The Harsh Reality After Exiting Consulting
- Apr 17
- 8 min read
So you finally exited consulting and joined a corporate. Amazing. You've got a chilled lifestyle, you're still making decent money, and your career is fulfilling.
Hold on. Wait a minute. Something ain't right.
Sure, consulting is a tough career. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows once you exit either. Some of it you may have anticipated — the pay cut, the slower promotion track. But other things you definitely didn't. We've both made the transition from McKinsey to senior corporate roles, and in this post we'll walk you through what you'll likely struggle with the most in your new corporate job.
A quick disclaimer first: we're focusing on classic corporate exits here. Private equity is a different beast — much closer to consulting in pace and intensity, so most of what we describe doesn't apply.
Alright, let's get into it.
1. The Lack of Talent and Drive
The first realization you'll make is the gap in talent and drive at the corporate.
Let's be honest: the level of talent at MBB firms is extraordinarily high. A passionate graduate with a stellar academic career is, by definition, driven. Fresh consultants don't have a lot of experience yet, but they're capable, and they're always willing to go the extra mile. Which is also exactly what's expected from them.
How does it look at a corporate? You could argue there are super capable people there, with much more experience than any junior consultant — and you'd be right. But at the same time, you have a huge number of freeloaders. This is our own experience, and anyone we ever talk to will readily admit that their firm is full of slackers.
Now, this isn't necessarily dramatic. Many tasks at a corporate don't need anyone going the extra mile. So it's totally fine to have employees who just want to clock in, do their job, and drop the pen at 5 PM. Nothing wrong with that.
But if you're coming from consulting, this lack of drive — and sometimes also lack of talent — can be very frustrating. Imagine you have a cool project in mind. Say, you want to introduce GenAI into the organization. You have a meeting with your team to distribute tasks. You pitch how exciting the project will be for the company. And when you ask who wants to work on it on top of their regular tasks... silence.
We've faced situations exactly like this, and it's not exactly what you want to see. In consulting, a bunch of people would step forward to work on it right away. Firstly, they'd want to learn something. Secondly, they'd see it as an opportunity to progress in their career.
At the corporate, you really need to convince people to take on extra tasks and beg them to help you. This can be very frustrating and can really slow down your own drive and ambition over time.
2. The Slow Pace
Next, we have the slow pace.
In consulting, you're in a rush all the time. If you're not chasing deliverables and deadlines on a project, you're working on a last-minute proposal, organizing an office event, or publishing an industry whitepaper. You're constantly producing output and time flies. Defining the 2030 strategy for a retailer? No problem — lock 3 consultants in a room at the client, working 80 hours per week for 6 weeks, and you'll have the strategy document.
At a corporate, this looks a bit different. Even if you're driven and want to have an impact, the wheels turn slowly. Aside from the lack of talent and drive we just mentioned, the norm at a corporate is that you're not working 100% of your time on a single project. You might have a bunch of people dedicating 20% of their capacity each. And if they can't do 20% in a given week, they usually won't make up for it with overtime. So everything just takes longer.
That's actually one of the main reasons companies hire consultants in the first place. They simply don't have the resources to complete fast-paced projects in a short period of time.
So if you're thinking of joining a corporate, be warned: you will not achieve as much in a short amount of time as you're used to from your consulting days.
3. The Drop in Impact
Another factor is that you don't feel like you have much impact anymore. This may be partly perception, and it depends on your specific circumstances, but there's something real to it.
As a consultant, you usually work on projects that have the highest organizational priority. Especially in strategy consulting, there will be a C-level executive sponsoring the project — often the CEO directly. So whatever you're working on, from a growth strategy to a cost-cutting program, that's what the CEO will be talking about at the annual general meeting or the next investor conference. Some of the big projects will even make the news.
If you're the project manager of something like that, or even just a junior analyst on the team, that's pretty cool. As an individual consultant you only play a small role, but you still have the feeling you're contributing to something big.
At a corporate, you won't get much of that anymore. It really depends on the exact position you take. As chief of staff to the CEO, you might be closer to the action. Likewise, if you exited consulting in a more senior role and are now head of strategy, then yes, you might still have immediate impact.
But leaving the consulting firm after 2 years and joining the in-house strategy team of a corporate can be a rude awakening. You're not necessarily working on anything that's a C-level priority — maybe just a mini-project that a senior strategy manager had in mind. And more often than not, there isn't even a huge transformational program going on at the firm. So there are no consultants in sight, and you might find yourself working on housekeeping stuff.
4. Corporate Politics
Next: corporate politics.
Consulting only becomes political internally once you try to make partner. Before that point, you only know corporate politics from your clients.
