I am very interested to see where this thread goes. I'm working in corporate finance right now, but not sure about which companies would be considered most "prestigious". I think in terms of prestige, top banks may be better than FAANG, but compensation wise - FAANG may be on top. Not sure though...

 

I think that’s actually why ge is in trouble. They could hire the best people who didn’t have the ambition for banks/hf/consulting etc. GE bought high and sold low in virtually every industry in the last ten-twenty years.

 

Nope, you are wrong my friend. Get used to saying it. Matter of fact, stand up right now, wherever you are, and yell into the sky "I....AM....WRONG!!!!!".

This is a good teaching experience for all sides of the polygon to leverage in years to come. Life lessons don't always appear in bite-sized portions, but the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So what's the so what? Well, let's start with the simple, blue-sky approach. You're wrong. You said something wrong, and frankly it was kind of on par with what a retard might say. I think we can both reasonably ascertain that everyone on this forum is now debating whether or not you have autism. What you said is so retarded I think you've missed the trees for the forest. I think you have ocean'd the boil.

So while from the 1,000 yard view you might be a retard. You are also a retard in terms of granularity.

 
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besides being nonsensical, it is also wrong.

If you want to blame Immelt, I'll drive that bus. However, saying ge failed because they could hire the best non-hf/ib/consulting people is just stupid.
1. If that were the case, EVERY company would fail. By definition, corporation hire people who either dont have the ambition or don't make hf/ib/consulting. 2. Just because people dont have the desire/ambition for one career (obviously) doesnt make them any less capable than others that do. 3. The OP was asking about entry-level jobs. Do you think those guys are even making the decisions on m&a? OF COURSE NOT. It's usually only the top few people at a company making the m&a decisions and, ironically enough, they're more likely to have that ib/consulting background than the kid in the FDLP.

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

Do you mean prestigious as far as getting into a good B-school? or just the regular prestige of having your friends and family go "ooo nice" when you tell them where you work? If you're talking about Business school prestige, my guess is that FAANG and really any F100 company are going to be about equal. If you're talking about the "regular" prestige, then I have bad news for you.. in CF, it just doesn't work like that. Outside of Google or maybe Apple, no one is going to be that impressed by where you work. I'm not sure what your state in life is now, but you'll understand it when you get there- CF doesn't really carry any social prestige until you're a director or above.

 
dan_yo23:
Do you mean prestigious as far as getting into a good B-school? or just the regular prestige of having your friends and family go "ooo nice" when you tell them where you work? If you're talking about Business school prestige, my guess is that FAANG and really any F100 company are going to be about equal. If you're talking about the "regular" prestige, then I have bad news for you.. in CF, it just doesn't work like that. Outside of Google or maybe Apple, no one is going to be that impressed by where you work. I'm not sure what your state in life is now, but you'll understand it when you get there- CF doesn't really carry any social prestige until you're a director or above.

I was referring to it in terms of B-School admissions mostly

 

Let's be honest, no one is impressed about another's career unless they know what it entails, how much it pays, and the notoriety involved.

My thought example here: -They might be impressed if you are a brain surgeon because that's a very difficult job with high stakes -They might be impressed if they knew what you were making as an investment banker fresh out of college -They might be impressed if you work for Warren Buffett because everyone knows he was once the richest man in the world.

Unfortunately many high-profile roles are just unknown to the majority of people. E.g., most people probably think investment banker and stock broker are the same thing.

 

This is exactly right. Not sure that Cargill's Corp Dev team is notorious for being awesome, but it might be true.

OP was asking in regards to BSchool, but in terms of finding other jobs, being at the industry leader in any sector is always good. An ecommmerce company would love to hire someone from Amazon, Industrial company would still like GE or Honeywell, CPG companies would like P&G alums, pharma from J&J, etc.... It might not be a huge difference in prestige and the role might not be any better, but these brand names certainly help.

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

Currently work at FAANG in corporate finance and it does have prestige to the average person (I get lots of 'oh wow you work at X, that must be such a fun job'), but honestly within the company, finance is considered a very low value-add function. Product and engineering are the rockstars within FAANG, finance are just the bean-counters

I am post-MBA so the bschool app prestige doesn't matter to me, but I would assume adcoms would prob be more impressed with FAANG corp fin than any random F500 company.

 

Definitely seeing the same thing in A&D- the engineers are the rockstars here and finance is more of an accounting function. Most of our contracts get reimbursed for cost, so that doesn't inspire much need for efficiency or cost-cutting measures.. just accurate bean counting.

Any advice on industries where finance people are higher on the totem pole? Seems like manufacturing and retail, but I'd love to get more perspective.

 

Look for industries where it's not uncommon for a finance executive to go into a general management role (eg cfo --> ceo, being the extreme example). I've seen it happen first hand a number of times in Financial Services & CPG. That doesn't necessarily mean that the CFO route is the primary feeder into the CEO role in CPG, since it's more common to be from Marketing/Sales, but it happens enough that it's not out of the ordinary. I've heard that finance has a larger role in CPG companies that are commodity driven with less of a focus on marketing.

Haven't seen this type of transition as much in Retail, as the primary feeder is predominantly Merchandising & Marketing.

Random thought... I find that many CFOs that I've spoken with (say, at smaller segments) don't want to move into operational or GM-type roles despite having the opportunity to do so, and prefer to stay in Finance.

 

I swear I've seen you posting this before. For the love of god please stop spreading your experience at Amazon as the be all end all of Finance @ FAANG.

For anyone reading this that may not know much about the industry please realize that the company matters very much. Finance at F/G is very different than the other FAANGs. Slack, Uber, Stripe, Airbnb, Lyft are also companies where Finance is more respected and adds value.

 

My rule of thumb: the more technical difficult an industry is (STEM oriented), the less prestige CF has. In upstream O&G, the reservoir engineers/geologists run the show. In tech, software engineers run the show, etc etc. Regardless, corporate development and strategy folks typically come from any discipline, finance included. In reality, I try not to spend much time worrying about this and focus my efforts where they will be rewarded. I work in O&G, and while I'll never help a company find oil, I can certainly help them bring products to market, purchase a competitor, divest an asset, or invest capital in a new project. Yes, outside of consulting/accounting/banking, where finance often "is the business," all companies exist to produce free cash flow for financial investors, so if you can't find a niche you're looking in the wrong places.

 

I always find it very confusing when Americans talk about corporate finance. In the UK, corporate finance typically refers to how the corporate entity is actually financed, so the job may deal with raising debt and equity, and could extend to M&A and IPOs etc.

In the US it seems to mean finance and accounting within a corporate entity. I’m not sure why this would ever have any “prestige” associated with it,

 

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