Why do people go into Operations after business school?

If you look at M7 employment reports they got a decent chunk of people going into operations. Harvard MBA has around 2% and Stanford has around 3%. Isn't operations kind of a step down compared to stuff like consulting, finance, product/general management, etc?

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It can either

A) Interest them

B) Offer great life quality. The people drawn to this forum (myself included) tend to heavily focus on their careers at the expense of work/life balance. Some people really want to be home for dinner and enjoy life outside of work. Not a step down imo. Just different life choices.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Makes sense, though why go to a top MBA, wouldn't an average b-school get them to the same place at a cheaper cost or would having a top MBA really help to advance their career?

 
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They can still be competitive. By nature, someone getting into an M7 school is a competitive person (given how selective the process is). Operations is really important for companies. For most companies, operations is what they do day to day. Perfecting that is perfecting their core business.

There is still competition outside of finance. Lots of people want to make it to VP of Ops, COO, and or CEO. Having an MBA from Wharton will make a person stand out.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

The reality is that even Ops is competitive at big name firms. That’s where I’m at now and I work with tons of MBAs and even a couple JDs. Some come for the name, others because they didn’t realize what ops was, but few for the quality of life. I’d say 90% are looking to transition to revenue generating teams. It’s still a better career than the “average” whatever that is, but unless you are at the top no one is getting rich.

 

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