When looking at the biographies of successful people, most started their career at a large company, investment bank, or consulting company. However, today's landscape is different, especially after the recession of 2006. Where do you think would be the best place for a young person to start out today if he or she wants to start his or her own big venture in the future? Would it be a startup? Still a BB or MBB? F500?
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Great question, given what we know now one can only speculate as to what the future has in store. If I were to take an educated guess I'd say corporate gigs for fast food chains (e.g. McDs, DQ, BK, etc...) are on the rise. This industry is blowing up and I hear top talent has been leaving the likes of consulting and wall street type jobs for these positions. It sounds pretty ridiculous, believe me I know, but if you go look at the data you will see this shift. Scholars all over the globe have been working around the clock to figure out why this is happening. I even heard the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a research project to figure this out. Stay tuned as this plays out over the next couple years or so.
Would others care to chime in on the topic?
I don't know anything about this, but I had a friend who spent a year in corporate at a big fast food chain and got to travel all over the world. It seems like one of those businesses where a college degree still has some value.
that sounds awesome - did he/she get tired of the travel/different locations ?
I can't tell if you're joking or not, but I was invited to final round interview with Chik-fil-a before I withdrew my application for their Corporate Real Estate Strategy Group...Also Burger King is recruiting at my school for an FLDP.
Honestly, this may not be one of the best places, but I've always advocated a Big 4 firm as one of the best career launchpads. You're continually moving up the ladder while taking on more responsibility/compensation. You get a fantastic insight into different organizations and how they work. I not only get to dig deep into financials, but I'm always getting factory tours, seeing how operations work, meeting top management, etc. It's not bad for a 22 year old kid - but on top of that 90% of the time I'm working with coworkers in their 20's, which makes it A LOT easier to connect and get along.
Yes the work itself is mind numbing, and at the end of the day we are more of an annoyance than anything else - but pretty much everything else makes it (a little) better. In my job the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
If your goal is to start your own company. I would personally advise just doing it. Never in recent memory has it been more socially acceptable for new grads to live with their parents. If you are really passionate about starting a company, why not just do it. You will gain tons of experience, you will likely fail yes, however if your parents are cool with you crashing at their house for a year or so while you build something then I say go for it. Worst thing that happens is its hard to get laid and you fail, best case you start some huge company sell it for billions and never have trouble getting 20 year old ass for the rest of your life.
Piggybacking off of this, if you're interested in entrepreneurship but would prefer to get your feet wet by apprenticing under experienced entrepreneurs first while still getting a prestigious name on your resume through a structured program, check out http://ventureforamerica.org
It depends what you want. If I were interested in a traditional corporate job, I think starting in IB or consulting and transitioning into corporate strat/dev in a hot sector like tech is a pretty great ticket to decent hours and high pay.
@macro_surfer
Complete speculation, but I'd guess it would have something to do with long run growth trends in developing markets - more people with (small) amounts of disposable income, more money to spend on burgers. Growth has to come from somewhere, and there will be a lot of opportunity in the coming years given this trend along with favorable demographic trends in these countries. Big multinationals like McD are in a good position to capitalize on this, and the prospect of doing international work is probably pretty appealing to a lot of the people pursuing those gigs.
Sorry guys - was 100% trolling. Clearly I am a moron when it comes to internet sarcasm haha
@macro. Tip of the Hat to you good sir.
The subtlety was brilliant though.
Good lord bro, you almost had a generation of naive young monkeys convinced they needed to get into fast food yesterday. That idea could've been parroted all over the forums hahaha.
The irony is, he wasn't that off. The prestige level is low however corporate development gigs at those places are actually great jobs with a lot of exit ops.
In a dorm room at Harvard, unfortunately.
The path is pretty clear. Start off at a Hardees / Yum / Papa Johns / Subway, then do 2-3 years at a McDonald's / Burger King / Baskin Robbins, then off for 2 years of Hooters / Waffle House / Sizzler, and then finally master of the universe at Krispy Kreme Restaurants.
I must have fast tracked it then, because I went straight from Taco Bell to an assistant manager position at Red Lobster. That ladies and gentlemen is what an Ivy on your resume can get you too.
Ace undergrad at a HYP with 2 varsity sports, social fraternity and student endowment investment club president >>> 3 Years at fast food BB (McD/BK/Taco) >>> MBA from HSW >>> Fast Casual side is lining up for you (Chipotle/Quiznos/Panera) >>> From there the sky is the limit (Chilis/Cheesecake Factory/BWWings) who knows
oh lawd, I don't know of another time where I LOL'ed so hard from reading stuff off of the forums.
I couldn't get over how absurd this thread became with the fast food idea. I've always found the most amusing thing on WSO forums is the people who've never worked at all (HS of college students) telling like 3rd year analysts how to get to the buy-side by parroting something they read.
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