Lesser known MBA career options? Looking for advice on what to do post-HBS.

I've got a lot of great advice from my 1st topic - huge thanks to everyone who chipped in! I will definitely be going to the HBS now. And so I've got this idea that I might be able to use the wisdom of the smart crowd to source some interesting ideas for what to do next (aside from gigolo or a weed store manager in the Napa County).

This might be also interesting to others who plan or consider going to a business school as well, so anything goes, I wouldn't want it to focus on my personal interests or background only. But lets assume this is for more-or-less regular people with no extraordinary achievements, as opposed to Navy SEALs with KKR experience and White House Fellowships.

I'm looking for some realistic (i.e. not PE/VC/HF/launch a startup) options outside of the most well-known paths (so not consulting/banking/product management/corporate finance either), but those that some people do actually take with some grounding in reality (so not some crazy plan to network into the Pentagon or assistant to Elon Musk or something. That would be cool though).

The first idea would be F500 general management LDP's (Leadership Development Programs). Many large companies have them in one form or another, and they mostly focus on business development/marketing rotations as far as I understand, though some do also through in random finance/HR stuff for some reason (guess because it's supposed to be a veeery "General" Management). Some also combine this with strategy in one form or another, i.e. Samsung wants you to do 2-4 years in their Global Strategy Group and then roll off into a business unit role if you don't stay as a career strategy guy. That's not the same exact thing though. Most of these programs want people with at least 3, and more often 5 or more years of experience, and some also want this experience to be relevant to their industry, so this is not exactly a career-switcher-friendly option.

 

I'd definitely go for Samsung. Coming off MBB you'd be extremely competitive and it's one of the higher paying non-banking jobs out there and gets you great post-rotation opportunities

I know a guy who ended up being the Exec. Asst. to the Chairman of a well known boutique IB firm. The exposure he gets to all aspects of the company and the types of meetings he's privy to are unbelievable. I also know of a girl who took a similar job for a F100 CEO. Had no idea these types of gigs were available post MBA or else I'd have angled hard for one.

How about Strategy at Disney? Media/Entertainment could be a fun change of pace and there's no dropoff in prestige of the program for MBAs.

Has big Oil ever interested you? Assuming the job market there improves over the next year or two there are some sweet Treasury or Corp Dev. opportunities you could look into.

If you were a citizen I'd recommend being a White House fellow as the placements there are very cool.

But if you're after a generic FLDP or MLDP you'll have every conceivable industry to choose from.

I should also adv. you that recruiters have reached out to me quite a bit on Linkedin since I started my LDP, so you won't necessarily be locked into a particular gig. That should ease your mind about experimenting.

 
TheGrind:

I know a guy who ended up being the Exec. Asst. to the Chairman of a well known boutique IB firm. The exposure he gets to all aspects of the company and the types of meetings he's privy to are unbelievable. I also know of a girl who took a similar job for a F100 CEO. Had no idea these types of gigs were available post MBA or else I'd have angled hard for one.

What sorts of duties do these EA roles entail? Is it the usual stuff (scheduling meetings, etc) or is it more of a right-hand-man/chief-of-staff-type role?

 

Different companies vary their approach but it's a little of both at the onset, with the goal to make you into a Chief-of-Staff and ultimately move you over to some other executive positions. At the MBA level, you basically become the Executives' point-person. That includes attending meetings on their behalf/acting as a proxy when their schedules get crowded, running internal projects to test their ideas on a variety of issues, verifying/testing data they receive from multiple departments to help them make decisions, sorting through proposals, preparing speeches, etc. It's a great way to network both within the company and externally while gaining exposure to all areas of the business.

 

Samsung sounds kinda cool, yep. You have to live in Korea for three years though, that sucks (no opportunity to stay in the US after business school).

Strategy at Disney (also Electronic Arts and Playstation and Blizzard - they all have these jobs posted on the HBS board) is a super cool job, but I wonder what do you do next if you want to move on, aren't you basically pigeonholed as a clown forever if you work for the entertainment industry for a years.

Big Oil is a no-no, I don't believe we will ever go back to the good ole days of Oil Majors running half the economy. Becoming an expert in an industry that will now be in decline for next decades and then collapses (to petrochemicals-only) just sucks, even if you can feasibly ecke 15-20 years of a decent career out of it (but since companies won't have much fat you will not by any means be rolling in it like the oilmen used to).

The FLDP/MLDP idea is what I'm looking at, yes, they have some cool opportunities, but most have requirements that keep the guys like me (2 years consulting->MBA) out, they want 4-5 years of experience on average, and preferably in a related industry. There are some programs that don't state it as a hard requirement, but I suspect they still do prefer it, and these are slim pickings anyway. But yes, I'm looking at them extensively.

 

A former executive of the Meredith had an executive assistant that was a top graduate from at top 20 law school. It's usually a position that most people think are for pretty girls who went to state schools. But it has been even in the past been a position for top grads from some of the best programs in the country.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Another dream interesting path some ppl take is brand management for a big tech firm. That's what Sundar Pichai did. You can land a nice paycheck and do chill work. For a long time those guys didn't get any respect at tech firms, and they still kinda don't, but from what I understand it's improved significantly as those firms go from being counterculture to being "the man". They're still run by the engineers, but it's not 99-1, maybe 80-20 now.

