Hi all,
I wanted to create a post dedicated to a pretty large European country not really discussed here - Poland. Don't get me wrong, I understand that Poland is not NY. But, from doing my research online, sometimes people act as if Poland is akin to Mongolia, just located in Europe. So the purpose of this post is to gather up to date information on Poland to help people (like me) understand better what the situation there is.
Pros of studying in Poland:
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Very Cheap
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Somewhat easy to get in
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Seems like (and this is what I want to confirm) there are fairly solid opportunities available after graduating from the top programs
Where to study?
From my research, I have come to understand that there are essentially 3 top finance Unis in Warsaw, and Poland overall (ranked):
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SGH - Offers CEMS, places well into Polish MBB and Polish PE/IB. Well-known and respected in Poland.
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Warsaw University Economics department - Reputable, produces a lot of quants and strong Econ graduates. Also places well into Polish High Finance.
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Kozminski - Private (which is apparently seen as bad in Poland), but most 'Modern', offers a Management specialisation with ESCP Warsaw. Also places quite well.
From what I understand, Poland:
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Has a lot of BOs for reputable banks
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Has a fairly decently sized MBB presence as it is a bit of a hub for Eastern Central Europe/Eastern Europe.
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Has a fairly small FO/PE scene.
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Has a strong Big4 presence
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Offers salaries on the lower end in Europe (somewhat offset by the cheaper cost of living)
Now, I am most interested in:
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Poland's Growth - whereas some Western Countries are becoming worse and worse to live in (Canada, UK) Poland has been on the upswing for the last 20 years (with a slowdown in the last couple of years). Will this continue? As such, will the finance indutry keep growing, making Poland a fairly safe bet long-term?
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Poland's current Consulting/IB prospects
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Any of the above that I got wrong
Would also love to hear thoughts from anyone currently working in finance/consulting in Poland!
Now to extrapolate this on to my situation (welcome any advice)
Profile:
1st (kinda 3.7-4.0 gpa) from a U.K. semi-target
2 years in big 4 audit in the U.K., very well known client
Small internships in PR and Non-Profit Journalism
Very strong ECs at University (student representation, leadership, finance clubs)
700 GMAT (Q45V41)
Solid references
Pretty decent essays
Speak Polish and some smaller Eastern European languages, but none of the key European languages (eg French/German)
Admissions:
Have been accepted by McGill's MFin, but chose against pursuing this masters after evaluating Canada's situation. Also been accepted by Kozminski.
Rejected by St Gallen MBF (sadly, no surprises given my profile)
Will likely get into LSE A&F and St Gallen MaccFin. Am happy to talk more about why I am not too sure about those choices if anyone is interested, as this post/comment is getting too wordy.
Thanks!
If you have 2 yrs experience already and want to do IB why not do a US MBA?
- Complete your CPA/ACCA if not done already
- Move to TAS within B4 and work for ~1-2 years
- Improve GMAT to 720+ ideally 750
- Apply to programs with ~3-4 years work exp and recruit into IB at Associate level
Biggest problem is probably that none of the universities there are targets or semi-targets for MBBs or even IB in Tier 1 offices (London, US, Singapore, etc.), which explains why there are so many Poles at universities in the UK, US (EU)
Makes sense.
But from what I see on LinkedIn, the Warsaw MBB offices are flooded with graduates from SGH. And other than a slightly higher salary in London (for the first couple of years, then, from my understanding, the gap widens) and better exit Opps down the line, would it be wrong to say that there isn’t much more of an incentive to work in the London office?
For me personally (and tonnes of other folks), it’s either:
- get into a top tier target in the U.K. (very competitive), pay £50k for education (which already negates any salary difference between MBB at London and Central Europe for the first 2-3 years) and have a shot at maybe getting into insanely competitive MBB in London.
Or
- get into a regional target university (easier to get in) that would cost £7k and will likely give you better odds at a “tier 2” city MBB.
Unless I’m wrong, you can always work to transfer/get into an MBA later.
No one really goes to MBB (London or elsewhere) for the high salary while there to be honest - I thought Warsaw was the same one actually (after tax) but happy to be corrected as someone working at an MBB in London.
