I was wondering whether anyone had an opinion on the following:Between a starting job in a boutique strategy consulting firm (circa 50 employees) and a more business/sales/advertising position at Google, which would you deem to be more beneficial in the long run?The obvious answer being "it depends what you want to do", here are some of my thoughts:- Ideally would like to join MBBB in the next 2-3 years and was thinking whether it would be better to have experience in a big name like Google but working in a non-consulting environment OR to have worked a few years in a boutique strategy consulting firm. Basically, to what extent does the latter's lack of reputation affect my application vs its obvious relevance to consulting.- If both are deemed to be suitable, would obviously prefer to work a few years in a much nicer worker environment at goog and then suffer at MBBB than have to suffer from the start.- Starting salary at the boutique firm is virtually double that at goog's but to what extent would that matter in the LR?Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

I think you'd be much better off in a strategy boutique. All my experience of those who work at Google is that although the engineers are absolutely first-class, the business side is nowhere near as impressive, and they will have you doing fairly mundane stuff without much exposure to more interesting problems.I think that Google uses its name and work envirnonment to hire people who are rather overqualified for its somewhat unexciting work. Also, remember that you would be a person with a business background in a firm that is dominated (in terms of strategy) by engineers. That is probably not a great place to be long-term, and as its difficult to know what your exit options will be ahead of time, you are better off somewhere that you might actually want to stay at long term.

I beg to differ - even with top class engineers you don't build a $10bn business in 9 years and is currently growing at 30% a year without decent business guidance...There are few companies with the cachet of Google at present (despite a couple negative analyst reports of late), and fewer organisations will present such a variety of exit options in years to come (strategy consulting, entrepreneurial, tech firms or marketing & sales).

Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.On the one hand if I want to try getting into MBBB after a year or two perhaps working for the boutique strategy consulting firm is a no-brainer, except for the fact that it's reputation is no where near that of Google's (of course we're talking about two different industries as well, but even within consultancy it really is a boutique firm). - At Google, as bob said, I'm sure the job won't be as intellectually stimulating as that of consulting (although I'm sure the overall work/life balance and office environment is much better, but with it a lower pay). However, if Goog is indeed still a 'young' company and growing quickly, opportunities might present themselves and perhaps getting to work within the strategy and business development unit might bolster my chance for joining MBBB after a few years. Any other thoughts or comments will be appreciated.

I'd be interested in hearing more views on this too.

I’d go for the strategy boutique; chances are you’re unlikely to get into MBB if you didn’t get in first time (nothing personal, just what the stats say) and if you don’t then at least you’ll be doing strategy somewhere as apposed to other stuff at google. Plus if google really yanks your crank, you can always join their strategy division after a few years which would surely be more interesting than a job in “business/sales/advertising”.

I was approached about a job for Google.In preparation, I purchased and read the book "The Google Story".Now I did expect some hype around the brand, but I just couldn't 'buy' all of it. The chef makes the lunch "with love"? All those wacky job titles? Photos of Larry and Sergey in hot tubs? Wacky 'off the wall' application forms?At that point I thought the hype had just gone too far. Sure Google is a major brand, but then again, so is the NHS. I figured that, once you strip out the hype and gimmicks, it would probably just be like any other job in a London sales office. I was also concerned that Microsoft or somebody could come along with something better and *pfft* there goes Google's business model (remember what happened to HotBot, Lycos, Go-To.com and all those other early search engines?). So, I didn't really know what to make of it all. I'd just judge the job on its own merits, and disregard any hype around the brand altogether.

I have to agree with something anonetta has raised here. It is indeed quite unusual for consultants to move from a "lesser" strategy consultancy into an MBB firm. Not unheard of, but pretty unusual - and the point at which this could happen would be the MBA graduation point. A move from Google into MBB is also most likely to happen at the MBA career transition point, as this is the career point when these firms are most receptive to bringing in talent rather than purely promoting from within.So if getting into MBB(B) in the next few years is really your end goal, the question really becomes which of the two are most likely to get you into one of the very very best business schools in the world. I don't know the definitive answer, but this is probably the question to be asking...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com