Then there's always hibachi chef. Or horse breeder. Or perhaps tungsten importer.

 

Yep, that's interesting, probably the most feasible option at the moment. I wonder how much of a technical/coding knowledge do these positions require. I've majored in CS and know my coding basics (C++/SQL/Python), but it's been years since I've actually written code and my code is nowhere near the quality these companies would appreciate, nor do I have any clue about modern systems/protocols/stacks they run on, nor practical skills with Agile. I'm more of computational stuff guy, I can write you a program solving optimization problems or a simple-ish database management app, but I wouldn't be able to set up a server/write mobile or web-based clients, let alone those working efficiently, to save my life.

 
worklogin:

Pretty sure your last name is Kapoor, isn't it?

Actually not, but my girlfriend is Indian, and she and her chick friends were obsessing about some actor called Ashish Kapoor who is supposedly hot, and I just thought the name was funny and invokes marijuana rhymes/analogies. So it popped into my head later that night when I was registering on this forum.
 

I'm actually in a very similar position - slightly disillusioned with the lack of career prospects that the MBA offers - I have pre-MBA consulting experience... I'm not keen to go back to consulting, PE/VC seems like a longshot and I have very little interest in banking. Some aspects of finance like AM could be interesting but I don't have the right pre-MBA experience for this

Does anyone else have any suggestions for alternative post-MBA options? Would be great to hear more

 
 

My sentiments exactly. Seems like if all you did before business school was consulting and you don't want to go back (or do finance) then you're screwed. Wish I knew that before I started applying to schools, I would've waited a few years.

 

randomperson Hashish Vapoor

Both of you could consider VC. It absolutely is not a longshot or 'unrealistic' with your backgrounds.

I can't speak to randomperson's background since he doesn't elaborate much, but for someone with a CS undergrad (and programming acumen), MBB experience, international experience in a developing market, and big name undergrad internships, you are bang on target for a VC associate position.

Those are partner-track positions. Unlike PE, you don't have to come in with a stacked pre-MBA finance resume. Also unlike PE, you aren't locked into the same firm post-MBA, meaning if you get to a Tier 1.5 or Tier 2 firm right out of school, you can move after 3-5 years of experience to a Principal role at another fund.

Moving in VC is so easy if you know what you're doing. You lose some economics (may have had deal-based carry at the prior fund, or phantom equity in the full fund's performance), but it's a long-term game and if you get the chance to upgrade both in terms of firm quality plus a title change and its accompanying responsibility, it's a no-brainer.

You need to be able to a) speak articulately about the evolution of the industry, b) have a robust network that will yield both dealflow as well as talent (that are potential hires for your portfolio companies), and c) know at least one (ideally two or three) verticals in tech inside out (or at least be able to convince someone you know enough to not make the firm look stupid if unleash you in an unsupervised meeting).

HBS will give you all that.

a) You have access to case studies galore, to the professors who wrote them, and to unpublished research by both faculty and the doctoral students: if you can't leverage that plus the wealth of blogs by VC partners active in the industry to figure out how the asset class works and is evolving, God help you.

b) Everyone in the world will tell you that the network is the only thing you're really buying when earning an MBA. Not everyone really knows what that means. HBS and GSB are the two schools unrivaled for the ability to stick you into a vibrant mix of intelligent, informed, interesting people from the complete range of industry, skill, demographic, and geographic backgrounds. This is really useful for VC. Why? Well, what is VC about? Seeing every deal on the market, and knowing people at every place in the world.

If you come out of HBS, you'll have spent two years studying, partying, and growing with 900 other high achievers who will be taking jobs at every cool company in the world. You also have access to the grades directly above you while you're an RC and below you when an EC. Even more, you have free license to email absolutely anyone in the HBS family and say 'Hey, I'm an MBA '19 and I'd like to ..." and get a warm response. This is great: anyone there who launches a new company or joins one early on is a door for you into that deal. You also can tap into a massive pool of human capital anytime a company in your portfolio needs a key hire, an advisor, or even a board member.

c) Thanks to tech's booming rise in popularity, the campus has really dedicated a lot of resources to entrepreneurship and technology. The Rock Center, New Venture Competition, Startup Studio in New York, and litany of panels, conferences, and student excursions means you have everything at your fingertips to dive into whatever space in tech excites you most. Whether your interests cluster around a central theme (payments, PFM, and lending are all fintech) or are diverse (VR, life extension, and drones), you can go out and soak up the knowledge you need in order to speak articulately to a potential employer who's looking at hiring you or an entrepreneur you may want to invest in later.

In summary, you have a background that makes you more competitive than you think for an industry that's incredibly tough for most people to crack. It's a ridiculously high-paying field (seriously; 15 years in you could be seeing carry checks as a partner co-managing a $250/500/1,500m? fund), very exciting (tell me where you get to meet cooler people, see cooler products, and think about cooler problems), and very rewarding (by applying capital you can help people bring to market products that touch tens or hundreds of millions or users around the world).