There are massively different exit opps from London (to PE, corporate, elsewhere), most of which are not possible after an MBA (and even then your undergrad matters just as much as it did before). For Warsaw office makes sense they have to go somewhere local, there aren't enough target unis grads who speak Polish if you want the same hiring standards across different tiers of offices. That's how the MBB model always worked in terms of London vs regional European office recruitment (say Milan office is full of Bocconi grads even though Bocconi is not a target uni globally).
However, if your end goal is to be a partner at an MBB in Warsaw (most MBB consultants don't want to stay more than 1-3 years) then of course no need to over-engineer and just start there
[EDIT: Obviously types of projects available, scale of clients and industries etc also quite different. As for transfers, those are quite hard in general, let alone when moving from offices that are perceived as less prestigious to Tier 1 offices)
Thank you for your answer!
Re salaries - hard to say. Taking a look at BCG on glassdoor, for example, would say show that Warsaw Associates are roughly at ~ 170K PLN before taxes (£34k py, nearly £2k pm after local tax, pension & insurance are deducted), whereas London Associafe salaries are at ~£47K py, (roughly 3K post tax). Given COL, kind of evens out.
Makes sense about regional recruitment and transfers. I guess, in that case, what would the opportunities be available for someone exiting Polish/European MBB after 2-3 years?
1. MBA at LBS/INSEAD (somewhat likely, given MBBs prestige & provided that the candidate has everything else (GPA/GMAT etc)?) to pivot into a T1 city in Europe
2. MBA in the US at M7 (less likely)/T15 - where a pretty big obstacle is visa sponsorship
3. Transferring to a T1/T1.5 city (but, as you said, hard and therefore very unlikely)
4. Exiting into the T1.5/2 PE/VC scene in the EU
5. Staying in Polish MBB and just climbing the career ladder.
And likely some other options I’ve missed/simply don’t know about. To be honest, neither of those sound bad?
I guess someone entering T2 MBB just needs to very clearly understands that, in comparison to T1 MBB, the exit opportunities are quite limited.
I’m a bit curious to know what opportunities you would say are closed to people targeting an MBA at, say, LBS, post 3 years at MBB?
And again thanks for taking the time to share these insights.
Curious as to why you aren't sure about LSE A&F. I'd also assume Poland has a lower CoL than London, so that's a factor to consider as well.
Mainly because of my lack of experience.
Sure, 2 years in Audit on a big client is OK, but is it (along with the rest my profile) good enough to secure MBB in London?
The answers is not at all.
From what I can see online/from speaking to acquaintances who finished this masters, it seems as though the only people who do well in terms of recruitment from the A&F are people who are already coming in with solid CVs (banking/consulting).
Another con is that it’s a 1-year masters AND we are in a shit economy at the moment. If it was a 2-year masters, then maybe I would have a decent shot at getting a couple of good internships and/or waiting out the bad economy.
Even in a good economic climate, you can see that the A&F is significantly worse in terms of placing and salaries than the MFin:
https://info.lse.ac.uk/current-students/careers/what-graduates-do
It’s just that for me specifically it doesn’t seem like a good investment at the moment.
I'll speak for consulting, I know this market well.
Salaries at MB (Mckinsey, Bain), are around 50,000 pounds (250,000 zloty) per year all in, with around 40,000 of that being bonus. No clue about BcG. T2s are substantially lower, ending up around 180,000 zloty.
This is a bit of a gem, honestly, and I'd definitely try to make one of these two companies. If you're worried about being stuck in the Polish market, I know of a ton of transfer stories. Also, the growth opportunity in Poland is pretty damn strong, and you see a fair amount of people coming from the UK here. A full breakdown of the pros and cons of every company is as follows:
McKinsey: Top of the game, can't really go wrong here.
Bain: Smallest of the MBBs, but with a very strong reputation. Known previously for brutal hours. Now, is actually a very nice place to work at (65 hour max weekly limit for PE, 60 for strategy).
