Big 4 consulting, staying put versus moving out. Same graduate, same eight years, two different decisions.
The internal path: Graduate, Consultant at year two, Senior Consultant at four, Manager at six, Associate Director at eight. Four promotions, roughly ten to twelve thousand each, landing around 152.
The external path: three moves, at years three, six and eight. Plus 26, plus 38, plus 47, landing around 222.
Seventy thousand apart at the same point, at the same seniority, with the same CV up to year three.
Why the gap exists. Your firm reprices you against last year’s version of you, inside a band, in a cycle that has to work for everyone at your grade. The market reprices you against every other candidate, at the moment they need you, with no reference to what you were on before. Those are structurally different numbers and no amount of being excellent internally closes it.
The argument against this chart, which is a fair one. By year eight the mover is on their fourth employer and the internal person has eight years of relationships on a partner track. Extend this to fifteen years and the internal line can go somewhere the external line cannot, because partnership is an internal tournament you have to be present for. Equity is the only step change that beats a lateral move, and you cannot lateral into it.
So the real question is not stay or move. It is whether you are actually on the partner track at your current firm, because if you are not, you are paying seventy thousand a year for a lottery ticket nobody has offered you.
Indicative total packages. Titles and bands vary by firm and service line. Figures read the same in Australia and the US.
Comment PATH and I’ll map your path.
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