McKinsey Luxembourg vs. Venture Capital Fund
Hello,
I have recently received an offer for a 6 months internship at $750m AUM VC fund in continental Europe, and another offer for a 6 months internship at McKinsey in the Luxembourg office. I have just graduated from an undergraduate Bachelor in Engineering, and will most likely attend a Business School in the next 1-3 years.
I would greatly appreciate any advice on what position to choose. In terms of location and job content, I prefer the VC opportunity, as it is something I would like to do later in my career. However, I understand that to ultimately get a full time job in a VC, I probably would need 4-5 years of experience in another field (such as management consulting).
So which of these two positions do you think would help me more in terms of "prestige" on my CV, chances of getting into a top 5 Business School, and chances of breaking into VC later in my career?
Thanks a lot for any help!
I assume the VC is Partech. Take McKinsey. I would take the VC offer only if you are really passionate about startups and want to make strong connections in the industry, From skillset/prestige point of view of it won't add much as McKinsey would
I agree with fours. If you plan on going to business school in the near future, McKinsey would help more. And I think your assessment is correct; it's an easier story to tell moving from consulting to VC rather than the other way around.
Thanks a lot for both your answers. Despite all my short term interests favouring the VC, I think you are both right about the bigger picture. My final question is about the location. I am from Luxembourg and so far my two internships have been in Luxembourg (have gotten them through connections). The McKinsey internship I actually got without any connection and went through the normal application process. I could however imagine that a recruiter or anyone reading my CV/application, could imagine that I just got all these internships through my parent's friends or something along those lines... Could that be seen negatively?
I'm not sure, but I'll give you an example. I once saw a candidate who had a lot of different jobs on his resume, each lasting usually 3 months or so, only one lasting 2 years. He had been out of school for about 7-8 years. We were told that he had a lot of connections in the industry. That was viewed negatively against him because it seemed like many organizations gave him a trial period or as a favor to someone, and either let him go or he wasn't able to keep the jobs.
I don't think it'll reflect negatively in your case, especially if the two internships look completely different (i.e. VC vs consulting), or if they were with organizations that led to your McKinsey internship (i.e. they were smaller, regional consulting firms). Regardless, having a world class name like McKinsey on your resume will only help you.
I see. I'll definitely keep that in mind then. Well thanks a lot to both of you for your advice and for taking the time to answer!
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