Corporate Strategy or Big 4 Accounting- Which is better for B School Admission?
Title pretty much sums it up.
Say you have the option of either working in the transaction advisory group of a Big 4 accounting firm or in the corporate strategy group of a F500.
Which position will give you the best 4 years' worth of work experience for business school admissions (assume 3.5 ugrad GPA from good school and 740 GMAT)
Corporate Strategy of F500 son....
you don't want to be a big 4 auditor do you?
you didn't read- Big 4 transaction advisory group, not auditing
also, Big 4 auditing isn't bad experience either
To be more specific,
I know that corporate strategy does neat stuff, but it isn't a client interfacing role/revenue generating role, whereas Big 4 advisory (or even audit) is the client facing/revenue generating role
and i was under the impression that admissions committees put a premium on people who were "front office" types
It depends. If you're working for a "professional services firm," you ideally want to be in a client-serving, revenue-generating role. This could be accounting, IB, consulting, law, whatever the firm does. However, if you're working for a F500 company that's in manufacturing/technology, for example, then it's ok to be in a supportive function like corporate finance, controller, corp development, etc. Otherwise, the only people who would matter in a F500 would be the sales team or engineers, and that definitely isn't true. Taking a front-office role in one category and a support function in another is comparing apples to oranges. Do whichever you find more interesting. The Big 4 will expose you to more clients, but the F500 MIGHT give you more decision-making responsibilities. If you like the industry the F500 is in and can see yourself at the company for a long time, that's the way to go. If you want to work with many different types of clients, then Big 4 TS. Also, ask yourself what you want to do after because they are very different positions.
Depends on your post-MBA goals. If you want to go into M&A, then Big 4 TAS is the better choice.
big 4 accounting = long hours and bad pay.
Do consulting or corp strategy.
Corporate strategy.
Think about it this way..
Which one could you spin a better story out of? Everyone knows exactly what auditors do. Promotion and levels of responsiblity are lockstep. There is a lot more variability in a corporate environment.
It's not auditing, it's transaction advisory. Also, I'm sure that F500 corp strategy pay is just "as bad" as Big 4 accounting pay.
Read what I said. The actual amount you get paid is not relevant for this discussion. B-schools like to see people who were put into positions of leadership and responsibility. In lockstep professions such as the BIg 4, they are aware of exactly what level you were able to attain just by looking at the number of years you were there. In a corporate strategy environment, there is some flexibility for strong performers to move up more quickly. That is what the adcoms are looking for.
Regardless, the two professions are very different. If you are choosing between them based on what will be better for business school, you're making a mistake.
It is astonishing to me that people consider big 4 pay "bad"
I know that it isn't banking, but starting pay for an advisory associate (first hand knowledge from friends who started a few years ago) was 60-65K + 5 signing + small end of the year bonus.
While it isn't the 100-120K that you see some first year analysts pull in (potentially more in a great year top bucket) it is solid pay.
Corporate strategy may give you an edge if you're applying to BSchools. From TSA, you'll be bucketed with the other accountants - I know, It's not accounting, you say - or worse, with the IBankers. Both of these are overrepresented groups in Bschool applications. From corporate strategy, you'll be in that special group who had "real" jobs (quoting adcom people here). I know that H/S like that.
PWC with MACC from top accounting school = 60 with 5k sign on and really long hours.
Consulting from undergrad is about 65k with 5-10k on and fridays you work at home if you're traveling.
IB = 60k, 10k sign on 50-95k bonus depending on the year, firm and your performance.
Also, isn't a bschool metric pre MBA salary - so salary obviously does matter.
Busy season hours for big 4 and IB hours are similar. Big 4 ~ 75 - 80 and IB ~ 85 - 110.
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