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sbed, thanks for posting. i know kellogg is making a big push into entrepreneurship - how have your classmates done who are recruiting for jobs at VCs/startups?
Kellogg has started a ton of entrepreneurial classes, from venture discovery (discovering what you want to do) all the way through the process. The're actually re-doing their Majors and next year Entreprenual will be one of the 7 majors.
From a VC/start up perspective...they mostly use just in time hiring so the recruiting hasn't really started yet. Last year we had someone go to Tesla. Facebook, linkedin, groupon, etc usually take a few students each. Early stage start ups... people def go to them, but it's not really my scene, so I don't know too many details. The triple MMM is really good if you want to do early stage tech start ups.
SBed, I was hoping you would do this as I've been interested in hearing more about Kellogg. Hope you get good news from your last MBB interview!
What are your location preferences going forward? I know you lived in NYC for a long time, how are you liking Chicago as a comparison? I am interested in both cities, as well as west coast (mostly SF, maybe LA) in the future and trying to decide where to focus.
I moved to west coast. This was actually a last second change (I changed a week before my first round interviews after I got my early offer). Earlier I was playing the "office location game" trying to find big offices in shitty cities to increase my odds ( I also don't even know if this would've been effective in hindsight).
SF is the hardest office to get, even more so than NYC. Small offices and high demand. Should expand in the upcoming years, but tech companies really don't value consultants/mba's.
LA....BCG takes 9 mba interns for all of LA. By comparison, BCG takes 22 for Chicago. Not sure about figures else where.
I definitely did not want to move back to NYC, too expensive and culture sucks (people have cold personalities, are always stressed, and work too long). People in Chicago are WAY nicer and things are much cheaper. I thought I loved NYC until I moved here and got some distance. That said Chicago is too cold for me and my gf. I was recruiting for here tho for several companies prior to the location change.
Great thread, thanks for doing this.
Could you expand a bit on consulting locations? Besides Chicago, where else did a decent number of Kellogg students end up going?
Great post. Can you explain 'bidding' ?
At Kellogg, a minimum of 30% of interview spots are required to be "open" per firm.
The firm picks the 70% or so they want to interview, and you are given a closed spot. Pretty simple.
If you don't get a closed spot, you bid for one of the 30% open spots, auction style, with the lowest clearing price applying to all bidders. Since the consulting firms interview a ton of Kellogg students, the open spot bidding price ends up being very low. So functionally, even if consulting firms unanimously hate you based on your resume; you have enough bid points to get an interview spot almost everywhere.
This sounds like it adds a really interesting dynamic to recruiting. It basically allows you to force firms to interview. Is this a common bschool thing or is it specific to Kellogg?
Thanks for doing this. Few random questions:
On KWEST - For those with budget constraints and/or US Visa issues, are there cheaper domectic trips within the US?
Can elaborate a bit on Kellogg being a suppportive environment for spouses/SO's? Is your spouse attending the MBA program with you? Can you apply as a couple?
On Evanston - out of curiosity, how easy is it commuting from the Kellogg campus to downtown Chicago via PUBLIC transportation?
How does Kellogg "filter" for social skills when it comes to admissions?
I read Kellogg's Financial Aid page - it seems a bit confusing. Seems like there are ~ full tuition merit scholarships. But the strange thing for me was reading about Need based Financial Aid. I thought only HBS did that. (Just found an old thread where you said you got 24k/year in need aid. Nice!). Anything you want to add to that?
I've been doing some research on Kellogg - never heard anything about this bid system before. Seems like it's Kellogg's way of giving everyone a fair shot at inteviews?
So, location choice does matter for Consulting recruiting?
I was under the impression that anyone with any background could get into Consulting from a MBA business schools ">M7 school. But your Trading VP friend showed that it's not the case.
It's worth the money. You're going to be at a social disadvantage if you don't go on Kwest. There are local/cheaper trips, but they are mostly for families. For many people, its one of the best weeks of their lives, and you'll make life-long friendships. Compared to the total cost of a MBA, the cost is nominal. As mentioned, everyone leaves Kellogg with great jobs, so don't worry about money too much.
My SO is moving in with my shortly, she was finishing up classes back in NYC. SO's can join all clubs, go on Kwest, attend classes if there is room, be elected to leadership positions, etc. Significant others are very integrated into the community, and have a pretty easy time making friends with everyone. There are on-campus housing options too if you are coming with your girlfriend/boyfriend.
