Best Career Options/Path from Here
Hi All-
This is my first post but I have been reading these forums for a couple of months now and have appreciated all of the advice that everyone has to offer.
A little background: I just graduated in December with a BS in accounting from a non-target school. I am currently doing a second (tax) internship with PwC and just finished putting in a bunch of joint law school/masters of accounting applications. As I'm starting to get offers from schools I've realized for the first time in 8 years that maybe I don't want to go to law school...
I've always been interested in VC/PE but after talking to a few VCs in the Bay Area recently I've realized that JD/MAcc is not the path to VC. I've slowly accepted that and started to look into other, more realistic career options at this point. I've read a lot of interesting posts on Big 4 corporate finance, as well as ts, deal strategy and m&a. All of these seem like jobs I would like with good career options in the future as well.
As I said, I'm currently doing my 2nd internship at PwC. I was given an offer last year but turned it down due to law school (and also because I realized tax is definitely not for me). They then offered me a second internship with the condition that after completing I could choose any office I wanted to work full time with them. Hopefully I can use this to my advantage when trying to switch from tax to advisory.
My questions:
1. What options are available to me with my current plan? (JD/MAcc or potentially JD/MBA)
2. What do I gain by getting a JD? (I have been offered a full ride so cost to me is only time, no $$)
3. Do jobs like corporate finance, ts etc at Big 4 hire associates or do I need to start in something else (i.e. auditing)
Thanks for the input guys, I know this post is long and I don't have much direction to work off of, but hopefully I can get some answers.
do you want to be a lawyer?
if yes:
what rank of school? below a rarefied group, you will need to significantly outperform your class for the qualification to have any value.
otherwise, don't go.
What do you ultimately want to do? PE? VC?
Law is not a path to PE, VC, ibanking, ER, or hedge funds. Sure, people who were once lawyers sometimes wind up in those positions but it's not because of law but (almost) despite it. I can think think of some people I know who do have a JD and wound up in those fields. Every single one either had some sort of background prior to law school that enabled them to break in. This seems to be different than your case.
If I were you, I'd say forget law school, the debt, and the limited career options. Move into Transaction Advisory and from there try to network into investment banking. My two cents, fwiw.
My assumption is that less than 5% (if not even less) of the people on WSO are actually well-versed in how the VC industry actually works and what it takes to break in. I would definitely suggest getting into some transactions based job (transfer into PwC corporate finance or lateral into a MM IBD, possibly a tech group in SF or Boston) for the time being and then just keep reaching out to professionals in the VC industry to build a network, learn about what they do and how they got there, and things you can be doing to help position yourself.
There isn't really a clear cut path into VC and no one job or degree will catapult you into a VC... and probably becomes even less clear cut for a non-entrepreneur or former start-up founder.
JD/MBA --> Compliance VP --> Director --> MD
Pays well, stable career, minimal layoffs.
there is such a glut of JDs i wouldn't count on a cushy in-house gig
He asked for possible paths after getting his JD/MBA. I am not advocating that is the path he should try to take after getting the degree. Compliance is super boring, but then again so are most legal professions. However, compliance is seeing growth thanks to the sheer number of regulatory changes going into effect each year and he can go in right as a VP typically if his focus is in securities etc.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I do not want to be a lawyer or practice law, I felt that a JD/accounting background seemed like a sensible way to break in to VC, but it is apparently not.
As far as moving to PwC corp finance what's the best way to do that? Do I need to start in audit or do they take interns/associate's directly into the cf group?
a jd is three years of highly specialised academic study (the generous interpretation), only worth the investment of time alone if that fits your career goals.
none of these seem like great ways to make it into vc, tbh. how is a cpa relevant?
Also, I'm pretty set on grad school of some sort. I'm very close to getting my CPA and I think I would regret not getting it, but going into VC are there other credentials needed? CFA?
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