PepsiCo Finance Analyst VS Citi Commercial Banking Analyst
Got offers from both Pepsico and Citi and not sure which one is better for learning, B- school prospects later and overall a better career launching platform after undergrad. Would really appreciate feedback on this.
PepsiCo is better for b school. Commercial banking puts you in the finance bucket, and CB is not sexy. Sorry, but it's true. Finance isn't even 'sexy' anymore... I'd kill it at PepsiCo, and try to move into Corp Dev or strategy. That would be your best bet for b school.
In terms of pay and learning, do you think corporate strategy is good in the long run?
Pay: maybe. Learning? Without a doubt.
PepsiCo 100%. At Citi you'd be compared with the IB crowd, at pepsico you'll get compared to the marketing/hr/strategy/corp fin crowd, which is much less competitive.
By competitive you mean for future prospects within the company? For now my goal is to work for 3 -4 years and then go for an MBA. In that case, I want something that gives me a good standing for b school and teaches me a lot so that exit opportunities are varied and good enough.... Do you think Pepsico will train enough?
I meant competitive for MBA admissions. From what I know, in general the pure finance applicants get evaluated against each other. In this case, you in commercial banking vs someone in IBD, the person in IBD would be considered more competitive. Maybe this is incorrect, but this is what I would assume.
Just because I'm not working now doesn't mean I don't have general knowledge about the industry...?
I mean to say that if he goes to Citi, he will be compared to other people that work at Citi, in which case he will be towards the bottom of that totem pole. And if he goes to Pepsi, he will be compared to other people at Pepsi (in HR, strategy, marketing, finance, etc), in which case he (in FP&A) will be roughly equal to the other people.
Is this incorrect? Do you disagree?
What do you guys think about the exit opps after PepsiCo? Will they be as varied as after Citi? Also does anyone know if PepsiCo sponsors MBA for employees or any such perks?
As someone who was in a specialized capital markets function at Citi who bought the whole "the Citi brand provides you exit opps" hook, line, and sinker, the exit opps are related to your job function. So for commercial banking, you won't be in the IBD / lev fin pool with buyside exit opps. Key thing I think is to figure out what your role would be at Pepsi? If its anything close to planning / strategy / corp dev (every company does those finance rotational programs differently /some have pretty porous boundaries between corp dev and FP&A) , those are really valuable skillsets and will take you farther from both a learning and career development perspective than commercial / corporate banking (I have forgotten which is which - when I was there they all sort of got lumped into "other bankers that aren't IBD")
I don't have an MBA and haven't gone through that process so can only really speak to career development. Also worth noting from a more holistic perspective, I know when you come out of college (or at least when I did) its easy to say "ok in x years I am going to move to y / be doing z," But you don't necessarily know what will happen to your industry / career trajectory in the interim. I speak from experience as I had always assumed I would end up in business school, and am now at the right age / experience level and finding that for me it doesn't make sense vis a vis my current opportunities and payscale to go back.
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