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Coach
Former MBB here. Spent 14 months before making a move. I juggled with this question myself. I have recruited extensively for strategy as well as product roles in tech. Exiting as C or PL will have minimal impact in terms of role / seniority / comp overall minus the impact of having one additional YOE. Big Tech values relevant YOE a lot more. Unless you are actually doing tech work at McK digital / BCG DV - very hard to justify incremental time doing a IG PMO case - and expecting it to translate into relevant YOE for a PM role at FAANG.
I landed roles which were more or less aligned with people who spent an equivalent time at the other company - I did not have any significant advantage vs. them - especially at FAANG / Big tech - in a lot of cases, I actually was at a disadvantage because of not having relevant experience.
All my colleagues faced the same and I know a ton of them. The sooner you pivot to tech the better it is. A lot of consulting folks are blinded by this when they decide to move, and or keep telling otherwise because they are chasing the partner track so bad and just don’t know or want to see the world outside of consulting.
Feel free to DM if you want to chat more.
I have seen many manager exits and while they are generally better than c level, that is primarily due to additional experience.
A promotion and the title also definitely help, but the reality is that it isn’t a step change. M1 with two months of M will likely get a marginally better exit than a C who leaves just before M.
Managers with 1 year or more at the position will do better still.
Coach
And finally , don’t lose hope ! There are a TON of sexy tech exits that are available almost exclusively for MBB (on the strategy side) , if you are willing to put in the effort
Coach
OP I moved from (your version of) C2 to product management in tech. Here’s what I’m seeing 1). Role and scope - you will get the same level as someone who went in directly and has been there for a while 2) comp - if you can swing it , you can get higher comp. Most of the tech strategy exits I know at C2 (for FAANGMULA) exit around 230 to 270k. If you can get a PM role , you can exit at 300 to 350k. Compared to this , my classmates who went directly are about 50k to 70k lesser on average. 3) odds of getting a role - tech strategy - doable with 3 months of planning. There are lots of tech strategy roles right now that are recruiting later tenured C2s and early tenured PLs . If you are from MBB you have a good shot at these regardless of what you have done at BCG. Where it will get challenging is that you are essentially competing with other MBB for the same role and it’s not very easy to differentiate. PM exits - this one is rough (not going to lie here) . Took me 4 months of networking with over 100 people to get three interviews. You need to be able to both talk about technology architecture AND show prior experience working with data scientists and engineers. If this is important to you , start working on BCG TA projects. A very important thing to keep in mind here is that DO NOT do PM for the comp or glamor. This is a technical role where you will be working with engineers and if the idea of getting up every day and working on APIs or feature development doesn’t excite you , you are likely to fail big time 😀.
Mentor
But overall , while the actual recruitment was a 5 month process , I’ve been prepping for this exit for about a year by strategically choosing the right projects at McK
Coach
Additionally , if you want to exit to tech strategy, now is a great time ! The real step change happens when you are a late tenured PL or late tenured principal. If you leave now , you can get to the same levels at tech (with similarish comp) about a year after your peers who stayed back in BCG can get there. For PM, now is the best time since you may be unable to exit later
Coach
Broadly in agreement with what M1 said. The only thing I’d add is that depending on what school you wen to - most of these exits are also increasingly becoming available at MBA level. Exception - a small strategy team at a large tech company which has 2 spots - doesn’t need to hire MBA grads when they can hire an MBB person, but other than that, most roles e.g. Google bizops, Microsoft Corp strategy, Facebook strategy etc - are hiring MBAs directly.
Those that have made the switch, any thoughts on how having an MBA impacts recruitment? I’m pre-MBA interested in tech. An MBA seems like a bit of a waste coming from BCG when you could just try and exit straight into tech, but curious on your perspectives.
Coach
There’s lots of variables at play including team expectations, relevant years of direct experience, etc. The jump from 60-61 can range from 6 months to 2 years on average but if you’re an experienced hire you’re likely to be closer to that 6 month-1 year timeline and they just want to bring you in at 60 to make sure you’re landing well
Are any of the FAANG tech strategy / good PM roles not in the Bay Area/NY? Formerly at Apple but no longer in Bay Area and seems like that was the universe if you wanted HQ type role.
Mentor
Sure - mostly luck tbh. I tried targeting ex-MBB but honestly there aren’t really a lot of them in Big tech in the PM groups. To tailor my outreach , I did the following - 1) choose what roles I was interested in (B2B or B2C , experience versus platform versus algorithmic PM) 2) short list my initial list of companies - started with 10 and cold email like crazy 3) focus the interviews on understanding how they transitioned / grew in product and why I was excited about their team. I stumbled into the three that worked out because the hiring managers coincidentally had roles open or knew about open roles and they thought my experience at McK ( tech strategy , analytics at scale , product roadmap ) and more importantly PRIOR to McK ( growing a P&L from 5 mil to 500 in 3 years ) was useful.
Mentor
Ironically - these folks ended up referring me to hiring managers that were all ex-MCK that I hadn’t been able to connect with organically
Mentor
The sooner you move to tech the better. Time is valued at best as equal at MBB vs big tech. Much more emphasis on YoE and type of work vs. prestige which counts more for other industry exits
Assuming your goal is to be in tech of course.
Mentor
Agree with B1 - sooner is better. C2/PL1 is probably optimal, with diminishing returns PL2+ unless you make mdp and come in as a GM/exec.
Big tech/FAANG is all about developing a focus to progress and you just don’t get that at mbb.
Although, your time at BCG is not a complete waste. I’m sure you’ve picked up some great skills, and even if you come in at the same level as your mba classmates you could negotiate same/higher comp. A couple of things to note though -
1) the TC range at each level is very wide for most big tech, so there is always room for negotiation
2) your ability to negotiate in big tech is more around your experience and competing offers and not your current/expected comp in consulting. So be sure to cast a wide net and have multiple offers, and that will give you the most leverage in comp negotiations
So if not in tech, where are these sexy exits i was sold on?
Mentor
I dont know enough about APM roles. PM roles though are really tough though
Coach
Seattle / Austin have some good roles too
M1 thank you for sharing all of that, deeply helpful. Couple follow-ups:
(1) Were you A2 starting post-MBA or did you start post-UG?
(2) Do you have a similar analysis/data points for post-UG level instead of post-MBA? In terms of tech strategy vs. PM.
Mentor
1) Post MBA 2) don’t unfortunately
Gotcha. Congrats btw! Sounds like a grind but you made it.
Can you share a bit more of your strategy for those 100+ calls over 4 months, and what things happened to align for the 3 that led to interviews? I assume you targeted ex-MBB from the same roles? And what happened in calls that did not lead to anything?