I have a while to decide, but essentially I can go one of two ways with my offer. I'm curious to hear an opinion about where I should go in terms of long term compensation, international opportunities, b-school opportunities (should I decide to go that route), and anything I might not yet have considered.
- Microsoft (Product development within the sales department of EDD (Windows Phone, Xbox, Kinect, etc.)) .
Comp: 107k base + bonus (prob around 20k), amazing benefits, 100% 401k matching, if I go to grad school they 100% cover it up to 200k
Location: Seattle (I lived there two summers ago when I was working at MSFT, fucking HATE Seattle)
Hours: ~55/week
- PwC (Advisory, can go either the technology or business route)
Comp: 75k base/signing bonus + performanace bonus (no more than 2-3k), good benefits, 25% 401k matching, I believe they'll put 25k towards your grad school
Location: New York
Hours: ~60/week
Obviously at first glance, Microsoft is way more fucking generous however by the time I'm 30 I'd be making much more at PwC. Both give me a decent shot to work abroad in like 3 years. I really like NYC and would really love to stay here. I plan on shopping during recruiting to see if I can land a spot at BCG or Deloitte (both will be recruiting at my school) which would change the conversation, but this is where I'm at now. Any thoughts or words of wisdom?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you would be barely above poor in New York on PwC's pay. My call is try to get into Bain, BCG, or whoever. If that doesn't work, take Microsoft, and try to lateral into consulting post MBA or something like that.
Maybe I'm biased because I like Seattle and hate New York...
PwC for the exit opps. (networking/b-school). Good luck with BCG and Deloitte.
Purely personal opinion here, but if you took Microsoft, you'd get great comp for a few years, a cushy lifestyle in a city with a lower cost-of-living, and b-school adcoms love applicants with the big-tech backgrounds and strong stats. Get into a good MBA program, recruit for consulting, and you're where you want to be mid-term but got better comp up front.
Microsoft all the way.
I'm one datapoint (but one at MBB) - and I can think of people who took both paths (MSFT product development, specifically) to get to my firm/office.
A few disorganized thoughts:
I think A is more interesting than B. Hell, if I was capable of doing product development at MSFT straight out of undergrad, I might've done it over MBB at that salary.
I would rather live in Seattle than NYC, but different strokes for different folks.
How sure are you about those PwC hours?
If you want to go to b-school, long-term comp doesn't matter as much.
Ok, this is interesting I very much appreciate the insight. What is comp like for someone joining MBB right out of an MBA program?
Definitely take the MSFT offer.
I don't know where you got that from, but PwC won't pay you that much better by the time you're thirty. And you'll be doing way less interesting work. And you work more. And your living costs are way higher. And instead of being the guy who works on the newest gadgets for one of the top brands in that industry, you'll be the one working for a firm that most people serious about strat consulting would only consider as a back up plan. And you have worse chances to get into a top MBA program And if you get in, you'll most likely have to pay for it. And if you're unlucky you will even be stuck with IT/tech consulting at PwC, where you have an even worse outlook on future salary/exit opps
I don't really see many upsides in the PwC offer...
I work for PwC, and I love it...but MSFT for all the reasons above. Comp, lifestyle, access to MBA is the same. The only thing you won't get are "consulting skills" - but I would imagine you could build those with some internships during an MBA (or even an MBA capstone project or university consulting group).
Microsoft.
Nice work
OP, what's your background, and can you elaborate a bit on the MSFT role?
The role is making sure products being developed will be met well on the sales side. Despite the title it's about 90% a business role and 10% technology (SQL/.net mostly to do analysis). It takes a technical background however to understand how products were developed. I am a CS major at a semi-target and worked in the tech space until this last summer.
Does anyone know how top MBA programs look at people coming from tech vs. people coming from consulting?
Another thing to consider: you are compared against your peers for b-school admissions. From MSFT you'll be competing against other F500 employees while from PwC you'll be competing against MBB types.
MSFT looks like the more attractive scenario to me unless you value being in NY over everything else.
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