Deloitte - Corporate Finance or Consulting?

Possibly biased but I'd argue the cf scheme is far better than consulting. In cf there have been circa 20 people recruited each year for the past 3 years versus circa 150 in consulting. Benefit is your are valued more.

In cf you get the benefit of the ACA whereas consultants only do the first 6 CIMA. Consulting contract is also shorter and the projects are longer meaning you may finish your.training contract with no knowledge outside the one or two co's you worked on.

Both are Market leaders so you can't go wrong with either. It depends what you like really. CF is more technical and will arguably leave you with a more defined and transferable skillset after 3 years.

Thank you, littlelegs - that is really helpful.

Bea

I hope I havent gotten in too late, but I'd have to wholeheartedly disagree. The fact there are 150 consultants does not equate to being undervalued at all. If anything, I'd point to the fact you gain a readily established network of peers which will follow you for the remainder of your career. If like me the prospect of a full time job seems akin to a death sentence to you, having as many as 450 around your age makes for a hugely collegiate environment and softens the blow. But of course, if your idea of after work fun is socialising with balding bankers (because banking is pretty much what they do), combined with conversations about the likes of golf and cricket, by all means go for it!

With all due respect also, the standard of colleagues you will be working with - benchmarked against industry - will be much higher in consulting than CF. Deloitte consulting is top 5 across the industry. Thats as far as revenues, reputation and implementation are each concerned. Either way you look at it, you are keeping the door open for yourself, and maximising future career prospects. With all due respect, CF at Deloitte is where people who couldnt get into a proper investment bank go. I promise you, every individual you meet there will have applied for and been rejected by at least 10 superior institutions, before taking up the offer with Deloitte. CF at Delloite is very far indeed from being anything close to resembling a market leader. What adds further insult to injury, is that the strategy consultants at deloitte get involved in exactly the same type of work that the CF guys do from time to time.

The CIMA is also the industry standard as far as consulting is concerned, so why waste 3 years of your life studying for an ACA alongside work which will open virtually the same doors for you? Unless you want to then go on to do audit or tax, the distinction between the CIMA and ACA is pretty negligible. Whats more, deloitte will PAY for you to go off and get an MBA. Thats as much as $50k. I hope it dawns on you that an MBA is worth infinitely more than any ACA qualification ever will. The skillset you will gain via CF is strong dont get me wrong. But stronger than in consulting?! I'd seriously reccommend reading up on what CF actually entails. Learning stock valuation, the likes of EBITDA and debt cap calculations - you are seriously pigeonholing yourself into a life of pure finance. If thats what you want, go for it. Consulting is much more entreuprenurial. The skills equip you with the ability to walk into management roles across ALL industries (including finance), and the option to start something up of your own with gained expertise.

Perhaps I havent been entirely convincing, but for me its a no brainer.

(Rant Over!)

Mike,

Some fair points in there but your argument only holds true for Deloitte's M&A practice within CF (which is the smallest part), which as you correctly pointed out is definitely not a market leader and picks up the mid to small cap work that the banks aren't too interested with.

Like consulting CF is made up of a number of departments, Reorganisation Services, Transaction Services, Forensics, M&A - valuations, Real Estate Advisory (i.e. Drivers Jonas). RS picked up the DubaiWorld administration recently i.e .the sovereign wealth fund of Dubai c.£40bn debt and Deloitte TS has advised on a majority of the £bn plus deals this year and a number of well known IPO's proving that both are well and truly market leaders. The banks do not offer any of the above aside from M&A.

The collegiate environment you speak of is the same for any graduate from any service line due to college; my point was that in CF you really benefit from the small intake (as there are more partners in CF in total than 3 years worth of graudates combined) as a result you become known quicker, and ultimately get more opportunites at a more junior level. It is very much an inverse pyramid as opposed to consulting there is a more traditional structure.

In terms of CIMA vs ACA I agree it depends what you want to move onto in the future. What are the exit routes for counsultants? I read somewhere recently that the 70% of FTSE 100 CEO, FDs and Chairmen had the ACA and that salaries on qualification were c20% higher for ACA vs CIMA (but i suppose the latter figures are scewed as I imagine a lot of the CIMA salaries reflected junior management a/c positions). In my opionion you cannot beat the ACA for transferability of skills. Agreed an MBA is a no brainer but if you put forward a good business case Deloitte will fund it irrelevant of Dept.

The suggestion that everyone in CF wants to work at a bank is nonsense, I think you'll find most want to get the ACA and do interesting work in the process. How many bankers are now CEO's, answer the one's who did the ACA first. My question would be, what value can a 1st-3rd year analyst in consulting offer the management of a company if you don't have a complete understanding of the financials and operations? That is the basis of a business. I just don't know how you can call yourself a consultant if you don't have any experience working in that industry.

But, lets be honest, they are both great schemes and these are just opinions there are no right and wrongs, better or worse. In fairness you'll find a lot of the internal training CF and Consulting will be represented. The day to day work at junior level is likely to be very similar although you probably use less excel/powerpoint and more clipart in consulting ;-)

I would say though if you want to work on transactions; ask someone who does transactional work who is the best RS/TS/Forensics/Real Estate Advisory dept you will probably hear Deloitte or PwC but if you ask which consultant to use you will hear Bain, McKinsey or BCG.

Great comparison guys, I am one of the ones who's inbetween both -consultancy and TS- does anyone know what are the salaries for both? also who's the market leader for TS?

For TS it depends on the type of work undertaken.

It's quite hard to tell the true market leader as most if not all projects are strictly confidential (although are announced on completion). A proportion of due diligence will fall over relatively soon after commencement for various reasons and some will be completed but it may not lead to a sale - therefore never announced.

From experience PwC seem to edge the vendor DD side (i.e working for the seller, often corporates) whilst Deloitte win a lot of the big Acquisition DD work (working of the buyer, often PE houses). KPMG are strong in both areas but seem to offer a more standardised product from the packs that I have read.

The salary difference is negligible, if not the same on starting (have an idea of consulting starting but wouldnt want to give incorrect info), but for whichever you do it is not high enough for the hours you do. Not sure what it is like in consulting after year 3 when you make the jump in TS on qualification - that would be the best time to compare. Though to be fair 75% of the 1st year is in college and 30% of the 2nd year in TS where you do a cheeky 9-4.

Hi, I was wondering what the difference in working hours is between CF and Tax in the first 3 years?