> How'd you get into the management consulting world? Is there a 500k/yr salary just waiting for me if I fake like I'm a Wall St guy from the 80s?
Straight from undergrad. I went to a tech-focused school, majored in math and CS, and did a financial course series as a requirement for a scholarship. That, and I guess I'm a good interviewer / have people skills?
> I can appreciate that you might need a wardrobe with nice suits, a respectable looking car, and a few stories about places you've been and things you've done. It doesn't seem like it would super hard to craft that image without spending a lot of money.
This is not difficult. I wore mostly hand me downs I had tailored. Worked in a big city, so lack of car was not a problem. I also had my fair share of 'stories' (mainly because being student body president at my college exposed me to a world of very rich people).
The difficult part is that you enter in 'classes'. You and thirty other people who just graduated start at the same time, and you are put through the grinder together. There is an expectation you do all your socializing in this group. For me, part of the problem was that I was engaged and planning our wedding, so I had to take time off to do that and not partake. The group would collectively decide to do things every single weekend. If you did not attend, you were ostracized. These were not things like playing board games together or even clubbing (although there was a lot of clubbing). These were things like, 'so and so has a birthday, let's go to Cabo!' or 'let's rent a boat' or 'let's rent a mansion'. These things cost a lot of money, and the company does not pay. However, if you do not invest in maintaining these relationships, you will face issues later on.
The company encourages this by throwing extravagant parties every few months. And I really mean extravagant.
For example, before we accepted the offer, we were all flown out for a weekend filled with free booze, clubs, etc. We were all 'beautiful people' so to speak (although, I personally think I was the ugliest person there). The company provides enough of an exposure to a lifestyle that it whets the appetites of status-seeking 22 year olds, who then seek to accomplish the same 'epicness' on the non-company-sponsored weekends.
> Is there a 500k/yr salary just waiting for me if I fake like I'm a Wall St guy from the 80s?
No. The salary is piss poor. Starting undergrads in 2014 made $75k/year in San Francisco at my firm. The big bucks only roll in after you've been there for many years (and thus have that large debt hanging on your neck).
As my first manager said, "you can wait until you're 30 to have a family and free time." She told me that the week before I quit.