Usually at the start of a consulting project, you have an internal kick-off meeting with just the consulting team. In this meeting, the Senior Partner will explain all the political dynamics at the client. To give you an idea what we mean, here's how such an introduction may go down:
"The CEO Kevin really needs to make a strong statement with this project, as the current COO Bob is setting himself up to succeed Kevin if his contract isn't extended. Bob will not be supportive of this project. James, who works under Bob, will likely try to derail it by directing our attention to topics that won't have a large impact. Besides Bob, there's Jennifer, who's been a protégé of Kevin. After the last strategy conference, Jennifer was doing some after-work at Kevin's house in the Hamptons, while Kevin's wife was busy with her tennis teacher in Cancún..."
You get the picture. As consultants, we already know that corporate life is political — especially as people move up the ranks.
This can be very frustrating when joining from consulting. You're used to focusing entirely on having the highest impact with your project and making the project sponsor happy. You're not used to people delaying projects or refusing to cooperate with you because of corporate politics. In consulting, people are usually extremely helpful, at least to the degree their schedules allow. If you're helpful to others and provide good ideas or expertise, you become the go-to person — which ultimately helps your standing in the firm.
Another factor: in consulting, you don't need to tiptoe around issues or be politically correct. To illustrate: as a consultant, you can communicate your recommendation without worrying about what it means for some middle manager down the line. If you're suggesting to increase IT automation to cut costs, you don't really care that the head of IT will end up with a 20% smaller team and less power in the organization. If it's the objectively right thing to do, you recommend it.
But at the corporate, when the head of IT is your colleague — and you also need him for other, potentially higher-impact projects — you'll think twice before proposing something he won't like.
5. Salary and Career Progression
You can make a really good salary in consulting, but that's partly explained by the fact that you work your ass off. We've covered both topics in detail already — see our salary post and our take on working hours for the full picture.
So if you're exiting consulting, it's not uncommon to take a pay cut. But you typically do so consciously — you're trading great compensation for a better lifestyle. That's all fine.
What you realize once you join a corporate is that your salary and career progression have become way less dynamic. In consulting, you get promoted every 2 years or so. And a promotion often comes with a pay bump of 30%, sometimes 50%. If everything goes well, you can become partner in less than 10 years and make 7 figures before you're 35. Sure, that's tough, but if you can grind it out and bring in the business, there's no one blocking a position for you to fill. You're creating your own path. Which is pretty cool.
This is what you won't find in most corporates. You simply can't be promoted as quickly and consistently. If you're in a team and the head of that team is 40 years old, you might be stuck behind him for the next 10 or 20 years. There's no clear or standardized pathway to becoming the head of a team or a department. You need to make lateral moves, and maybe even play some politics to get ahead.
And even just thinking about the grind and the political maneuvering it takes to eventually reach the C-level at 45 — that's rough.
6. The Support System You'll Miss
Lastly: the support systems.
That's everything that makes your day-to-day job easier. This may differ across consulting firms, but at the top firms, it's also top-notch.
No matter what you need, the firm has you covered:
You're at the client and your laptop breaks down? You'll get a new one in less than 24 hours, with all your files intact.
You need someone to do research for you? An entire army of researchers in the back office is at your service.
You need someone to redesign your PowerPoint presentation? You have designers around the globe, available 24/7, in multiple languages.
You need translation support or proofreading? No problem.
You need help with admin tasks? There are assistants who can schedule meetings, organize travel, book restaurants, and even handle your expenses.
All of that is super nice. And everyone across the entire back office is motivated and committed to doing a great job.
At a corporate, you may feel lost. First of all, corporates are more complex and operations can never be as streamlined. The company might have undergone a few mergers, so the IT systems don't communicate well with each other. Your equipment often sucks. Your IT support might be terrible — ignoring or failing to resolve your issue for weeks. And all the other things that made your job easier? They're either not there, or people just don't care as much.
Which can be a real pain.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, it's not all sunshine and rainbows when joining a corporate. The lack of talent, the slower pace, the drop in impact, the corporate politics, the slower career progression, and the missing support systems are all things you have to get used to.
That doesn't mean exiting consulting is a bad idea — far from it. Both of us did it, and we don't regret it. The lifestyle improvement is real. The flexibility is real. The chance to actually own a function or a P&L instead of advising someone else's is real. But you should walk in with eyes open. The grass isn't greener; it's just a different shade.
If you're still in the early stages of your consulting career and trying to land an MBB offer in the first place, our Case Interview Mastery course on Udemy walks you through 7 McKinsey-style cases with detailed solutions — taught by us, two former McKinsey interviewers.
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