Hello there,

It depends on your preference in terms of career aspiration, culture, work-life balance, and others.
I would personally choose strategy firm for a couple of reasons:

• The work strategy firms do are intellectually challenging and satisfying (Big 4 have more opertaions, not as much C-level focus work on their projects - it depends if this is the strategy arm of Big 4 or the regular consulting arm, but even then, stragy firm would still come up better)
• Network of people you"ll interact with are more ambitious and full with achievements (depends, but typically strategy firm have more proportion in this)
• Exit opportunities are much better for strategy firm (you can even go to Big 4 afterwards but vice versa a little bit more challenging)
• The most important thing is look at the people and the culture, then see which one you"ll be most comfortable to work with among the two.

Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Nathan

Hi,

Congrats on your offers. It really depends on your priorities

Generally speaking, in tier-1 strategy consultancies you will have:

- Higher remunaration and longer hours

- Typically shorter and more intense projects, typically strategy and operations focussed with little to none implementation work

- Stronger alumni network

- Exposure to top management vs. middle management

Hope if helps!
Marco

Hi,

I would definitely recommend the top-tier firm for:

• Better projects and roles on the projects
• Faster career growth
• Better brand
• The quality of people around you

Best

Hello! Congrats for the offers!

For giving you good advise, would be important to know some things, that are questions you can also make to yourself in order to decide:

• What is your long-term goal? Since one job can be better than the other
• Do you have a clear next step stablished after this job?
• Does the culture, vision and mission of any of them fit better with your personal values?

Both options are good, you just need to assess which one is the best fit for you.

Hope it helps!

Best,

Clara

I would definitely recommend to take the top tier offer.

It would give you much better exit options later, and also very likely better training and development.

Anyway congrats!

Emily

Hi Anonymous,

If compensation package is similar anyway ... yeah, at the end of the day it's also a "gut feeling" about which firm you feel more comfortable with.

Needless to say, you need to do your homework and research how those firms fit into your personal overall career plan, but assuming you did that already, I would make the final decision based on my subjective feeling with which firm's people I bonded best and which office culture I preferred!

Hope that helps - if so, please give it a thumbs-up with the upvote button!

Robert

Hello,

FIrst of all congratulations!! I would definetely go for the strategy firm for all the reasons listed in the other answers.

Take a look of this article that examines the difference between a top-tier strategy and Big 4: https://www.mbacrystalball.com/blog/2020/02/17/mckinsey-vs-bcg-vs-bain-vs-big4/