Associate or Analyst after MBA without workex?

The first "2" in 2+2 stands for 2 years work experience...

It would be Associate role in the highly unlikely scenario that you were to receive an offer via this route.

the norm is to get work experience then go back to school

And what if one specifically applies for an analyst position?

Just to make a point: Tony James, John Paulson, Michael Bloomberg etc. were all UG --> MBA guys, to say that they all screwed up their education is kind of hilarious. . .

If you are looking to go to graduate school right after UG and you want to come in as an analyst then why would you not look at top masters programs? That seems to be the more conventional route for kids that couldn't get analyst jobs right out of UG and want another chance to go through recruitment without wasting their MBA.

The issue is not 22 v 24 or MBA v no MBA. The issue is banks recruiting structure. They hire on a very clear path with 2 entry points: undergrads for analysts and MBAs for associates. While obviously sometimes exceptions are made for various reasons, that is not the norm.

I was in a rather non-traditional spot myself at one point, and had a recruiter tell me that while I was a great candidate, I was a square peg and their recruiting process was a round whole (insert thats what she said joke). That's the issue you face.

I'm 95% sure you will be hired as an analyst if you are 23-24 with an MBA.

This is especially if the case is you did some kind of 3 year UG 2 year MBA combo all at once.

@"CountryUnderdog" Does Columbia allow people without experience into their MBA program? I know schools like MIT and Duke do. From talking to an alumni (who went straight to his MBA), I believe he said standard recruiting is the same (for consulting, IB), but for anything else, experience really matters so many jobs weren't available to him. It's been a while and someone can definitely correct me if I'm wrong.

And for those of you bashing people who go straight to their MBA from undergrad, it is done much more commonly than our close minded online brains think. Some top schools have about 10% of students come with no experience. I only know of one person as I mentioned before, and it would be nice to learn about other people and their stories. Must have been pretty amazing.

There's 3 people in this situation in my MBA class (straight from undergrad) and they recruit in the normal MBA level pipelines. They are compared against their MBA peers, and their lack of experience DOES make things more difficult.

That said, all 3 got internships and are headed to MBA level jobs. It's a higher hurdle, but people clear it every year. I can't comment on what would happen if they applied for a UG level position though; my guess would be they'd get the analyst/equivalent role with a pay bump (had this happen to a friend back in undergrad who did a 3+2 program for General Mills). She had an accelerated promotion path, and then when she jumped to another company got compensated at the same level as more experienced MBA peers.

Thanks for all your helpful responses!

As I can read from the majority of your posts: IF one does MBA straight from UG, then one should ideally target associate positions, since it would be a more logical path to go, both for you and for HR. Nevertheless it's fairly unconventional today and can cause trouble, because it doesn't fit well into the HR system.

But I understand the potential issues regarding the recruiting structure of firms and I'll do some further research on that.

Best.

I think the key here is that getting the MBA right after college has 0 value add and prevents you from obtaining it/using it when you truly need it (when you need a career switch) and when you can learn a lot from the degree.

I only know of one person that did this and ended up in finance (PWM specifically) and they went in as an analyst.

Get your MBA. You wouldn't want to be a 28 year old analyst.

There is nothing that you will learn as analyst that you won't pick up in 2 years at b-school and your associate training program. Why would you want to spend the next two years (at age 28) being miserable at the bottom when you can enter as an associate and be slightly less miserable and only slight less at the bottom. Being an analyst is absolutely not a pre-requesite for landing a BB associate gig. I have several friends with liberal arts backgrounds and non-finance backgrounds who went to top 10 b-schools and all got BB associate offers.

28 is a good age to attend b-school (but I wouldn't wait much longer). Your only problem will be demonstrating why an MBA and why an entrepreneur would want to pursue the highly structured hierarchial world of banking?

Good luck

You don't need any IB or finance experience to land a full time associate position out of B-school. If you want to do IB, make sure to do it for your summer and get an offer. I have known associates who have come from advertising, engineers, etc. with absolutely no idea what they are doing.

This is why people talk about the hell that is a fresh 1st year associate, by stroke of very bad luck, being staffed up with a fresh first year analyst. Neither one is expected to know anything, and often won't - the proportion of analysts who actually do come back to do an associate stint is fairly small. 2 or 3 years of shit work is just about enough for most people, and the associates really don't get out of it too much better than the analysts do. Save several years of life expectancy and take the MBA and the associate gig, prior experience is certainly helpful but extremely far from essential.

You still have to get solid working experience before getting into banking. Most BBs do their heaviest recruiting at the top 10 B-schools and getting into these are no joke.

