So I'm a current military vet that will be attending BSchool next fall (I have interviews at some M7 schools, haven't finished the process yet of narrowing down schools). I originally thought that I should pursue consulting becuase that seemed to be the most sought after career and seemed to provide great long-term career opportunites, but as I reserach more, I think banking could be a viable career, or even working in a leadership development program at a F500.
Ultimately my goal is to work at the C-suite level at a major company--but again transitioning from the military I have zero relevent business experience so I recognize my naivete and the fact that my goals could change significantly. I do want to set myself up from the start with the best opportunities. I know that at the associate level banking exit-opportunities are not stellar as PE, VC, HF recruit younger talent as analysts and I don't think I want to be potentially pidgeonhole myself as only a banker. I'm also not thrilled about the long work hours and weekend work, I've done more than my share of that in the military and I'm not excited to be up at 2am on a saturday working on an excel model. Consulting has its own pros/cons obviously with the huge amount of travel and the work hours are probably similar when factoring that in, although weekends are generally free as I understand it. From what I've read the exit opportunites seem better from MBB consulting, but I don't know how accurate that is, or hell, if I will even get hired at a MBB considering how competitive recruiting is.
Anyways, I was just trying to get some perspective from folks who have actually been in industry. Recognizing that my potential for many jobs are going to be restricted since I'm joining the game late, is there going to be a significant difference in my potential long-term work opportunities by choosing consulting/banking/f500 right after Business School, or am I thinking too much into it?
Thanks!
jboog, sorry there are no responses yet. Maybe one of these topics can point you in the right direction:
No promises, but sometimes if we mention a user, they will share their wisdom: lappd Celia-Kuo RLiu
You're welcome.
Don't think about the long-term - it may seem counter-intuitive, but know that most MBA grads tend to change jobs and careers into completely unrelated industries over the long-term. This is due to a combination of personal circumstances (family/kids, being a caretaker to aging parents, accommodating spouse's career, etc), career choice (wanting to do something different), or not by choice (burnout, getting laid off in an industry wide downturn, getting replaced by a younger/cheaper version of you).
What you do in the first 2-3 years out of b-school won't really matter. My class (2001) and those I know who graduated from b-school +/- a few years from that era are living the "long-term" that you're trying to plan out right now. Lots of job changes in the first 5 years for many folks it seemed. And the career path/working world for you going forward over the next 10-20 years long-term is only going to be even more rapid, random, and disruptive.
With that in mind, focus on what you want to do right now, and iterate/reflect/reevaluate every 2-3 years. Your industry may change, your own personal circumstances may change, or what you thought you liked/didn't like may change (aside: it's not uncommon for say a pre-MBA consultant who goes back to the same firm post-MBA with certain expectations because they "know" the place, only to discover that what they used to love, they now hate - or that the personnel changed so much over the 2 years they were in school that the place is not longer the same).
You're not joining the game late, military to b-school is a well-trod path. In many ways you'll have a lot of advantages - the armed forces network is very powerful for business school recruiting. For both banking and consulting you'll get early looks at most of the firms from veterans on staff.
If you're unsure of what you want to do, consulting is a great way to see a lot of companies and industries and you'll develop an enormous and highly relevant toolkit while you're there. MBB and all of the "tier-2" firms (OW/Deloitte S&O/Strategy&/LEK/ATK and also Roland Berger/Accenture/Parthenon) all focus on high level strategy, have similar exit ops and will set you up well for success. The travel is rigorous, but your weekends will be largely free and 2AM is usually just when you're making a push to finalize a deliverable.
You don't need to do any prep now other than starting to decide what you want to recruit for. All of the MBA business schools">M7 have very powerful recruiting engines for consulting and banking and will hold your hand through the entire process, from resume writing to networking to prepping for interviews.
You seem to understand the pros and cons of both IB and consulting.
One other option are the Leadership Development programs at F500.
If work-life balance matters for you and you don't mind the slow and steady road, these could be attractive for military --> MBA business schools">M7 MBA --> direct summer in F500 or IB Summer Associate, for example.
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