I worked as a consultant at an MBB firm for 1 year after my undergrad

I worked as a consultant at an MBB firm for 1 year after my undergrad.

I left to work in medical device sales.

I made $370k last year.

I am 25.

AMA

Do you genuinely like sales and will you be sticking with it for your career?

tell me about the "gifts" and all that shady gray area stuff.

Nice. Where did you go to school? What did you study? Why did you choose to leave consulting, was it for the money? Did you have any prior experience in medical fields?

What does b2b mean?

stands for "back to /b/" and means you're a retard

Tell us more about your career path.

What did you earn at the MBB? What exactly do you do in your current job?

No, that's b2/b/, you fucking retard. Learn how to initial.

> mfw this fucking guy...

Yes, well, I like people. I don't like the part that is a lot of cold approaches. But I worked in sales and recruiting while I was in school. Consulting and those fields are all big on people skills. Once you work in medical device for a while, you are less of a cold caller and more of a farmer. You deal with doctors and institutions you have relationships with. That's what I look forward to and when I hope to open my own distributorship.

A "tier 1" business undergrad program in Canada. I am a dual citizen and moved to the States when I left consulting. Medical device sales reps don't make nearly as much up in socialist Canada.

No prior experience in medical.

Left consulting for the hours. I wanted more of a life. My girlfriend left me because I was not 'present' and always working. Much happier now, and making way more.

Can you be more specific?

Business to business.

8k signing bonus. 75k salary. Bonus 14k. Fairly typical numbers for first year MBB with no MBA.

I medical devices (all the shit you see around you when you are in a hospital) to doctors' practices and hospitals. I am in surgical devices. I do everything from cold calling to meeting and pitching my products, to being in the operating room and coaching surgeons on how to switch over to using my devices.

Is your family rich?

No, I was raised by a single mother who peaked in her career working as a librarian.

How'd you get into consulting, and what made you consider it? As someone who is considering consulting, what does the MBB look for in candidates? Does age matter? And how is military experience seen in consulting?

What are you doing with your money? I assume being young, you don't have too many things to spend on yet.

I was initially interested in pursuing finance after graduation but got exposure to consulting through my school's consulting club. The prestige, money, and notion of having a job that was quite dependant on social interaction and people skills was attractive to me.

To put it in a nutshell, MBB wants to see a resume and cover letter that indicates that you spend pretty much all of your time doing impressive and leadership-type shit. You don't sit on your ass. That doesn't mean you have to have done EXACTLY that but you need to frame yourself well and tell an impressive story. They want excellent marks but networking CAN get around it but it's hard. You need to be able to speak articulately and eloquently. Think if you hired a team of consultants to fix your company's problems. How would you want them to be like and present themselves? You have to act like that. The cases in the interviews are crucial. And frankly you need to be really smart.

Age does matter. Key times to break in are right after undergrad or right after MBA. Lateral hires and getting on board outside of that is significantly more difficult. But it is done and there are ways.

Haven't seen much military experience in consulting.

When I was a consultant I spent all my money going out and trying to have fun with the hours that I did have off. Now that I am in med device and worked a year, I paid off all my students loans and am saving to buy a rental property. I also have a travel savings fund now. I want to quit and travel for a couple years, in a few years. Then go back to work.

>The cases in the interviews are crucial. And frankly you need to be really smart.

Sounds fun. I hope you remember some. How about you let some of us Anons try?

Thanks for doing this AMA btw.

>A "tier 1" business undergrad program in Canada
Is this business administration? I'm from europe and we have way less different degress than americans. What other degrees would work to get into sales?

Also some other questions relating your current job:

How did you get into the field? Did you just apply or did they contact you?

Did you know you will make this much money in sales? I mean, is it common for people to earn this much money in this field? If not, why do you earn so much? What exactly do offer to make someone pay you 360k a year? Is it your good grades, your work experience at the MBB or your social/leadership skills?

How hard was the transition from consulting to sales?

What was the "impressive and leadership-type shit"/"impressive story" in your case? Any advice for us on how to be or seem more like that?

I'm also trying to make the transition from Consulting to Sales. Sales Engineering seems best because I'm not good with the hard sell, but really good a presenting demos and answering technical questions. Commission isn't as high, but still decent money

Yes it was a Bachelor of Business Administration. Most people specialize in an industry after 2nd year but I kept it general.

