MBAs love consulting. In any case, it’s an extension of enterprise faculty. New folks. New issues. New concepts. No day is ever the identical…and also you get to rub elbows with prime executives too.
Typically, these relationships lengthen past an eight-week engagement. Finally, senior executives are scouts, all the time searching for contemporary expertise. And engagements make for excellent auditions. They present how consultants deal with points and construct consensus. They mirror how a lot they relish an business and match a tradition. Most necessary, engagements present an area for potential hires to indicate cool beneath strain, to defend concepts with information and convey urgency with storytelling.
NEVER STOP GROWING…AND ALWAYS BE LOOKING
In terms of consulting jobs – notably with the MBB – MBAs usually wish to know which courses to take, who to community with, and find out how to ace case interviews. As soon as they land a job, they face a wholly totally different set of questions. Two of them: How lengthy ought to I keep…and the place ought to my subsequent transfer be?
Administration Consulted pegs the common consulting tenure at 2-4 years. Meaning as soon as a toolkit is constructed and popularity is established, it could be time for MBAs to start out sprucing their resume…notably if the associate observe means much more 70-hour weeks and 12-hour flights. Which industries are McKinsey, Bain, and BCG consultants taking the off-ramp to affix? And what sorts of firms are attracting this blue-chip consulting expertise?
These questions have been addressed in a report issued yesterday (December 9) by Administration Consulted. The reply: MBB consultants are discovering their manner into a variety of industries, organizations, and roles. One factor is evident: they like becoming a member of non-public firms after leaving consulting.
A SNAPSHOT OF MBB MOVEMENT
The report – MBB Exit Alternative Evaluation 2025 – is a part of a month-to-month consulting analysis sequence produced by Administration Consulted. Finest recognized for its January Consulting Salaries Report, Administration Consulted gives providers starting from resume evaluations to case prep to aspiring consultants. The ‘Exit’ report is designed to offer readers a snapshot of MBB turnover over a three-month interval (August 18 – November 18). Tapping into LinkedIn information, Administration Consulted created a dataset of 1,644 people who’d left MBB companies over this time interval, protecting roles starting from associate to analyst. To qualify, these people should have began a full-time position outdoors a MBB throughout this August-November interval.
When MBB consultants go away their companies, the place do they head? The most important quantity keep in Enterprise Consulting and Providers. This phase represents 16.6% of the pattern – or 273 people. Nonetheless, this doesn’t essentially imply they’re becoming a member of one other consulting agency, says Namaan Mian, the chief working officer at Administration Consulted. As a substitute, the quantity consists of MBB alumni who change into impartial consultants.
Monetary Providers and Software program Improvement companies attracted 13.7% and 13.1% respectively of departing MBB consultants through the August-November interval. On the identical time, {Hardware}, Electronics and Gadgets and Retail firms netted over 200 MBB alumni for 7.2% and 5.3% shares respectively. Enterprise Capital and Personal Fairness trailed carefully behind at 5.1%.
GO BIG…OR STAY PUT
Typically, MBB departees selected bigger companies. Practically 40% joined organizations with 1,000 or extra staff. One other 37.2% accepted jobs in companies with $1-billion or extra in annual income, together with 18.8% who selected companies above the $10-billion mark.
“These organizations sometimes supply clearer inside buildings, government improvement packages, and outlined profession ladders – elements extremely valued by consultants transitioning out of the project-based mannequin,” in line with the report.
That stated, 30.6% of departing MBB consultants landed jobs in firms with $25-million or much less in annual income, which Administration Consulted attributed to elements like “visibility, possession, and speed-to-execution.”
PRIVATE OVER PUBLIC
Namaan Mian
Perhaps the quantity that stands out most is the kind of firm that MBB alumni select. 62.8% accepted roles in non-public firms, greater than 3 times the quantity in public firms (18.7%). In some respects, it is a numbers sport says Namaan Mian, who observes that non-public firms outnumber public companies by roughly a 25-million to 4,000 margin. Nonetheless, non-public firms supply a number of benefits that may entice MBB-level expertise.
“Personal firms – whether or not founder-led, VC-backed, or PE-backed – usually rent ex-MBB expertise to professionalize the operation: construct processes, drive development, and produce construction,” explains Mian in an interview with P&Q. “There’s one different facet at play right here: Personal firms are staying non-public longer partly as a result of they will now acquire significant liquidity with out an IPO. As a substitute of going public simply to let staff and early buyers money out, late-stage startups more and more use the non-public secondary market. These instruments give firms a method to reward staff, scale back strain from early buyers, and handle their cap desk – all whereas maintaining management, avoiding quarterly earnings scrutiny, and selecting their timing for a later IPO or strategic sale.”
Whereas many MBAs image the consulting off-ramp to merge instantly with the c-suite, that isn’t essentially the discovering of Administration Consulted MBB analysis. Practically a 3rd of those LinkedIn profiles confirmed that consultants – 31.1% – turned Consultants or Particular person Contributors after leaving McKinsey, Bain, or BCG. One other 12.3% have been employed as Administrators, adopted by Managers at 10%. The truth is, simply 3.8% have been elevated to CEO, with one other 1.3% changing into a President.
That’s to not keep an MBB stint nonetheless isn’t a ticket to the c-suite. Notably, 7.7% of those MBB LinkedIn profiles specified “C-Suite” as their new position. One other 8.8% held Vice President titles. Past that, you’ll discover roles that embody Companion (6.1%) and Advisor (3.6%). Collectively, 7.8% of MBB alumni held positions that included Managing Director, Chief of Employees, Principal, and Board Member.
BECOME A FOUNDER? THAT DEPENDS…
What about entrepreneurship? That’s dicey, notes Administration Consulted. Technically, 6.3% of MBB consultants go away to change into founders. Nonetheless, the report continues that consulting abilities don’t all the time translate effectively to launching a brand new enterprise.
“Regardless of the visibility of consultant-turned-founders, most consultants usually are not naturally wired for zero-to-one entrepreneurship. Their coaching emphasizes construction, danger mitigation, data-driven decision-making, and stakeholder alignment. This creates excellent operators and strategic leaders, however it usually works towards the anomaly tolerance required for early-stage entrepreneurship.”
To obtain copies of Administration Consulted’s month-to-month experiences, click on right here.
