In partnership with
I hear this one a lot from current consultants: "I'll start seriously looking for corporate roles after Q4 ends" or "Once my bonus hits, I'll explore jobs outside consulting" or "After the review cycle, I'll make the move."
Exiting consulting—actually leaving McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or the Big 4 to take a full-time corporate job—is a real decision. You're moving from advising on change to executing it. From project-based work to functional ownership. From partner track to corporate ladder. So it makes sense to plan it logistically.
But here's what I've noticed: Most of the time, "waiting for the right time" is another way of saying "I'm not quite ready to admit I want to leave."
The real problem isn't timing though. It's clarity.
Consultants are trained to have clarity before they move. At McKinsey, BCG, Bain—clarity comes first. You analyze, you build your case, you present with confidence. Then you execute.
So when you're thinking about exiting consulting (leaving your firm to take a corporate role), you apply the same logic: I need to have it all figured out. I need to know what corporate role I want. I need to understand the pace shift. I need to calculate the compensation gap. Then I'll start looking and moving.
The problem is this doesn't work for your own life.
Because clarity doesn't come from thinking harder. It comes from testing reality.
You don't get clarity and then move. You move and then get clarity.
You start exploring. You talk to people in roles you're interested in. You update your LinkedIn. You sit in a corporate environment for a day and feel what it's actually like. And suddenly you know what you want, because you're actually in conversations about it.
But if you're waiting for that bolt of clarity to hit while sitting at your desk at 10 PM, exhausted, it's not going to happen.
Here's what happens while you're waiting: You get more burnt out. You start resenting the job more. You get deeper into the identity trap where you're wondering what's wrong with you that you can't just be happy here.
But nothing's wrong with you. You're just done.
Become An AI Expert In Just 5 Minutes
If you’re a decision maker at your company, you need to be on the bleeding edge of, well, everything. But before you go signing up for seminars, conferences, lunch ‘n learns, and all that jazz, just know there’s a far better (and simpler) way: Subscribing to The Deep View.
This daily newsletter condenses everything you need to know about the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. Squeeze it into your morning coffee break and before you know it, you’ll be an expert too.
Subscribe right here. It’s totally free, wildly informative, and trusted by 600,000+ readers at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and beyond.
The people who actually move? They move before they feel ready. They don't have it all figured out. They're uncomfortable with the ambiguity. They do it anyway—because they're tired of waiting for a clarity that analysis alone won't deliver.
Clarity comes from movement, not contemplation. Start before you're ready.
I wrote a full framework on this—how to break analysis paralysis, identify your key uncertainty, and test your way to a decision instead of analyzing your way to paralysis—in this piece:
-San
P.S. If you want us to guide you through this transition so you don’t lose another year to indecision, book a call and we’ll map your timeline together.