Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on the offers!

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your question:

I would highly advise you to opt for the option that better aligns with your professional (and maybe even personal) mid- to long-term goals. In order to make an informed decision, I would advise you to do the following:

• Weigh the different criteria that are meaningful to you independently of the current options (e.g., prestige, culture, international exposure, compensation, location). After that, score the two options based on your criteria and their weighting, resulting in two scores. This way, you have covered the left-brain perspective.
• Critically assess your initial reaction to the outcome of the scores. For instance, if you feel the urge to tweak the numbers, this is a solid indicator that you do not want this decision to become reality. This way, you have covered the right-brain perspective.
• By doing so, you will be able to integrate both parts of the brain into the decision-making, guaranteeing a higher chance that you will still be happy with it years later.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to address your specific situation, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Congrats! Cherish this position and be grateful. 

I wont pick one over the other for you. That's for you to do. Good to get advice from people but make sure the final decision is yours. I made mistakes during early days of my career and what I learnt is this:

1. First establish what you want to be or would like to be. Its okay if this changes over time and your career. E.g. I would like become a fantastic engineer. Hope you get the point
2. After this, see what type of role you can “do” based on your competency, capability & skills
3. And finally enjoy what you get or would like to have i.e. lifestyle, $$ , fulfillment etc

Most people approach the above as 3→2→1 and not 1→2 →3. Misery is inevitable.

So, this is a great opportunity for you to think through the options carefully & choose one. Have a look at this article I wrote primarily to help candidates with such decisions- https://www.preplounge.com/en/how-do-i-know-which-career-is-right-for-me

All the best choosing.

(edited)

This would be my priority: 

1. Capital One. Seems to be the one closer to strategy. I believe the hire many former strategy consultants (they tried to hire me :)
 

2. West Monroe Partners. You will learn more digital, which is valued by MBB. And you stay in Seattle. Some of the things are not far away from strategic initiatives, others are a bit operational / process, though. 

3. KPMG. I don't think KPMG has any strategy work, someone correct me if I am wrong. Moreover, from the description, this is may be heavy on systems implementation / process mapping and improvement. 

Final note: I wrote the above before reading the information on the interview process. After reading the interview info, I felt this was spot on: Capital One was heavy on cases, West Monroe had cases but not so heavy, and KPMG no cases at all. If you don't do cases, you are not looking for strategists.

Considering that MBB is your final objective - you want to stay closer to strategy consulting. Based on that, I believe the order is:

• C1 - typical projects are closer to strategy vs other 2
• WestM - less of high-level strategy, but more focused topics
• KPMG - seems further implementation-based and less strategy based

However, the final decision should be fully your own - I would recommend to not get influenced by answers.

…

(edited)