Hi everyone!
I am currently enrolled in a top 3 law school (Yale, Harvard, or Stanford) in the United States, and I recently accepted an offer to join MBB in a mid-sized North American city as a post-MBA level consultant following graduation.
I am very excited about my job offer and my MBB firm, but I'm also not 100% sure that I want to do consulting for the rest of my career. If I leave MBB after two to four years, what exit opps are available to me as a post-MBA hire other than internal corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company?
I have an older cousin who used to work at MBB and now works in corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company, and candidly, I don't have much interest in this kind of role.
I've done a little bit of research about potential exit opps for post-MBA level consultants, and I've found the following information. Could you tell me if this information is correct, and let me know if there are other potential exit opps to consider? Thank you!
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1. Internal corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company seems like the most common exit opp by far.
2. One could join a corporate development team at a Fortune 500 company and do strategic acquisitions. I would imagine that it would probably be best to do lots of commercial due diligence cases and post-merger integration cases in a relevant industry to obtain this exit option.
3. Joining a private equity investing team at a megafund seems very difficult if not impossible. Joining an upper middle market or middle market private equity investing team also appears to be very difficult. Joining an operations-focused lower middle market private equity investing team is more doable but still unlikely, at least in North America. Additionally, it might be doable (but still very difficult) to join a private equity investing team that does primaries, secondaries, co-investments, and/or GP stakes, such as Goldman Sachs AIMS, Adams Street, or Partners Capital. This situation might be different outside North America, but I'm not sure.
4. Joining a private equity operations team at a megafund (eg. KKR Capstone) or upper middle market private equity firm is more feasible but still very competitive. Lower middle market private equity firms are usually too small to have full-fledged operations teams, so they aren't really a viable option.
5. Going into venture capital and growth equity is very competitive, no matter what one's background is. It might help to have (i) big picture strategic thinking learned at MBB and (ii) an understanding of legal concepts relevant to VC and growth equity investing learned at law school (eg. convertible vs. non convertible preferred equity, liquidation preferences, participation rights, ect.); however, even with these skills, breaking into VC or growth equity investing is still very difficult.
6. Becoming a bigtech product manager isn't easy, especially in this economy when bigtech companies have initiated hiring freezes and are even laying people off.
7. While it's not an exit opp, one could stay at MBB and try to become a partner. Becoming a partner is far from guaranteed, but it's not impossible, especially since MBB firms are growing 10-15% year on year. Nevertheless, it's not a safe bet to expect this outcome.
8. If one fails at making partner and gets counseled to leave at MBB, one could join another consulting firm and try to make partner there. It might be feasible to trade down for a T2 firm (eg. EY Parthenon, LEK, OW, ect.), join a boutique, or start a small consulting shop with some former colleagues.
9. One could also potentially join a startup in a mid-level to senior role. However, one might need to take a paycut, and some startups might consider post-MBA MBB consultants as too expensive to hire.
10. Finally, one could become an entrepreneur and try to raise some VC cash to launch a venture. Becoming an entrepreneur appears to be a high risk, high reward career path that could lead to either stunning success or failure. Having MBB on one's resume might help with raising cash, but it won't automatically guarantee success as an entrepreneur.
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Thank you for your help!