Exploring Exit Opportunities: A Guide for Consulting Professionals

Alright, let’s talk about what kind of exit opportunities you can expect to see coming out of consulting. As someone who has just left consulting, and if you’re new here, my name is clouds. I’m a first generation university student and corporate girly and my mission here is to democratize information around careers, personal finance, education and more so that you can live your best life. One of the main reasons why people join consulting in the first place is because it has excellent exit opportunities. And as someone who has just left, I can definitely attest to this. And in fact I read multiple job descriptions for jobs I wanted that specified they wanted someone with management consulting experience. Now I’ll say that there are four main jobs that people end up pursuing after consulting. It obviously does not mean that every single consultant ends up doing these things, but a bulk majority ends up pursuing one of these four paths. The first one, which is also one of the most popular ones that I saw amongst the people that worked in my company, was people transitioning from strategy consulting to in house strategy roles within the industry. For example, if you’re a strategy consultant mainly working for life science companies, a lot of them would then transition and exit into pharmaceutical companies and work in house. The second path, which is also super popular, is people joining start UPS and usually when this happens they take very high Level roles, something like head of growth or chief of staff. Basically a position that allows them to actually have an impact on the startup and grow the startup from the ground up. This is usually suitable for those who want a bit of a challenge, Wanna do something more exciting, kind of leave that large corporate environment. The third route is people who end up taking a finance slash investment role, something along the lines of PE or VC. This is also super popular. These roles tend to pay a lot more than consulting. Industries like private equity and venture capital are seen as very prestigious. So it’s definitely an aspirational exit opportunity for a lot of consultants and investment bankers. And they also still have that very fast paced, kind of high pressured environment, so it’s very appealing for those who enjoy that. And the fourth and final option is the one I decide to take, which is Big Tech. A lot of consultants and bankers end up exiting and join Big Tech, especially if they want a better work life balance. And it’s actually incredibly popular because in my team, in my biz ops team, in my big Tech company, everyone comes from a consulting background. Like, every single person that I work with has previously worked at a big consulting firm. So it’s definitely a very popular exit opportunity. And as always, I hope this was useful. And let me know if you guys have any Questions