Q: Big4 - Yearly salary increment

Originally Posted by Unregistered

While I agree that calling big 4 fake consultants is sweeping and going overboard, neither is hyping or over-seliing them any better.

Sure, go out into the job market & tell ppl a Deloitte or PWC consultant is more "prestigious" than Oliver Wyman and see how many ppl out there are gonna be impressed.

All these rankings will just show whatever they want depending on what methdology they use. Heck even the likes of SIA/Keppel/Singtel gets ranked top employer of choice in some surveys, but go out into the job market and see who really if get offered by investment banks, o&g majors, top IT firms etc will give up and join SIA/Keppel/Singtel

The fact that these Big 4 even get questioned and ppl need to jump in to "defend" already shows they are far from being prestigious. You make it sound as if PWC & Deloitte is just ranked slightly lower than MBB, that is an understatment of the year.

A typical MBB freshie is usually a dean's list type top student from a world renowned business school with an illustrious internship experience or gets involved in other activities like NGOs/foundations/activism etc. A typical Big 4 managment consultant freshie is more likely a local university 2nd upper student. The difference cannot be starker.

1. A lot of these rankings are independent and have a host of different methodologies used that rank them based on market perception as well as current/past employees, so they are different to 'top employer of choice' surveys, which themselves are completely different to prestige rankings. Also, the comparisons of local corporations (SIA/Keppel) to the biggest MNCs have no relation whatsoever when comparing global firms in the consulting landscape. You wouldn't compare our local NTUC Fairprice with Walmart, would you? All of the firms I mentioned above are globally known.

2. The consulting space hosts a wide spectrum of functions such as strategy, operations, human capital, IT, etc. To lump management consulting as one industry and compare all firms without exception is one-dimensional. For example, Accenture is largely associated with the IT landscape, while Oliver Wyman is known for financial services consulting. The MBB boys deal with C-level execs (strategy consulting) while Deloitte is known for their S&O (strategy and ops) function. So, while you can preach about MBB being way above the rest (they are, I don't dispute that), there are major differences in terms of how these consulting firms compete. Bain and BCG were set up to compete with McK in the strategy space, and the others set up to fill the market gap for operations (lower level) consulting (HR, Finance, IT consulting).

3. I know of local grads who were recruited into MBB just this hiring season in Singapore, so.. they do not just hire from iveys, let alone the dean's listers from iveys.

At the end of the day, I responded to the claim that the Big 4 consulting firms were oceans apart from MBB and way easier to get into. I am defending the others because I feel that the original statement made is miles off the truth, and the purpose of this forum is to provide meaningful information to those who request it for the benefit of the community. While I never disputed that MBB will always be the big 3, I don't believe that just because that is so means that the other firms are not good companies or worthy to note. Take a look at managementconsulted.com, there are some very good articles and insights into the industry with various current/past consultants from MBB, Deloitte, O.W, etc that offer an in-depth look into consulting.

haha listen to some of you guys debate over consultant ranking / prestige etc really funny, come on guys what we care is what it means to an individual offer in terms of pay and promotion. who cares what rank the company is or how prestigious it is?

base on what i read here a management consultant fresh grad is offered 42k annual base in a big4 consultancy - this is a joke compared to most MAP offered by banks and MNCs, even some management trainee programs in local firms & public sector can do better.

for me if no choice that is the only offer then of course take, if not why accept this kind of lousy offer and long working hours? Just because the company is ranked high? or it is more prestigious? you gotta be joking...

I wanted to join one of the big 4 as well during my undergrad days. At first very happy when KPMG offer, but after see them just give out offers to any tom dick or harry (abt 2/3 of my coursemates had an offer from a big 4 and some even have 2 or more at the same time) simply gave up and look for other things more interesting. Never looked back since then.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

3. I know of local grads who were recruited into MBB just this hiring season in Singapore, so.. they do not just hire from iveys, let alone the dean's listers from iveys.

BS at least for McKinsey. Show me who are these local uni fresh hires who got in as managemet consultants. We are not talking about jobs in backoffice functions like IT/Data/Finance/HR/Analytics etc. If it is so common like you say that you actually know a number of local grads that got in just this season alone, it shouldn't be hard for you to pull out at least a dozen of these profiles from online.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

BS at least for McKinsey. Show me who are these local uni fresh hires who got in as managemet consultants. We are not talking about jobs in backoffice functions like IT/Data/Finance/HR/Analytics etc. If it is so common like you say that you actually know a number of local grads that got in just this season alone, it shouldn't be hard for you to pull out at least a dozen of these profiles from online.

because i felt like doing charity today... try LinkedIn... you're welcome

It's the truth that when you say you're a consultant, nobody will think of Big 4, they will be thinking of Bain, BCG, etc. It's also true that the state of consulting in Big 4 in Singapore is pretty lousy compared to the big names. Maybe it wasn't clear that the discussion was constrained to Singapore only. In US PWC and Deloitte are big names in the consulting biz, but definitely not here in SG. It's common knowledge that Deloitte is usually ranked last in the big 4, yet in US they are one of the strongest. Not very fair to compare the SG "branch" with the US "branch".

All are welcome to join big 4 consulting if you think it's prestigious, don't complain 2-3 years down the road when you realise your pay sucks and first thing people say when you tell them you work in big 4 is "oh, you're an auditor?"

Originally Posted by Unregistered

because i felt like doing charity today... try LinkedIn... you're welcome

Tried already, I do not see any fresh hire as managemant consultant from a local uni so far. How about you come up with a few links? It's pretty pointless to just come up with generic comments like this. Either there is or there isn't. So where in linkedin?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's the truth that when you say you're a consultant, nobody will think of Big 4, they will be thinking of Bain, BCG, etc. It's also true that the state of consulting in Big 4 in Singapore is pretty lousy compared to the big names. Maybe it wasn't clear that the discussion was constrained to Singapore only. In US PWC and Deloitte are big names in the consulting biz, but definitely not here in SG. It's common knowledge that Deloitte is usually ranked last in the big 4, yet in US they are one of the strongest. Not very fair to compare the SG "branch" with the US "branch".

All are welcome to join big 4 consulting if you think it's prestigious, don't complain 2-3 years down the road when you realise your pay sucks and first thing people say when you tell them you work in big 4 is "oh, you're an auditor?"

Valid comments. Personally I think the fact their starting salary is so low in SG is a dead giveaway. It's hard to argue how prestigious or comparable to MBB when you are lowballing grads at 3k+.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Valid comments. Personally I think the fact their starting salary is so low in SG is a dead giveaway. It's hard to argue how prestigious or comparable to MBB when you are lowballing grads at 3k+.

What are mbb paying their fresh grads in SG?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What are mbb paying their fresh grads in SG?

According to glassdoor, a Mckinsey associate on the management consulting side is paid on average S$152,500. But I think this includes people who have been working for 1-2 years as well, so a fresh grad most likely S$110,000 - S$120,000