1. At an individual level, yes, it is easier to enter in Big 4 than MBB. At an aggregate level there was an article about “Deloitte being harder to get into than Harvard”, but I would say that nowadays most job positions are flooded with applications (because, contrary to school ones, they are free) so I don’t believe that statistic is relevant
2. Deloitte is the one with the most developed strategic consulting arm, however EY and others all bought boutique strategic firms in past few years so they are present in the space (Parthenon, Monitor, Booz/Strategy&)
3. Possibile and more and more common. However, interestingly, in my personal experience the transition happens more from the transaction advisory services side or the accounting side of those firms rather than the consulting side.
hope this helps,
andrea
I think Andrea has it exactly right. I'll also point out that Deloitte is the only consulting/advisory/accounting company I have never heard any one criticizing: current & former employees, rejects, competitors, school career employees... everyone I have ever talked to about Deloitte only had good things to say about it. In contrast, I have had at least one person criticize every single other company I can think of. Put it another way: if I hadn't gotten into BCG/MBB, Deloitte is the firm I would have wanted to work for.
Thank you, Andrea. This has been really insightful. Just curious- why do you think MBB prefers Big 4 transaction advisory/accounting candidates to Big 4 consulting ones?