I've honestly never took the subway or train. People have, and I heard it's easy. But as said, splitting an uber ends up being basically the same cost, and usually is quicker and more convenient
They interview everyone, put a strong focus on communication and EQ skills during the interview, and they are expanding video essays (in the past, people would do interviews with Alumni in their native tongue [e.g. Mandarin], even though they weren't supposed to). A lot of schools have issues where international students don't have the English skills or western cultural awareness to properly contribute to class and group assignments. Kellogg has this problem to a small extent, but not as bad as other schools I've seen.
I got $12k per year "need/merit" scholarship through the financial aid office after submitting my Fafsa, a couple of months after being accepted. I don't know why they don't advertise this more. I had a high salary too (although very little savings). They also give pure merit scholarships at the time of acceptance.
I think most schools have some iteration of a bid system, the top schools at-least. At worse ranked schools, I surmise the prestige companies have more power and there might not be bidding.
It does, but not as much as I thought it would. There's a lot of variability too year by year. I thought the Atlanta office would be easy for example, but it turned out to be a very competitive office this year. SF is hard though for supply and demand reasons.
its 50% fit and 50% cases, for who gets offers. He was lacking in certain sub-sections of fit, but could've gotten an offer if he had excelled in other areas of fit or the cases. He got on close list everywhere.
My friend who did really poorly was an accountant, because it's very hard to show leadership, results, etc that the firms care about. But if he was a case master, I'm sure he could've gotten in.
OpsDude, was really looking forward to this and you did not disappoint. Can you expand more on the resume that MBB or consulting firms like? What do you think stands out the most to them?
Sure the firms are judging you through some iteration of the following lenses:
1) ability to navigate ambiguity 2) ability to influence (or leadership) 3) teamwork 4) intellectual tenacity (ability to tackle challenging problems) 5) analytical insights (data analysis, math skills) 6) culture fit/why this compan/airporttest
From a resume standpoint, they want to see a result-oriented resume, not task oriented.
Awesome. Thanks for doing this. Although I did not apply to Kellogg due to my interests, I like the school a lot. Partied with them a number of times; very laid-back, fratty, cool. My best friend went there and met his wife in the KWEST trip! Also Kellogg has the hottest girls amongst the MBA business schools ">M7 programs.
Although you're not in the MMM program, do you have any comments on how it integrates into the MBA program. From what I've read it seems like they just take a few engineering/design classes on the side and start a few months earlier, but apart from that are just like regular full-time MBA students. Is this true? Are they a part of Kwest and stuff like that? I'm somewhat considering the program down the road, but I slightly worry about being separated from the rest of the general MBA population.
Yes, they are in KWEST and in the same main classes are you. Many of my closest friends here are MMM. I'm actually a bit jealous of the MMM people because:
1) They start in the summer when evanston is beautiful and have a more laid back time period to get to know their MMM classmates, as recruiting is still far away.
2) As mentioned, most people have two groups they identify with: Their KWEST group, and their section. MMM have each other, so they have 3 main affiliations. They do cool stuff together, like they all dressed up like "Where's Waldo" for the Kellogg halloween party. (You have a bunch of friends outside your section/KWEST/MMM of course, but you just tend to get close to them due to spending a lot of time together)
But ya, you're not separated at all. Actually quite a few people I'm close with, I didn't even realize they were MMM until recently.
Haters who doubt that a MBA business schools ">M7 MBA is worth it needs to read this thread.
Holy shit dude what is your obsession with making sure every single person on the internet wants to go to a top B-School? Im pretty sure the entire educated population knows that business school exists and can figure out if its a good investment for themselves - meaning that its not a good investment for everyone.
Im glad you shamelessly changed your avi to Brady so you can stop any sort of thinly veiled attempt at claiming you were not him.
1) Any sense of people who has been successful in buy-side recruiting outside Chicago? 2) From my time at MBB, Kellogg got the most applications of any school not named H/SW. I assume a good chunk of them end up going there? Do most of them go back to MBB? If not, what do they do? 3) What is viewed as the most desired but difficult job (industry / function / company / location) to get and why?
1) A few people are targeting VC/PE in Chicago....recruiting for that hasn't really started yet. Kellogg has pre-MBA PE internships you can do the summer before, and during the school internship. Last year, 5% of the class went into VC/PE...24 kids, but 20 of them had previous experience.