BCG: Very pigeonholed in financials. Wouldn't recommend if you get either of the other two.
In terms of major T2s, those include:
EY-Parthenon: Has a fair bit of range. Good reputation in the field. Does a lot of DD.
Oliver Wyman: More execution focused, but still a good firm.
Monitor: Also relatively decent, not really all that different from EY-P.
Kearney: Definitely one of the firms with the stronger reps. More execution focused. Friends from there say the hours are more manageable, but culture is apparently worse.
L.E.K.: Very low profile, hosted in Wroclaw as opposed to Warsaw which impedes recruitment. Heard from a friend it has a good culture, bit of a sweatshop, does a lot of DD.
It's worth saying, a lot of firms are still setting up. I'd be on the lookout, as it's an interesting market.
All this being said, right now, things are tough. McK just conducted layoffs (probably around 10 people, heard of a girl who went there and got laid off after 8 months). Some of the firms are delaying offers for literal years. It's still a great market, and you'll live like a king (quality of life will be much higher than, say, London, plus in the long term the development opportunities are definitely there (I've been treated to some of the success stories of the people from Bain, in particular, and they're all quite interesting). Not the best timing, but a good market and, fingers crossed, things will start to look up this year.
Exactly the answer I was hoping for. Phenomenal insights - thank you!!
I don’t have much to follow up except for a small question re target Unis for consulting in Poland:
Would you say that I’m correct in my assessment that SGH is the best University in Poland to launch a career in consulting from? Are there any specific programmes (CEMS, Masters in Accounting and Finance) that you would recommend in particular?
Or would you recommend getting a masters from abroad (St Gallen,LSE,etc)?
And thank you again!
No worries, best of luck.
There's definitely a strong preference for foreign unis. A ton of folks come from Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, UCL, Warwick, Imperial on the British side of things. Bocconi is very common (especially as the Italian market is trash).
There are a lot of folks from SGH, so I don't think you're wrong, a few other Polish unis are represented. I couldn't really answer about the courses, as I came in with a degree from abroad (economics). Have never met anyone with a degree from St Gallen, I'm sure it's possible, but just don't know them personally. I'd go for the LSE brandname, personally (but if finances are a concern, do not do so, SGH will set you up fine). Realistically, especially at a T2 level folks won't have that much of a knowledge of courses.
I advise you to do a quick search on linkedin of the most common majors of people from Bain/McK as a decent step.
One last piece of advice I will give you, although this may be controversial, I didn't particularly enjoy London and you should definitely factor in costs of living. Your quality of life in Poland will be outstanding if you break into MBB. I don't want to oversell the place, but salary progression is also pretty good (from what I've heard, though this could be wrong, MB double their salaries after getting to consultant). You'll likely always have an opportunity to try to go abroad, if you're a top performer (in a better economy), and if not, you'll be in a good market regardless (growth wise).
As for office transfers, as I saw somewhere else you wanted to consider those later, I know some of the companies do temporary "swaps" with other offices, and Bain does externships; it is also far from unheard of to convert an externship into an eventual transfer, or to recruit elsewhere. Still, don't be surprised if the Polish life ends up winning you over, it has a ton of advantages (I know it's done so for me, having formerly worked in London).
If you'd like to talk more, I'm happy to DM you.
Is the working language English?
In most of the places, yes.
The schools mentioned in the post are probably the top Finance schools in Poland.
Yes, Kozminski is seen as bad in Poland but with many networking opportunities as it's a rich kids school.
What people might not realise is that there are CS/Math and ML degrees in Poland on par with Oxbridge in terms of education
and somewhat in terms of possibilities. Considering that education in Poland is free I see it as a huge opportunity.
MIMUW being one of the great examples, it's a target for firms like JS/Optiver/Citadel/P72.
Also, recently, especially in ML the research is starting to bloom in Poland.
Which is long due because looking at some of the greatest contributions in the space many of them are a result of Polish minds.
Check for instance who is at the front of OpenAi or another fun fact Pytorch was Adam Paszke's intern project at Meta.
If not too late DM me - Polish with master's from Top B school in France and worked in Poland
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