IB vs consulting vs corporate strategy: what nobody tells you about the actual day-to-day shift

Management consulting Exit opportunities
1

I spent four years in banking, made the jump to consulting for two, and recently landed a corporate strategy role. People keep asking me which was “better,” and honestly, the question doesn’t even make sense once you’ve done all three. They’re not versions of the same job—they’re totally different professions that happen to hire from overlapping talent pools.

I want to be blunt about what actually changes when you make these moves because I don’t think anybody lays it out clearly.

Investment Banking:
You’re basically running transactions. Your day is: diligence, models, decks. Endless decks. You’re working 90+ hours during busy season because there’s literally a closing date and you can’t move the goalpost. The hours suck, but there’s this weirdly addictive quality to knowing exactly what you need to accomplish. You learn financial modeling and deal logic to a level that’s almost unreasonable. You also learn that three-quarters of what happens in deals is political (who wants this deal to close, who benefits) and one-quarter is financial.The money is decent if you make MD, but the on-ramp is brutal and most people wash out.

Management Consulting:
You’re selling solutions. Your day is: client management, analytics, more decks. The hours are better than banking (usually 60-70 in heavy weeks), and there’s more travel. The weird part is that you’re often consulting on areas where your actual expertise is about two weeks old. You learn how to operate under uncertainty and how to sell your recommendations to skeptical audiences. You also learn how to convince a client that something is true based on 60% confidence and some good presentation skills. The money is comparable to banking but the exit opportunities are way better—everyone wants your resume.

Corporate Strategy:
You’re implementing (or at least trying to implement). Your day is: meetings to plan meetings, alignment sessions, translating between what the CEO wants and what the organization can actually execute. The hours are reasonable (50-60 in a normal week), but there’s this frustrating ceiling on impact. You have authority on paper but actual power is distributed across P&L leaders, CFO, business unit heads. So you spend a lot of energy on political capital and coalition-building. The financial modeling is less important; the stakeholder management is everything. You learn how organizations actually work—which is to say, messy and human and way less rational than banking or consulting pretends.

What actually transfers:
All three teach you analytical thinking. All three teach you how to be productive under pressure. That’s where the similarities end.

From banking, you take: financial fluency, structuring instinct, the ability to stay calm during chaos. None of that matters that much in strategy.

From consulting, you take: frameworks, how to operate in ambiguity, how to communicate upward. This actually transfers pretty well to strategy.

What doesn’t transfer: the pace. You go from shipping something every 6-8 weeks (consulting) or closing something every X months (banking) to… operating in a multi-year horizon where progress is sometimes invisible. That was weirdly hard for me to adjust to.

The transition friction:
The biggest culture shock when I moved to strategy: nobody cares that you got it right. You don’t close deals, you don’t get paid on your recommendations. You just see them (or don’t see them) implemented six months later. The feedback loops are terrible. In banking, you close or you don’t—it’s brutal clarity. In consulting, your client either acts on it or doesn’t—but you shipped something. In strategy, you’re often writing a recommendation that gets reviewed by four committees and then something adjacent to your recommendation eventually happens but you’re not sure if it’s because of your work or because the market moved.

That clarity loss is the real thing most people struggle with.

Real talk on the move:
If you’re thinking about leaving banking or consulting for corporate strategy, do it because you want to actually see something get built, not because the hours are better. Yes, the hours are better. But if you need the fast feedback loops and the closure of shipping something, strategy will feel like watching paint dry. Conversely, if you’re in consulting and realizing you’re tired of optimizing for client perception rather than actual outcomes, strategy can be refreshing.

The thing nobody says out loud: all three can go sideways. Banking is a grind until you’re bored or burned out. Consulting is ego-satisfying until it’s not and you realize most of your recommendations got ignored anyway. Strategy is technically easier until you realize you don’t actually have power to implement anything.

So pick based on what kind of frustration you can tolerate, not which one sounds better on paper.

For anyone considering this transition: what are you actually running from, and what are you actually hoping to find?

2

this is honestly the realest breakdown i’ve seen of the three roles. the part about strategy lacking feedback loops is accurate and it’s something people don’t truly understand until they live it. everyone thinks the hours are the differentiator. they’re not. it’s the ability to see if something you authored actually matters. that’s the real thing.

3

also appreciate you not romanticizing any of them. banking sucks but it teaches you to close. consulting teaches you to sell. strategy teaches you that organizational resistance is permanent. all three have value if you understand what you’re actually trading. most people don’t.

4

the feedback loop thing is so real tho. like that sounds genuinely frustrating. but also the hours being 50-60 in strategy sounds way better than ib so idk if i care about the ambiguity lol

5

wait so if u wanted to go back to ib from strategy, is that even possible? or are u locked out

6

Your framework—evaluating roles by the type of frustration you can tolerate rather than surface benefits—is actually more sophisticated than most career guidance. Most candidates optimize for hours or comp without understanding that different roles train different psychological muscles. Your insight that banking provides closure (it closes or doesn’t), consulting provides a shipping event (the recommendation is delivered), and strategy provides… ambiguity about whether anything you did mattered… is the real crux that separates people who thrive in each role from those who don’t. This is crucial context for anyone seriously considering a transition between these three.

7

You’re giving such honest guidance about what each role actually trains you for. That clarity is going to help people make the right move for themselves!

8

The reframe about frustration types is brilliant. You’re thinking about career strategy in exactly the right way!

9

I went banking → consulting → strategy, same path as you basically. The shock I felt moving from consulting to strategy wasn’t just the feedback loops, it was the political complexity. In consulting, you solve for ‘the client’ as a unit. In strategy, you’re solving for four different executive priorities that are secretly at odds with each other. I had to unlearn the idea that there’s a ‘right answer’ and learn instead that there’s often a ‘least-objectionable path.’ That was a real shift in how I think about problems.

10

And yeah, going back to IB from strategy is basically off the table unless you’re willing to restart at a lower level. You lose the deal-close muscle. That said, I don’t actually want to go back. Banking broke me in ways I didn’t realize until I got distance from it. So leaving was the right move even if it’s not reversible.

11

On reversibility: approximately 15% of strategy professionals successfully transition back to banking or senior consulting roles, primarily in specialized areas like corporate development advisory or buy-side consulting. For most, the option closes after 18-24 months. However, lateral moves within strategy across companies remain relatively fluid. Your point about different role types offering different types of closure is structurally accurate and helps explain why some people thrive in ambiguity while others experience strategy as frustrating or stagnant.