2) There's A LOT of sponsored students, especially in the 1Y program. A lot go back, but many try to get into PE or start a start up. They are a great resource for internship recruiting, as they know exactly how you should case prep. They are also fun, because they have money and no job stress, so they're always willing to go travel or go out.
3) Hardest jobs to get seem to be Nike/Google/Tesla/Facebook type of jobs. MBB is hard, but about 70 kids per year go....those tech jobs only have 3-4 spots each (or 1 in Tesla's case) but a ton of people want them. I guess technically a job like Blackstone/KKR would be "hardest" but so few kids target them.
How come a lot more MBA students are leaning more towards consulting rather than i-banking? Is it due to the work-life balance and broader exit ops? Do you think that the trend will change as IBD compensation and lifestyle continue to improve?
A few reasons come to mind:
1) Work/life balance - you have weekends free in consulting. 2) culture - consulting is a supportive culture relative to IB, in which people scream at you and basically act in sociopathical manner. 3) Reputation - People hate bankers nowadays. Once you get to a certain income level, status is more important than money. Outside of small circles, being a banker is a negative status proposition. 4) exit ops - at the post-MBA level, going into consulting opens up many more doors than IB. It's better suited for someone who's not sure what they want to do than IB. 5) location - if you do IB, you have to live in NYC, which has a high COL, and might not be where someone wants to raise a family. 6) Type of work - Consulting is a bit more interesting and varied, especially at the upper tier firms.
You can definitely disagree with the above 6 points, but the point is many MBA students believe them.
Pre-2008, banking compensation was high enough that no one really gave a crap, but that's not the reality anymore. Consulting salary has rapidly increased while banking salary has stayed stagnant.
IB is making small steps - raised base salary to $125k, and instituting free Saturdays. I think there was a small uptick in the amount of people targetting IB at Kellogg this year (not much higher tho). There's going to need much larger changes if they want to compete with MBB for top talent - especially as consulting firms are stilling increaing salaries at a fast rate and are reducing travel (BCG chicago is only 50% travel now, Bain only does mon-wed travel, etc).
I'd say nearly half of the people who targeted IB from Kellogg were people who didn't even want to be bankers - they were internationals who wanted to stay in America and weren't confident that could succeed in consulting internships, and switched to IB when they heard of the high conversion rates...and these were people who pulled off GS/MS/JPM/BAML - when they didn't even know what IB was until October. Crazy how much the talent pool has changed.
SB’d, @"OpsDude". I hope the interview went well. Thanks for all of your insight over the past 12+ months I’ve been on the forums (mostly lurking) on your journey from BO to MBA business schools ">M7.
I will be applying later this year for Fall 2016 matriculation, and Kellogg has always been a dream school of mine. Your insights here are great, and I deeply appreciate them. I have two specific questions:
1) Kellogg prides itself in placing serious emphasis on learning in small groups. One of the things few things I disliked about my undergrad experience was working on teams. From group mates taking days to respond to emails, to half-assing assignments, to straight up submitting plagiarized work, it was not fun. I assume these aren’t of issue at Kellogg, due to the professional and academic achievements and abilities of your classmates. However, can you talk a bit about working in groups and your experience with it at Kellogg?
2) From your posts in this treads, it seems like consulting is location agnostic. Does the same transfer to industry (GM/Corporate Strategy)? The reason I ask is that due to family obligations, I will be returning to the Washington, DC area after business school. How is Kellogg for recruiting in the mid-Atlantic area, either corporate or consulting? Does it have a significant advantage over a Darden or Fuqua?
EDIT: To add, most of the companies that headquartered in the DC are a bit less sexy than the Ubers, Apples, or Teslas of the world. Think Hilton, Audi/VW North America, Blackboard, Marriott; AstraZeneca and Microsoft also have a large presence in the region. Not sure if that makes a difference when it comes to recruiting and the difference between MBA business schools ">M7 and a more regional (Darden, Tepper, UNC, Fuqua) player.
Hope there's good news that comes out of the consulting interview!
1) Kellogg has A TON of group projects. Unlike undergrad, grades don't really matter so it's a different environment. Group projects are fun, and you make a lot of friends during them. People are mature and responsible - if they are busy one week, they do more work on the next project. That said, group projects get a bit annoying during the height of recruiting season, but overall its a positive. People are understanding if someone can't contribute much on one project or the other, and people are mature enough to communicate their availability.
