All questions tagged salary - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hey there,

You don't need to worry about that. If you get in MBB, your salary is not based on your past payslip, but it is based on the company pay structure which is based on the role level and country/region. MBB would not lowball you.

Best,

Emily

Hey there,

It really depends on the firm and the region/country.

Like Sidi mentioned, BCG used to have this same pay per level structure, e.g. 1st year consultant and 2nd year consultant are paid the same salary, and only get salary increase when consultant gets promoted to Project Leader. Same for PL to Principal. During my time there, I got the same pay within the 2-year windows. However, recently BCG SEA has changed that to a year-on-year pay increase. Although the year-on-year increase in the role would be much smaller compared to the increase when you get the promotion. I know that Bain SEA has been giving year on year increments as well nowadays.

When you get promoted, in the previous pay scheme, it would be almost 50% from Associate to Senior Associate, 33% from Senior Associate to Consultant, 25% from consultant to PL, 20% from PL to Principal. The % is higher for junior roles because the base is smaller.

Best

Emily

Hello,

It depends on the company, but you can you can expect something between 25k$ and 30k$. You can find detailed information on Glassdoor, as suggested by Vlad.

Best,
Luca

Hi,

I have bad news for you - startups won't really increase your salary. There might be a small (3-7%) increase YoY. There might be a bonus and performance management program (But I believe you would already know if it was in place).

Anyway, the good steps here can be the following:

• Wait until you get a year in tenure (8 months is not enough to start those discussions).
• Make sure you understand the official promotion system (Makes sense to discuss with your boss)
• Grow with the company by taking more and more to your plate

Several rules can help you grow:

• Be proactive and come up with ideas yourself
• Find the main Company's revenue driver and try to move towards that function (Some companies are engineer and product -driven (google), others are driven by supply (Airbnb), or Sales (Fast-growing Saas businesses)
• Be close to the "resource center of the company". In most of the tech companies, it's data. If you own some data and analytics required by many departments - this gives you immediate visibility

Best!

Hello!

Consider between 95 and 120 K -bonus liked to performance of both the firm and the individual-.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi,
they are usually aligned with MBB. In Dubai, entry-level consultants can reach $70k (plus, you have to consider that taxes are very low). Check on Glassdoor for more accurate numbers.

Best,
Antonello

Hi there,

Glassdoor can be a good source for you to check salaries for specific offices.

Cheers
Serhat

Hi,

The salary is non-negotiable. Pls check the glass-door for numbers.

Best

MBB does not ask you for salary expectations

Best

Hi Anonymous,

it is not true that you need to put your salary expectations on every application in Germany. It is common practice in most industry corporations, but NOT with large strategy consulting firms. Speaking for MBB, it is definitely not part of what is asked for and you should not include it in your application letter! The salary is standardized anyway.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi Anonymous,

speaking for MBB:

• Conditions are fixed and identical across all cities in Germany (non-negotiable for fresh university graduates)
• You get a lump-sum relocation allowance (you could call this relocation bonus)
• Starting salary around 70-75k for master level ("Fellow" at McK / "Associate" at BCG), around 100-110k for PhD/Top-MBA level ("Associate" at McK, "(Junior) Consultant" at BCG).
• Possibility for firm car (or corresponding mobility package as an alternative at McK) on top. Here the policies differ a bit across the firms.

Hope this helps!

I don't think you have tax attorneys here, so no-one is truly qualified to answer. As a consultant, you won't have much time to figure it out anyway... just hire a professional, your company should be able to help with that.

Hi A,

Glassdoor will give you an estimate.
Mind that salary is different across regions.

Kind regards,
Egor

Is the question still relevant? If so, I am happy to share my views as a gp Alumnus

Hi Anonymous,

first of all congratulations for your offer! Did they mention if you can have a faster growth to Associate? If not, such proposal is a bit unusual, as normally in these cases you have the opportunity (related to your performance) for a faster promotion to the next level. Having said that, if you don't have an alternative MBB offer there is probably no space for negotiation.

Best,

Francesco

No - salaries are standardised and this would not be asked.

This varies across geographies. As Guennal has said, the compensation will roughly start at the same level, but can diverge quite significantly at manager level +. In London, all major consultancies (to my knowledge) start at £40k-£45k base for pre-MBA positions and £80-90k for post-MBA positions. One area though where pay can differ significantly is bonus - while bonus might range from £6-10k+ at MBB in the first year, the comparable bonus at other firms is likely to be slightly lower.

However, some Tier 2 firms (e.g. Oliver Wyman) may pay their employees less on average than MBB, but really compensate top performers - so the best associates at Oliver Wyman might earn more than the best associates at Bain.

Hey Levente,

As you may imagine, consultants are not supposed to share concrete information on salary levels, however you can get a good glimpse of them in websites such as glassdoor.

That said, I can share with you a couple of insights: salaries differ (significantly) from office to office (in part to compensate for differences in standard living costs, but not only); there is indeed an interesting jump from BA to Associate levels, but again for all roles there is a considerable difference in jumps across offices (btw, the biggest jump should be to Partner though!)

Hope this helped out

50-60k Euro + 10% bonus

Hi Anonymous,

as mentioned by others, the main thing you can negotiate is your entry level in the firm (eg Senior Associate with 12 months to Consultant vs 6 months to Consultant). It would be very difficult to negotiate a different standard salary for a fixed seniority level, as this would create inequality in the firm. On the other hand, if you can negotiate a higher initial entry level, this should bring a higher salary or faster promotion track without creating imbalance in the company, thus would be feasible.

You can definitely try to negotiate your entry level in the firm. The degree of negotiation depends obviously on how valuable you can be for the company (usually the more senior, the more valuable). In any case, you should be aware that with a higher level, expectations on your performance will also be higher.

Best,

Francesco