Trending Content
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
April 30, 2024
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
Seems to be some good info here... http://gmatclub.com/forum/so-you-want-great-work-life-balance-post-mba-…
First of all, congrats on the admission!
Your career goal seems super vague. What did you write about on your essay as your short-term and long-term career goals? The average MBA debt burden at Wharton and other top schools is around $170K, so you are not alone in terms of being worried about the financial burden. The good news is that every empirical study shows that a top MBA pays off in the long-term. The bad news is that different people reach their destination via different roads, and some roads may be more painful. For instance, a lot of ex-finance/consulting people are now launching their own startups after b-school in the hopes of striking it big within 5 years or so. The ones who are more risk-averse stick with finance/consulting. Then there are those who don't care that much about money and want something laid-back so opt for cushy marketing/general management/F500 jobs (not to be sexist but it's usually women who fall into this last category).
Whether or not you think Wharton is "worth" it will hinge upon your personal goals, whether they are achievable via an MBA or not, how satisfied you are with your current trajectory, social needs, and a host of other factors. As opposed to college, law, or med school, it's very tough to answer this question for MBA because it's so nuanced.
Best of luck.
You're right. I accidentally deleted a portion of the original paragraph before posting. Now updated.
This is kind of what I'm thinking, but will I be selling myself short by taking this route? I don't mean in terms of doing work that's fulfilling or interesting to me, but doing something that will actually leverage the Wharton brand in a way that makes paying $250k worth it (since it's Wharton + Lauder). If I can follow the exact same career path with a lower ranked school that is less expensive, or will give me scholarship money, would that make more sense?
As a finance guy I'm SUPER biased, so you should get more people's thoughts on this. For me, going to a school such as Wharton for a F500 gig is sort of a "waste" because you can get that same job out of any top 15-20 program. Now, this does NOT mean that you should turn down Wharton for Cornell, but given that this is a huge investment and a once in a lifetime opportunity, you have to ask yourself whether F500 is what you really want to do. In other words, will you be totally happy starting out at a F500 in some random city (most of them are not in NYC/SF/LA) making $100K base to start? If you are ok with that and like the work, then by all means go for it. For myself and the finance crowd at school, doing a F500 is not a desirable post-mba outcome.
You can always take a cushy F500 gig in a low cost city in a state with income taxes.
You'll roughly come out to equal to what consultants living in Manhattan make post rent and taxes.
I completely understand your dilemma. I'm a 2nd year in a top 15 program going to one of the firms OpsDude quoted above. I went to a target undergrad (Penn) and went into consulting afterwards. A ton of my friends from undergrad did IB and I lived with a banker for a year. They were all abjectly miserable and even the ones who are now in PE don't love their jobs (they put up with them). I didn't like consulting due to the travel; I missed a lot of what NYC has to offer due to that travel. So going into bschool I knew I didn't want to do either of those, leaving my options basically in F500 jobs. I did my research, talked to a lot of alumni and realized brand management was exactly what I wanted to do. I interned in a CPG this past summer, absolutely loved it, and took the full-time offer. However, I still occasionally have doubts as to "wasting" my potential, mostly due to the bschool environment being "every student who can should do MBB or IB". I know I could do either of those as I got every single internship I interviewed for, was rated in the top 10 students for career/academics in the program by the CMC and facutly at year-end, and had a finance professor who aggressively tried to push me into IB. A few people who got MBB/BB in my class told me later they were glad I didn't interview as they think I would have taken their spot. I often think of whether or not I made the right choice, but then I think about how much I loved my job this summer and how much I didn't like consulting and how much I would detest IB. I value work/life balance a lot and to me it was worth the tradeoff in $$. The other big thing is that 2-3 years down the road the VAST majority of the consultants, and a lot of the IB guys will be in the same place I am, I.E. F500 jobs. The post-MBA to partner yield in consulting firms is less than 20% (I would probably say less than 15%) because the vast majority leave for F500 jobs. In IB, plenty will leave for corp dev/corp fin jobs for a better lifestyle.
And in case you think these F500 jobs aren't "competitive", for my company there are 5 target schools, at each there are 2-3 spots for internships out of 18 interviewees. The internship to full time offer rate is something like 50% as well. The people going full-time to my program are: 2 Tuck, 1 Cornell, 1 Stern, 1 Tepper, 1 HBS, 1 Wharton, 1 Kellogg, and 1 Darden.
As for earnings, this is what you're looking at as best I can tell:
Year 0-2: Assistant Manager, $100-110k base, $5-10k bonus Year 2-4: Manager: $120-130 base, $15-25k bonus Year 4-6: Senior Manager: $145-155 base, $25-35k bonus Year 6-8 Associate Director: $155-170 base, $30-40k bonus Year 8+: Director $165-185 base, $35-70k bonus
After that it becomes murkier as the promotion timelines aren't as set and pay is more variable. The above are also estimates, with some being promoted slightly slower or faster than these ranges. Hope all of this helps.
Very much appreciated, thank you. Your post captures my thoughts exactly. Are there other jobs you considered in F500? What led you to brand management over other choices like strategy or a rotational program?
Do these come with signing bonuses as well?
You only get a signing bonus when you join a company, not when you get promoted within that company. Almost all F500s offer signing bonuses out of bschool, and they tend to range from $20k-30k depending on the company and role.
For me it was mostly two things. I wanted to a) own a P&L and b) work in a consumer-facing role. I took a lot of psych/consumer behavior courses undergrad and really enjoy that stuff and you don't get as much of it in B2B. As for owning a P&L, I know that the power within an organization always resides with those who "own" the P&L, and I didn't want to be in a role that was a step away from that ownership (i.e. strategy). My program is rotational for the first year (pretty much gives away the company), so I have that as well. You'll find that the big difference between "marketing" jobs and "general management" jobs is the industry. In B2C companies, marketing is almost always the general management role. In B2B, it's more the type of jobs you would call "general management". I'm not really into the "fluffy" marketing stuff, such as choosing colors or styles etc, and if that were all my job was I'd hate it. However, in all of the biggest and best CPGs, your job is much more about data, distribution, pricing, and other tasks that I find much more appealing.
My advice for you is to talk to people in various roles and see what clicks with you. The summer before I went to school I spoke with 10-15 alumni from both my undergrad and bschool. It was very helpful in understanding what I wanted to do after and allowed me to hit the ground running when I got to school in the fall.
Go into Tech, try for a PM role of something at a big Tech company. The pay will be good, the perks will be awesome, and you'll get to live in Cali. The work life balance is also pretty awesome. It's a nice alternative to MBB/IBD/PE. Alternatively you could also do Corp Dev/Strat.
PM role will be out of the question unless he has an engineering background. However, marketing/strategy/ops roles at tech companies are available to non-engineers out of bschool.
Ut aut et soluta consequatur commodi dignissimos sapiente. Totam accusamus nulla aut et vel. Et iure cupiditate totam et et.
In voluptas quia occaecati eos. Quis dolorem quod sed sed distinctio omnis. Quas ducimus temporibus nam ea praesentium necessitatibus possimus. Rerum magnam fugiat aperiam ducimus minima vel non necessitatibus. Ut facere quo illo alias voluptas delectus ut. Illo est magni dolor aliquid consectetur consequatur.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...