Can you work as a contractor within consulting?

Hi there, 

I could not see MBBs accepting this - the closest I got to this was on my MBA leave (with a clear return offer to BCG) and they needed some specific help for a project. They considered me for it, but it eventually did not work because the format was not acceptable by legal / compliance / tax teams. 

I never heard of this happening, at least not in Europe, though I doubt there would be exceptions in other MBB offices across the world. 

Overall, the financial offers from MBBs are pretty standardized and there is not much leeway for upfront negotiations. The only other optimisations would be more dependent on the taxation systems in the country you would be working in, e.g., in the UK you can salary sacrifice into your pension and then based on how you chose to use the money down the line it could have a positive tax impact. 

From my personal experience, I would encourage you to take the offer as is and get that MBB experience and brand name on your CV. Later on, if you do not want to stay at the respective company, but you still want to do consulting, you could work for example as an independent consultant that might give you more optimisation leeway (country and personal situation dependendant of course). 

Hope this helps, 
Ariadna