interesting, and the learning curve is steep. This job will keep you learning and challenged.”
On the flip-side, “Work/life balance seems worse at L.E.K. relative to other firms, because of the lean structure. Most projects are under-staffed. In addition, there are no systems/processes in place to retain talent that is burned out.”
What Are The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms in the World?
“Is this going to be worth it?”
If you are currently or have ever considered earning an MBA degree, it’s likely that you’ve asked yourself this question. Given the burgeoning cost of tuition—especially for top business programs—plus the loss in income and cost of living while pursuing your education, it’s a fair question to ask. Does it make sense to invest this sort of money into your education with no guaranteed result?
Of course, many of the benefits of earning an MBA simply can’t be quantified and boiled down to raw numbers. The new opportunities created through study abroad or case competitions, the expansion of your professional network and chance to connect with industry professionals. All of these considerations can make it difficult to ever truly gain perspective on an MBA degree’s worth.
Thankfully, there are some areas where the numbers still do the talking. In particular: post-graduate salary. This is one of the easiest and simplest ways to see the true value of an MBA. And it’s not just helpful to look at the increase in salary after earning an MBA—it can be just as enlightening to see the difference in post-graduate salary for various MBA concentrations. This data can help you make important choices about what kind of path you’d like to pursue while earning your MBA, and how to make the most out of the time and money spent on your education.
U.S. News & World Report found found that strategy, while one of the least popular MBA concentrations (chosen by just 4.3 percent of business school students), led to some of the highest paying jobs after graduation. Since students concentrating in strategy typically go into jobs at consulting firms following graduation, they are more likely to earn high salaries that can help increase the overall value of their degree—not to mention pay off their student loans much faster.
For students looking to increase the worth of their MBA with a high-paying job in consulting, we’ve rounded up the highest paying firms in the consulting industry. Working towards careers in these top companies will guarantee that the answer to “is this going to be worth it?” will always be “yes!”
The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms
Formerly known as Ernst & Young, EY-Parthenon is one of the top paying consulting firms for MBA graduates. The company is headquartered in London, England, with more than 250,000 employees at offices throughout the world. EY is known as one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, joining Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG as the four largest professional services networks in the world. Last year, EY was also named 29th on the “100 Best Companies to Work For” list from Fortune.
According to Business Insider, EY-Parthenon employees with just an undergraduate degree make up to, on average, $110,000 annually, including base salary, signing bonuses, and extra incentives. Management Consulted data found that MBA grads earned an astounding base salary of $170,000 at the company. That figure doesn’t include signing bonuses, relocation expenses, and more.
Founded in 1926 by University of Chicago economics professor James McKinsey, McKinsey & Company has transformed into one of the world’s most iconic consulting empires. The company has opened in more than 120 global cities, employing more than 14,000 consultants—many of which comes from prestigious MBA institutions.
According to Management Consulted data, McKinsey & Company is the second-highest paying consulting firm in the world for MBA grads, with offered base salaries coming in at $152,000. With an added potential performance bonus of $35,000, those figures can rise to $187,500 in just one year.
Strategy& has grown exceedingly since its beginnings as Booz & Company in 1914. One of the top global strategy consulting firms in the country, the company now has 57 offices throughout the world, revenue upwards of $1.3 billion, and 3,000 employees. Nearly a century after their founding, in 2013, the company was acquired by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and officially renamed to Strategy&.
The company comes in third overall among for annual base compensation for MBA grads, at a lofty $152,000. The company also offers one of the most unique and lucrative retirement funding options for consulting employees, with 6 percent of base salary and bonuses matched for its 401k plan.
L.E.K. is technically the youngest company to make the top five, which was founded in the early 1980s by former Bain partners James Lawrence, Iain Evans, and Richard Koch. Headquartered in both Boston and London, L.E.K. is also the smallest company on this list, with around 3,000 employees.
Despite its size and relative newness in comparison to many of the other companies on this list, L.E.K. pays its employees more-than-handsomely, offering a tempting base salary of $150,000 and upwards of $25,000 in performance-based potential incentives.
Bain & Company, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is a global management consultancy firm providing advice for public, private, and non-profit organizations. Along with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company is one of the “Big Three” firms. Founded in 1973, Bain & Co. today has more than 8,000 employees throughout the world and an estimated revenue between $3.7 and $4.5 billion.
Bain offers its recently employed MBA grads a starting base salary comes in slightly above aforementioned Deloitte employees, snagging $148,000 per year, which can grow to $185,000 in total compensation.
Honorable Mentions
The Boston Consulting Group, founded in 1963, now has more than 90 offices in 50 countries, advising clients throughout the private, public, and not-profit sectors.
The Massachusetts institution offers its MBA graduates right around the same compensation as Bain & Co, the companies unofficial direct competitor. Base salaries come in around $147,000, but massive (and we mean massive) bonus incentives can bring that total up to $191,100.
Another one of the “Big Four,” Deloitte has witnessed non-stop growth since its founding in 1845. Today, the firm makes more than $38.8 billion USD in revenue with roughly 263,900 employees throughout the world. As of 2016, Deloitte was ranked as the sixth largest privately owned organization in the U.S. The firm’s offerings span across audit, tax, consulting, financial advisory, and enterprise risk services, with offices across the world in cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Madrid, Tel Aviv, and many more.
Management Consulted data found that MBA grads at Deloitte reported a base salary slightly smaller than its aforementioned contemporaries, pulling in $140,000 per year. Deloitte separates itself from its competition by offering returning interns a potential to pay for the send year of their MBA education in the form of reimbursement.
The Top Consulting And Strategic Management Chicago MBA Programs
While industries such as investment banking may be attracting fewer MBAs, that’s not the case for consulting. Year-after-year it continues to be the top draw for MBA graduates. The 2015 Prospective Student Survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) revealed that a job in consulting services or management consulting upon graduation topped the list for both millennial (41 percent) and Gen X (27 percent) respondents. Continue reading…
