I am a recent PhD grad and have been thinking about consultancy. However, I have found myself being offered many interviews for quant analyst roles in finance, without much effort. Is this a sign? Should I perhaps pursue this line just now? Would it allow an easy transition to MC later? Or should I still apply to MC and see what happens? I realise that much of this depends really on what I want to do, but I'm afraid I'm still working this out. The thread below on IB probably covers some of these points, but I'd appreciate opinions.

What's your PhD like?

It actually not a traditional type quant PhD - it's in the life sciences, although I did gain a fair bit of programming and stats experience - at UCL if you're interested.

I have a PhD in Physics and now I've just joined a strat house.After finishing my PhD I had exactly the same dilemma than you and, finally I realized that, for me, MC was much more interesting than IB. In particular, MC provides you the opportunity to face intellectualy stimulant problems and challenges while IB is nothing but boring computer-based work (very well paid, but nothing much more interesting than implementing physical models in fortran).So if you would like to keep the best thing of Science, i.e. the intellectual challenges, I'd choose MC.It's up to you! Regards