I haven't really had any instances of someone turning in crap and f*cking up the grade...but there's been cases where we have a 4 person team and 2 people do one project, and 2 people do the next project, due to time constraints.
Anyways, if you want to do consulting, general management, CPG, etc, you're going to be in an environment with a ton of group work when you're on the job, so the group projects do get you valuable skills.
2) Over 200 companies come on campus, and another 200 post on our job board....Kellogg literally gives you access to any job any where. Any job in the mid-atlantic area that recruits MBA's will recruit from Kellogg. That said, most of the cool jobs are at company headquarters - which as you surmise aren't usually in DC. For example, Microsoft is a popular recruiter at Kellogg, but most end up in the west coast office.
From a consulting stand point, Kellogg gives you a huge advantage over Darden and such. MBB, Deloitte, etc all have offices in DC and as mentioned, the firms give a strong preference for M7 + Tuck (one exception is Deloitte which loves Duke..but they love Kellogg too). My KWEST leader actually did MBB DC internship last summer.
Out of curiosity, is there anyone that goes into finance outside of investment banking or private equity anymore? Things like sales & trading, Asset Management, or private banking? Or is most of that dead?
3 people recruited for Private banking. I don't think one person did S&T. A handful of people are going after non-PE/VC AM (e.g. PIMCO/BlackRock), usually a subsection of people who are doing IB recruiting or sponsored MBB (although they usually target PE). I surmise this might be different at Wharton/Booth though. Aside from the PE people, nearly all the people with finance experience are trying to leave finance (and you need IB experience at a minimum for AM), and IB recruiting is populated with people with no finance background.
Thanks.
Wow. The S&T number is an unbelievable difference from 10 - 15 years ago, even when you consider Kellogg has always had a lower percentage of students interested in finance. Back then, the number of people going into sales, trading, and research was approximately equal to that of banking (in general, not necessarily at Kellogg).
I'm not familiar with the bidding process. Can somebody elaborate? Thanks
Thanks
Did any pro sports teams do any type of front office recruiting at Kellogg?
A few students have been successful recruited for sports - there's a club here that's dedicated to sports business. My 2nd year friend got a pretty cool job with MLB. Expect a low salary though.
http://kellogg.campusgroups.com/sportsbusinessclub/about/
They also have a sports business trek, that goes to the front office of the bulls, cubs, etc.
Appreciate it, thanks!
Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for the thread @OpsDude. I still remember your original thread from a few years back in which you first talked about gaining admission to Kellogg. I'm also considering applying for R1 this year, assuming I can score 7XX on the GMAT by summer. Best of luck on the consulting interviews.
Since Kellogg is such a consulting powerhouse, do you see any of the former consultants go into the "in-house consulting" roles at PE firms? Or is this also not a popular option?
Example would be KKR Capstone.
I know quite a few people shooting for this, don't know the outcome yet.
Could you expand a bit on your previous work experience in middle/back office roles and how many years you were in those roles?
Coming from those positions, what do you feel you did, whether in the office or outside the office, that helped you gain admission into a top b-school?
I've been under the impression that you need to have front office type work experience to get into the top schools, so coming from a middle office position myself, I'm very interested in your take on this.
Could you expand a bit on your previous work experience in middle/back office roles and how many years you were in those roles?
Coming from those positions, what do you feel you did, whether in the office or outside the office, that helped you gain admission into a top b-school?
I've been under the impression that you need to have front office type work experience to get into the top schools, so coming from a middle office position myself, I'm very interested in your take on this.
The schools are more interested in your results/growth, than your title. If you're just reconciling or confirming trades all day you're in trouble.
A questions related to classes: How do you plan electives and other flexible aspects of coursework during the program to tailor towards an end goal? How much wiggle room do you have for areas of specialization or focus? I'm sure it depends on background going into the program but any insights here are appreciated. Do you have a few examples of different end goals of career objectives (consulting, PE, Corp Fin, etc.)?
There two quarters worth of required classes, and 4 quarters worth of electives. You can tailor your curriculum however you want.
Good perspective, keep it up
Hello, fellow back-officer here (although you are a soon-to-be former back-officer.. congrats!)