Sales is broad. Everything is sales. What industry are we talking about? For most sales jobs, you can break in with any university degree (if one is even needed) if you have relevant experience and good chops. For med device sales, you need a degree. For highly technical products or services, you may need a related degree. Plenty of my colleagues in pharmaceutical sales and medical device sales studied life sci and whatnot in uni.

I applied. And frankly consulting didn't get me this job, it was my previous sales experience from before I graduated. To break into medical device sales you need at least 1-2 years of B2B sales experience.

It is not common to make this much, but medical device sales is probably the easiest way to make 120-200k a year. I am a top performer at one of the top firms, that is how I make 300k+ per annum.

>What exactly do offer to make someone pay you 360k a year? Is it your good grades, your work experience at the MBB or your social/leadership skills?

It's sales so it is highly commission based. They were impressed by my consulting experience but none of that earned me a 370k salary. If you perform well, you earn a lot. My salary is not that high. Most of what I earn is commissions from my sales. The social and leadership skills I learned in consulting do help me in sales though, yes. As well as the corporate grooming I underwent - you come out with an image that is appealing for a salesman.

>How hard was the transition from consulting to sales?

It was hard to break into my firm but it wasn't as hard as MBB. I have previous sales experience so that was not a problem to transition mentally.

Honestly, google for consulting cases or MBB cases and you'll find better resources than my memory from 3 years ago. And my pleasure.

>What was the "impressive and leadership-type shit"/"impressive story" in your case? Any advice for us on how to be or seem more like that?

I was a leader in a number of university societies and associations. I worked all throughout uni, with a lot of hours, to explain my sub-par grades. I talked about my volunteer work. I talked about a slew of injuries I experienced and how I overcame it all while working and studying so hard.

You can frame yourself well and it helps a lot but at the end of the day you will need at least 2 of 3 things: a lot of impressive work experience, stellar grades, and a great network into the firm

Hard selling is tiring but it builds a backbone. If you can in with a firm that throws a bunch of warm leads your way and you're not responsible for cold calls and the like, that's good.

How far is the gap between MBB and a tier 2 consulting firm or a Big 4 (specifically Deloitte and PwC) firm?

I think I want to get into consulting but I come from a non target school, however it is ranked top 10 in accounting so the Big 4 firms are all over us. I decided that it's probably easier for me to go into advisory at PwC and then try and transfer to Deloitte S&O and then hopefully MBB. I'm not sure if this is possible because it seems like there is such a huge gap between MBB + Big4 firms

this is a stretch but do u have a linkedin

Are you looking for full time recruitment right now or a summer internship?

I do and I recommend everyone to have one but I will be keeping this user.

Thanks for taking the time answering all the questions.

You mentioned working 2 years in sale before graduating. Was this your job throughout uni? Would you reccommend a sales job during university? I didn't know this is an option for undergrads and I could really use some money.

Also a question you could answer regarding your time at MBB: Is a bachelor of economics suitable for landing there (or in consulting in general)? I always have mixed feelings about my major because you often read it's worse than b.a. for most jobs.

Can you give me any tips? I want to make and market video games as an indie. From my little knowledge, PR means everything. You got any wisdom on PR heavy markets?

Internship

Right now I'm taking a year off of school to work as a logistics intern at a global 500 company. The work is in another country (Singapore) so that's a pretty big plus and I'm going to spin "logistics intern" as "logistics analyst" because all my boss does is make me analyze problems that our distribution center has and then try to solve them

I'll be a junior when I go back next fall with a 3.45 GPA majoring in Accy from Ole Miss (top 10 school accy school, the rest is shit) and minor in manufacturing (from an honors program)

My plan right now is to get a summer internship with PwC Start internship (an internship to target "underrepresented minorities") going into junior year.. this is basically you work generally in PwC for a bit and then can choose which service (Tax, Aduit, Advisory) you want to get into. PwC full time offers 90% of interns so once I can get into the company it is easy to stay there.. if that experience gives me enough of a resume builder that Deloitte S&O would take me then I would just go there, but if not the plan is PwC->Deloitte->MBA/MBB

sorry for the grammar, I don't really put punctuation on the internet
thanks for answering questions btw, this is pretty insightful

Are medical sales just really lucrative, or are you just very good at what you do?

it's a tough field. 90% of salesmen fail at it as much I've asked around.

IT solutions salesman here.

What would you want me to do for $10,000?