It may be worth the look.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
Best Response

One way to look at jobs is by your tendency, regardless of industry:

THINKER: consultant, professor, strategy, investment research, non-litigation law, etc (typically assisting decision-makers); the resident pundit in an org who is paid for his/her informed opinions/recommendations. Tend to be more introverted types (more natural at writing/research, better in small groups than large audiences) who enjoy analysis, and tend to be the most skeptical/cynical

MAKER: engineers, designers, architects, artists, mechanics, etc. Basically people who lose themselves in making stuff. Usually working alone or in small groups. Also tend to be more introverted. No real post-MBA jobs in this arena

BABYSITTER: project managers, teachers, coaches, therapists. Essentially those who get a ton of satisfaction in pleasing/helping others, being a taskmaster, and managing people. Tend to be more extroverted (get energized by being around people, don't like to work alone). Post-MBA it's mostly product/project/program/brand mgmt where your main job is to see a project through to completion by babysitting technicians (engineers) and salespeople. Or in non-profits where you're overseeing an initiative/program.

HUSTLER: salespeople mostly in any industry (whether it's called biz dev, or whatever euphemism). Love comparing themselves to others, love winning at all costs, the rush of the pursuit, etc. Very little sense of shame. Very extroverted and naturally high energy. Won't shut up, lacks filter. Post-MBA we're talking about IBD MDs, and other professions where most of your comp comes from rev share, commissions, and so forth (any sort of agency type of position: investment banking, real estate development/sales, biz dev @ tech firms, etc). Deal closers.

Of course not everyone neatly falls into each box (and I'm sure there's more... just off the top of my head). But no one is all 4. Most likely tend to 1-2 at most.

If you focus more on who you are in terms of tendency, that may help frame what kinds of jobs are better suited towards you (rather than just blanket assessments of an entire industry).

For example, I wouldn't rule out finance -- yes, IBD tends to be best for hustlers, but if you're a "thinker" - maybe investment mgmt or hedge funds where you're mostly working with numbers and not people. Or maybe you're a babysitter - and working in fintech as a product manager might be your best bet.

In b-school (at least when I was a student), there was this pressure to be extroverted, when in fact a lot of b-school types aren't extroverted at all. You just have to be honest with yourself: are you more "in the zone" when working alone (or in very small groups), or when you're around people all the time. Start there - and you may end up uncovering career paths that you may not have thought of. For example, if you know you're mostly a "thinker" - then it's not just mgmt consulting, but there's think tanks, World Bank, certain depts in the UN, and other research-oriented functions within orgs.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 
ElliotWaveSurfer:

Thanks for this viewpoint. It's a really interesting way of looking at this question. What would you say are career tracks where you can combine the Thinker and Hustler mentalities?

Politics (not just elected office but certain staff positions) Lobbyist Litigator Standup comedian

I'm going to guess that you were thinking in your own mind that you're the best of both worlds, even though on the surface both seem contradictory. Thing is, you can't cut it down the middle, or find something that is the best of both worlds for anything. It's like saying "I want to find a job that pays as well as banking, but on a 40 hour work week" or some situation that has no tradeoffs (again looking for some idealized version of something that doesn't exist other than in the fantasies of youth).

When you see the above list, note that it's still mostly about hustlers. There's no 50/50 mix. Yes, even being an IBD MD requires analytical talent, but ultimately the "thinker" is secondary, and the "hustler" is primary.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

I'll never understand why a lot of people rule out Sales positions for things like project manager. Your financial upside is much greater, your rise to the top of the company can be a lot quicker, and sales tends to put you on a path to make CEO. OP, if you don't want to do banking, consulting, brand management, etc... have you ever considered tech sales? I hear its a party these days, like being a broker back in the 90's. The money can be amazing if you land with a good company/ product. Not sure if you want to do a startup right away, or if you are looking to get your feet wet you can take a more formal approach like working at IBM as an account manager.

 

Sales in just about any industry can be a fantastic path for all the reasons you said, but success tends to favor a certain temperament or personality that hard work won't make up for (because you have to assume no matter the job, to be good, you have to work hard at it no matter what your natural talents are). Just because a profession can pay well, doesn't mean you will get paid well if you're not a good fit for it.

I mean, pro basketball is a great sport - for tall people.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

I mean as long as you have a half way decent outgoing personality, and are willing to put in the work, you can definitely make it in sales. Especially if you are working in a high energy team based sales environment like IBM. I will be the first to admit i might always struggle with a cold call, but giving a presentation is something I thrive at. The reality is... banking or consulting... you will be learning to sell in some shape or fashion. The purpose of an MBA is to help you get out of your shell and sell yourself.

 

I disagree pretty strongly. I know people who are outgoing "enough" and incredibly intelligent but come across as brusque and pessimistic, these people just aren't going to want to have 100% of their responsibilities be in sales. Not saying they'd be the perfect fit for consulting/banking either just that there are definitely personalities that should not go into sales.

 

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"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller. "Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
 

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