Outside of having very strong stats, what are some other steps that a back office employee can take to strengthen their candidacy and mitigate concerns that likely arise due to job selectivity?
Leadership and results. You don't want to be doing BAU work. Try to do projects.
Great post, very informative. I'm curious how MBB recruits for oversea locations in Kellogg. Do you get the same flexibility? Since Kellogg is more well-known in the US I would assume you will have no trouble getting locations within the states but will have a harder time in Hong Kong, Singapore, or Australia?
I'm interested in getting a job in China for a couple years after b school
Honestly, it seems like Asia is easier. MBA business schools ">M7 here are much better schools than the business schools in Asia. My friends who recruited internationally have done well.
Also, how often do people bring their significant other to KWEST?
There were two on my kwest
I'm not interested in consulting and not applying to kellogg and even I thought this was gold. Well done, OpsDude
thanks for doing this, ill keep it up top of the frontpage a few times this week
Congrats! Did you see much of the PT students during recruiting? I just accepted the offer for PT Kellogg starting in March.
Another Kellogg first-year here, so I figured I would offer up 2 cents (for what it's worth). @OpsDude has done a great job of summing things up thus far. The only thing I would point out, with regards to partying, it's really available to the extent you want it. I'm here w/ my SO and we're on the older end of the spectrum, so we tend to not go out as much as many of the other students. However, we still get more invites to go out than we could accomodate if we wanted to go out every night, and still have awesome relationships with a huge portion of the school (especially folks from our KWEST group). So I wouldn't let the "partying" nature of Kellogg scare you off if that's not your thing...now if you're completely anti-social, then that's another story.
Also, unlike a lot of the school, I recruited for banking and I'm happy to provide any insight on that process.
Thanks so much for joining the thread!
How much legwork do you see IB candidates put in outside of what is available through OCR? Is it done more through individual effort or through a structured process?
I would say that it depends on a couple factors. 1. If you are recruiting for NYC or Chicago, there is a very well established path facilitated by the CMC and you'll be successful if you follow this path w/ little reason to deviate. 2. The exception to the above is if you are going for a bank that does not recruit heavily on campus. We essentially get all of the BBs and the majority of EBs, but there are a few that don't make it out here (Centerview is one that comes to mind). However, I had a few classmates engage with these types of firms and as far as I know, all were receptive. 3. If you are going for a regional office (not including Chicago), you'll need to put in quite a bit of legwork. We had guys traveling to Houston, LA, and San Francisco to get face time with the offices in the fall. Often times, these offices run their own hiring practices separate from OCR. I know of a few students that had offers in regional offices before the winter quarter started, so it seems that they move at a more accelerated rate than the traditional NYC/Chicago pipeline.
Thank you for writing this, and giving us with operations experience hope.
Do IB firms favor those with prior front office experience, or does everyone get a decent chance regardless of work experience? I see you stated that it was easier to get into IB than consulting, but wanted to know if less people targeted IB or what caused IB to be easier to get an offer.
@Withoutapaddle We had roughly 40 students going for IB - significantly less than consulting. I agree with @OpsDude's comment earlier regarding IB being a less competitive landscape than it was prior to '08. We had folks showing up from a variety of backgrounds and I didn't notice a correlation with offers received and prior work experience. The students that were able to clearly and persuasively tell their story did very well and typically received a few offers. The others weren't quite as fortunate, but I think a lot of that boiled down to language issues.
What I heard was that the students with non-offers were almost all from east Asia. Is this what you saw?
Yea - I can't think of any others.
On the financial aspect of bschool.
1) How much were you making before you went to bschool? 2) What is your anticipated first year post-bschool all-in comp? (salary, bonus, options)
1) ~$100k 2) got a management consulting internship, so about $200k all-in: http://managementconsulted.com/consulting-salaries/2015-management-cons…
1) ~$115k 2) ~$125k base...I've heard up to 100% bonus (but whoever is at a BB already can probably answer this more accurately)
Why did you decide to pursue IBD instead of consulting or F500?
@Vet2Biz just to clarify point 6...it is possible to spend your summer internship in IBD and still get a FT offer for consulting/F500 but nearly impossible/unlikely to do a consulting/F500 summer internship and get an IBD offer? Just wanted to see if I'm understanding this correctly
That's correct - however, if you have prior IB experience, this "rule" is quickly thrown out the window.
