I’m considering pursuing an earning-to-give path and would appreciate if anyone has any advice.
My short bio is:
Undergrad in Economics at Cambridge University
3 years in management consulting at PwC (more operations/tech than strategy so was decent pay but nothing special)
Masters in Economics at UCL
A year and a few months at an economics consultancy (a small, niche one that works in cost-benefit analysis and wellbeing—doesn’t have high pay). This is where I am now.
One obvious path is to go to a more established economics consultancy that pays well e.g. one of those that works in the competition/litigation space. I’m pretty well-aware of options in this area and am looking into it. There is also strategy consulting which I am also well-aware of. I haven’t ruled strategy consulting out, but am slightly less keen on it.
What I’m less in the know about are other ETG options, particularly those in finance. From the little research I’ve done it seems that it is quite difficult to break into finance from the outside, especially if (like me) you don’t really have any evidence of an interest in finance. I think I may be a decent fit for it though and of course one can earn very good money.
Can anyone advise on high-paying routes that I may realistically be able to break into at this stage in my career? With regards to finance, will it require a great deal of activity on my part to convince employers that I am interested e.g. by starting to invest my own money and building a portfolio? I appreciate that ETG career questions are generally thought to be easier to independently find the answers to than non-ETG career questions, but I would still appreciate any advice. Quick note—I am fairly certain that my maths skills aren’t quite good enough for quant trading.
Hi Jack! I worked in consulting at EY for four years before joining CEA in operations, and you might find a role in management/leadership/operations interesting. You might find a direct role that’s more fun than ETG (I think I did!)
I don’t really know anything about the best ETG routes, but one that strikes me that could be big business at the moment is insolvency and restructuring—lots of organisations will be unfortunately going through that so there could be quite a few roles.
Also a few friends of mine who were at PwC worked in deals/valuations and then left to get high-paying jobs doing (I think) the same thing at smaller places where the partners took less of the margin. Maybe that could be an option.
Thanks Louis. I am continuing to keep a look out for good direct roles as well. I actually did the economics masters with a hope to move away from management-type roles, but I don’t want to take them off the table entirely.
Unfortunately I just wasn’t into what I was doing at PwC (I was doing tech strategy after the grad scheme) and I don’t want to do that elsewhere. The money wasn’t really that good anyway. Something like deals/valuations seems OK, but it would be a big change for something that I don’t think is as much money as top econ consulting / finance roles. I quite like economics so I think econ consulting is a good option for me, but I also don’t want to rule out finance which is the area I’m most clueless about at the moment.
I’m considering pursuing an earning-to-give path and would appreciate if anyone has any advice.
My short bio is:
Undergrad in Economics at Cambridge University
3 years in management consulting at PwC (more operations/tech than strategy so was decent pay but nothing special)
Masters in Economics at UCL
A year and a few months at an economics consultancy (a small, niche one that works in cost-benefit analysis and wellbeing—doesn’t have high pay). This is where I am now.
One obvious path is to go to a more established economics consultancy that pays well e.g. one of those that works in the competition/litigation space. I’m pretty well-aware of options in this area and am looking into it. There is also strategy consulting which I am also well-aware of. I haven’t ruled strategy consulting out, but am slightly less keen on it.
What I’m less in the know about are other ETG options, particularly those in finance. From the little research I’ve done it seems that it is quite difficult to break into finance from the outside, especially if (like me) you don’t really have any evidence of an interest in finance. I think I may be a decent fit for it though and of course one can earn very good money.
Can anyone advise on high-paying routes that I may realistically be able to break into at this stage in my career? With regards to finance, will it require a great deal of activity on my part to convince employers that I am interested e.g. by starting to invest my own money and building a portfolio? I appreciate that ETG career questions are generally thought to be easier to independently find the answers to than non-ETG career questions, but I would still appreciate any advice. Quick note—I am fairly certain that my maths skills aren’t quite good enough for quant trading.
Also have you seen this?
Hi Jack! I worked in consulting at EY for four years before joining CEA in operations, and you might find a role in management/leadership/operations interesting. You might find a direct role that’s more fun than ETG (I think I did!)
I don’t really know anything about the best ETG routes, but one that strikes me that could be big business at the moment is insolvency and restructuring—lots of organisations will be unfortunately going through that so there could be quite a few roles.
Also a few friends of mine who were at PwC worked in deals/valuations and then left to get high-paying jobs doing (I think) the same thing at smaller places where the partners took less of the margin. Maybe that could be an option.
Thanks Louis. I am continuing to keep a look out for good direct roles as well. I actually did the economics masters with a hope to move away from management-type roles, but I don’t want to take them off the table entirely.
Unfortunately I just wasn’t into what I was doing at PwC (I was doing tech strategy after the grad scheme) and I don’t want to do that elsewhere. The money wasn’t really that good anyway. Something like deals/valuations seems OK, but it would be a big change for something that I don’t think is as much money as top econ consulting / finance roles. I quite like economics so I think econ consulting is a good option for me, but I also don’t want to rule out finance which is the area I’m most clueless about at the moment.