One thing you should be aware of is that round 2 deadlines (aka, the last round where non-olympic athletes and other superstars actually have a shot) are fast approaching. Not sure when the next GMAT is, but unless you can take it in the next couple weeks and nail it on the first try you are probably not going to be able to start b-school until Fall 2009.

"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead."

MBA's start as associates so yes, they skip analyst years.

gotta specify that you need experience before your MBA... I am not too sure that you would be able to sell a bank on coming in as an Associate if you just went straight from UG to an MBA, and with that the top MBA programs likely wouldn't take you

Based on friends' experiences, they finished their MBA and got into IB with no IB experience. As such, they had to take analyst roles after their MBA. However, they still had prior work/life experience that allowed them to approach their job with more maturity and confidence than their undergrad peers (in most cases), presumably qualities that will allow them to move up to associate more quickly.

Top 40 program?

Seems a bit of a stretch to me, anything outside of M7 schools are generally frowned upon. Of course, if you're looking to be an associate at an MM in IB (e.g., HLHZ, HW, Goldsmith - not Lazard, as they have been shamlessly promoting, others....), than the degree should suffice.

I think Goldsmith is a tight place, and now banking on the lazard name will certainly earn them an edge over their main MM competitors. I have interviewed with five MM banks and I have been the most impressed by Goldsmith and will likely sign with them.

I don't think top 40 is good enough for the top MMs, but I'd say it is good enough to get you a job somewhere. Top MMs have less stringent requirements, but still target more or less the same schools. I'd say a top 20 MBA would be a significant jump, with top 10 really putting you in "safe" territory.

A lot of middle market banks list profiles for all of their professionals so it makes it easy to see where you stand. If you really want to know and a company doesn't list Associates, sometimes VPs will be a good indicator as to what the associate pool looks like.

Harris Williams: http://www.harriswilliams.com/professionals/assoc.php

Edgeview: http://www.edgeviewpartners.com/professionals

McColl Partners: http://www.mccollpartners.com/professionals.html

Thank you for the info. It looks like many of the analysts at Edgeview have a BA from a non-target school.

What about if one were to get a BA and an MBA at a non-target school (ie. University of Washington is one that I'm researching). Is this more than enough to enter as, at least, an analyst?

u. of washington is a fairly well respected school last i checked? with high gpa BA no problem to be an analyst. assume you are talking about a joint BA/MBA program...but to come in as an analyst then? not sure how that works, you should definitely do your DD on that. might be wasting benefit of MBA (which is really just resume refresher and networking) and time.

It is well respected - just not a top school.

I wonder if I should get a BA at University of Washington > Analyst for 2 years > MBA > Associate.

Opinions?

UWash is decent, but you shoot for a better school if you can. There are other state schools (UM, UVA, etc) that offer better placement from undergrad.

And if I can't get into anything better? How does my aforementioned outline look?

I guess what I'm really asking is: at the very least can I easily get an analyst position with a BA + MBA at a school such as the UW.

Why on earth would you want to get your MBA and be an analyst? Go to a slightly better school for undergrad and you can get an analyst gig out w/o getting your MBA. If you do decide to get your MBA, you should be jockeying for associate positions or you wasted your time.

I think you are little confused as to the progression.

You only get into analyst programs from undergrad. From what I understand, you should only be concerned with analyst recruiting, since you are asking about UWash undergrad. If you want to know about how easily you can get analyst role from UWash, the answer is easier than other state schools, harder than others. UWash offers the benefit of some on-campus recruiting since they have a solid finance program, but you still need to excel there to have a shot at the job.

You shouldn't even be thinking about your MBA until after your analyst stint + more. Even then you should only be considering the top 10 programs.

Thanks guys. I hear what you're saying and my ideal path would definitely be the one noted above:

BA at University of Washington > Analyst for 2 years > MBA > Associate

I just don't know that I can get in to anything better than UW. If I do go there, I'll be trying to get above a 3.7 - but I'm worried that a 3.7 at UW may pale in comparison to other candidates who came from better schools.

In my favor, though, I'll have decent work experience as I did 6 months FT at a web marketing firm and am now going part time indefinitely at the same firm.

Of course I'll be applying to other places, but this will be from an AA transfer degree from a community college. So far I have perfect grades here, and I intend to keep them that way.

To the top. I really appreciate all input so far.

Nope. Only a PhD/MBA/ grad school with prior work experience gets you an Associate role.

Illinois has a good MBA program. We might take you straight outta school.

All the aforementioned business schools would most likely not even admit you because you have no work experience so your question is moot.

Before dignifying this post with a response, have you been accepted to HBS, Wharton MBA program, SBS?

If you could get into those, you probably could get an IB position.

If you could get into those, you will get any interview you want.