Just to let you know, I'm actually a Kellogg 2Y 2014 grad and I'm in this exact same boat. It's a bit worse for me because I didn't recruit for IB even in the fall OCR (IB recruiting starts and ends very quickly and I didn't realize this is the path I wanted to take until it was too late).
I'm still recruiting. And it's not me, it's the timing. The career services at Kellogg actually told me that they knew of no one who was ever able to do it without an internship or previous i-banking experience, except for one person, but he did at least apply on-time in the Fall.
I should also mention, the Kellogg career services are ranked #1 out of all MBA programs. They generally give good and honest feedback/advice, even if it's a bit disheartening as in this case.
Thanks @Vet2Biz that's interesting
How are the PT students viewed by the FT students? Are they treated as equals or viewed as a separate group?
Seperate. Very little interaction. They go to class at a seperate campus in downtown Chicago generally (although students can take classes at either campus). Only have become friends with 1 PT student.
Has there been tons of hooking up amongst your classmates? Tell us about some of the craziest parties you've been to.
Some, but keep in mind:
1) People are older/more mature than college. They know they have a reputation to maintain 2) A lot of people are engaged/married and some even have kids.
A lot of people have started dated, and a few people have hooked up a lot, but it's not like undergrad where everyone would sleep with each other with no second thoughts. I'm in a long term relationship so not really in that scene.
Relax dude, even if classmates don't hook up, there are plenty of junior / senior undergrads looking to find an older, established MBA guy.
Nice post
Great post, but could you be more specific about international students, please. Are they treated the same way as native americas in terms of employment (IBD, consulting, Corp dev)? Is it correct to say that every foreigner with relevant previous experience who wanted to stay in the US and thus put a considerable effort (networking, drilling sample interview questions and etc.) succeeded in landing a job? (like 1st year associate in any well-know IB or consulting company) Thank you in advance
I can only think of one or two firms that explicitly said they would not sponsor internationals. Otherwise, it's the same. The biggest challenge that the international students faced is the language barrier. Some firms were more explicit about this requirement than others, but at the end of the day communication skills are incredibly important in IB. If you are in any way concerned about this, I would get an honest evaluation of where you stand as early as possible. This will allow you to better focus your efforts on firms that are willing to invest the time on developing the english skills of international employees. If you have any specific questions or concerns, feel free to PM me.
It's an important thing to realize that internationals are not a monolithic block. Internationals range from "Went to a westernized high school in their home country, grew up on American TV shows, and then went to college and/or work in the US prior to business school" to "First time in the USA and understanding of english/america is only from an academic stand-point."
Internationals who understand American culture and business do GREAT. I think more international indians got McKinsey last week than white Americans. Internationals also did great with GS/MS/JPM.
The issue is for those internationals who are only friends with people from their own country, and have weak cultural understanding of the USA. I think a lot of them will have to end up going back to their home countries (Where they'll get great jobs anyways). In general, it's people from China/Japan/Korea who have this problem. LATAM/India/Europe has less issues in general.
What are your thoughts on the 1 year, accelerated MBA program?
It's a great idea if you're sponsored and have a job lined it, or an entrepreneur with an existing business. It's heavily populated by sponsored MBB. They are reasonably well integrated into the student body, and have a lot of fun/are very close knit with each other.
Don't apply to it if you don't have a job though, internships are crucial.
Thank you for such an excellent thread. I'm starting to think about MBA programs and this personal perspective has provided me with a ton of insight. Great contributions, thanks for sharing.
SB'ed, thank you for doing this!
It definitely sounds like placement for consulting and IB in the US is pretty straightforward, but have you heard of anyone gunning directly for roles in Asia (HK, Singapore, SH, etc.)? I really want to end up in the far east after a stint at business school but am caught in the classic debate of top US MBA vs. top Asia MBA where it might be easier to network.
Yes, and the bar is lower. My friend is doing Singapore MBB, and only 4 people targeted it. All 4 got to 2nd round.
Is fluency in any other language than English required for working in Singapore MBB?
Thanks for doing this!
How is the difference between MBB vs. other consulting firms when it comes to recruiting for internship / FT at Kellogg? Have you seen many people who intern at a non-MBB firm try for MBB for full time?
