Help: Accept PE Offer or Corp Dev Offer?
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I won't be able to give you a direct answer as I haven't gone through the MBA recruiting process yet. The no name MM PE vs Brand name firm for B School is something I'm still figuring out myself.
In the meantime, I can give you thoughts on the two opportunities having done a short stint in Corp Dev at a major tech company and now Lower MM PE for 2 years.
The PE role will definitely be a better role from a compensation and learning standpoint. Being in PE I'm obvsioly biased, but I think being an actual investor in businesses having to manage and invest other peoples money, portfolio company operations, etc is all pretty interesting stuff and can set you up for a variety of different roles. The comp piece should also be better and if you're at a small fund, you might have the chance to get onto partner track in a few years, which might even eliminate the need for B-School or give you a place you could go back to post B-School.
Corp Dev will give you a better work-life balance and depending on the team and the scope within the company it probably has a 20% chance of being pretty interesting and an 80% chance of being so-so.
I worked in big tech Corp Dev and found it to be relatively boring. It was lots of ex-bankers, relatively few deal(even though we were a "acquisitive" company) and we were never really making the investment decisions. We could brainstorm all day and analyze types of companies we thought would be a good fit for the business, but at the end of the day Product is what really drove M&A. We would always have to get a Product Leaders sign off before really getting into any deal.
With that being said, if you're at a Tech company with a bluechip brand (Google, Facebook Amazon, Apple,etc) then the brand name might actually be more beneficial than doing no-name PE, even though the PE job will probably be more rigorous.
My gut feeling would be that if you're really gunning for H/S and you have the appropriate background for those school so far(top grades,GMAT, strong ugrad school) that the brand name corp dev would probably be better. If you do PE, you'll get bucketed with the Megafund guys/gals and won't be able to stand out enough.
If you're already a borderline candidate for H/S, then PE might be the better choice as applying to the rest of the MBA business schools">M7 with a PE background will probably differentiate you more amongst the non H/S MBA business schools">M7 schools.
That's just my opinion though, would love to hear from someone with more knowledge in the matter.
Insightful - appreciate your thoughts!
What is your goal post Bschool??
Quite frankly, I'm not sure what I want to do, but
def know that I don't want to do Banking or Consulting
Sounds like you’re leaning more towards work life balance and Corp Dev to me. If it’s a big brand name it might the way to go. Do you think the LMM firm has a chance to raise another fund? Is there a future there or will you be an associate forever? The Corp Dev company might pay for part of your MBA too..
Wouldn't say work/life balance is what I'm after. Just don't want to do IB coz I'm doing it right now, and don't see myself doing it long-term. Becomes very much a sales role the higher up you go. Nothing wrong with that.. comp is great obvi, but IB work is just not for me.
Don't want consulting, bc I work with quite a few consultants (M/B/B) on the deals I do, and def don't see myself doing that long-term either.
Bump
What is the difference in comp?
PE comp obvi better, but I'm not going after comp (right now). Focus is selecting an offer that will give me the best shot of getting into a top 3 MBA program
I would think that it doesn't really matter which you take at this point. I'm assuming that by holding both of these great offers you are coming from a solid IB program. So, your background is already strong and will be only enhanced, career-wise, whichever way you decide to take your career next of these two offers.
For applications to top 10 business schools, you'll need to start distinguishing yourself outside of just career duties. I would be focusing on how these two roles will fit into your post-b-school career goals and thus help you paint a good picture to adcoms, along with using extra time from your post-IB days to do something interesting outside of work.
Have you been interviewing with other firms? You can try to leverage those offers to a more reputable PE fund. Personally I would take the Corp Dev because of the brand name and there are probably alum from this company at H/S/W and vice versa (for rec-letters) since it's more established. But if you can get a more well-known MM PE fund I would take that instead. I suggest looking up people at both places on LinkedIn and seeing where they generally end up.
Out of curiosity what is your background - school/type of bank/group you're coming from?
Bump.
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