Most people prefer MBB, but not everyone wants to do MBB:
1) some firms have great cultures/limited travel (Cambridge/Point B), 2) some firms are more lucrative/prestigious in certain areas (e.g. Parthenon). 3) some people don't want to do strategic work, and want other areas of consulting. (e.g. human capital, innovation) 4) some people want a specific industry (ZS for healthcare) 5) some firms have better return offers (Deloitte will pay second your tuition), etc
On the other side, it's generally a bit easier to recruit for non-MBB than MBB, for really two reasons:
1) A lot of people have a certain point they drop out of consulting recruiting and change focus. Some people will do MBB, or MBB + Deloitte +Strategy&, and then recruit for Corp Strat or tech, instead of applying to an Accenture or ZS. Some people REALLY want to do consulting, and will go all the way down to regional boutiques. The further down you go, the less competition you have because more and more of your classmates either found a "better" consulting job, or have switched out of consulting recruiting.
2) After MBB, for people interested in consulting, internal rankings vary quite a bit. So your number 4 firm, is probably different than another person's, which helps you succeed. My number 4 was Deloitte S&O, Number 5 Cambridge, Number 6 AT Kearney, Number 7 Strategy&....But there's definitely people who have Parthenon or LEK as their solid number 4.
For re-recruiting...less common than you would think. Usually if people are happy with their summer, they'll sign, even if it's non-MBB. "prestige" lessens in importance and "do I like the people I'm spending 80 hours a week with/enjoy the work" drastically increases in importance once you're working.
This has been super helpful, got a few more question for you as I'm deciding on where to attend in the fall.
My SO is planning on relocating, where do most SO's do for work? Chicago? Evanston? How does the JV club help w/ this transition? Have you met a lot of people who choose Kellogg over HSW? Why did those people choose Kellogg of those schools.
Wharton, yes quite a lot actually. Choosing kellogg over H/S is rare though, and is generally only done for scholarship reasons (Or they really needed to be in Chicago for family reasons).
In regards to your SO....what does she do? Not sure the split, but both evanston (usually school related jobs) and Chicago are both popular.
@"OpsDude" - thank you for the insight.
How does Kellogg view GRE scores in lieu of the GMAT?
Depends on your background. It's good if you're non-traditional they like, who sucks at tests...it lets them let you in, without messing up their rankings (since USNews only looks at GMATs). If you're finance or consulting, I don't think it'll be looked on positively though.
This is every school, not just Kellogg though.
Are girls in Chicago impressed when you drop DAT KELLOGG BOMB?
I've heard that more people on the fence of tech and consulting are picking tech. I personally am more of a fan of consulting, but have you heard the numbers of what people are getting for starting salaries out of Amazon/google etc?
Not @OpsDude, but can help you here. Google and Amazon (and almost every big tech company) pay $115k base out of MBA programs. There is some variation around that, but generally only if you have strong tech experience pre-MBA and can negotiate upward. Expect a 10-20% bonus on top of that at year-end. Also, Amazon is famous for paying mostly in stock. The highest salary at Amazon is $160k and anything above that is stock. When you sign as an MBA your signing bonus is $85k of stock that vests over 4 years in increasing increments (heavily back-loaded). The vast majority of people don't collect all of it.
Amazon's compensation scheme is too stock-heavy for my comfort. A bunch of my classmates turned down their offer this year for that same reason. And also, Seattle sucks compared to nyc/chicago/LA/SF.
That's close to the package of fresh out of school software engineers with master degree. Are MBA hires in fast track that different than other business employee?
It's pretty awful actually. I don't remember clearly but something like: 10% vests after first year, another 5% every 6mos for the 2nd year, 10% every 6mos for 3rd year, and then the last 60% is I think 20% after the first 6mos of the 4th year and then 40% after the last 6mos of the 4th year. So you notice most people will either quit within the first two years or they quit right after their fourth year.
Tech jumped from 12% to 18% of post-mba jobs last few years, so there definitely is a trend towards tech. That said, it's more a decline in non- consulting areas (mostly finance I think, but it's all in the employment report).
Tech is up everywhere, as well as MBAs doing their own startups. Banking is down huge while consulting remains robust.
@Masterz57 @mbavsmfin
I heard someone here got $170k starting salary from Amazon...thought that was the norm (since evidently working there sucks, they pay a ton). Haven't heard much about the stock compensation though. Not really my area of focus, so maybe some Amazon positions are paying lower (or person mis-represented stock options or bonus as salary)
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