Navy Chief to Corporate Strategy (what are my chances?)
So I am looking to get into Corporate Strategy. This is my background:
-Undergrad from Post University in Business Admin w/concentration in management (3.3 GPA)
-MBA in Finance with Post University ( GPA 3.7)
-12 years in the Navy (8 of which in upper management/serving as a Chief in the Navy for the past 3 years)
-Past 7 years, serving as regional manager for Navy recruiting. I oversee all recruiting operations for central New Jersey. I oversee 4 offices, 15 personnel with a emphasis on process improvement and efficiency improvement while meeting monthly, quarterly and annual recruiting (sales) objectives.
I'm at a cross roads. I can either ride out the next 8 years and retire with a pension, which doesn't mean much I would still have to work and earn a decent living. Or get out while I'm still young, not saying 32 is young, and start a career in finance now rather then later. I'm hoping ,y leadership and management experience in the Navy will help along with my education. Although, I didn't graduate from a top program. My GPA isn't the highest, but I did earn my undergrad and grad while serving full-time in the Navy, which is no easy feat. So what are your thoughts? Any advice would be great. Also, I'm currently working on my lean six sigma yellow belt.
This is a difficult question. Given that I have zero knowledge of the value of Navy pensions, I'll let someone else opine on whether you should ride out the next 8 years in your current position. Are you making decent money? As far as switching to corporate strategy, I'm not confident that anyone will be able to give you a definitive answer... but, it's definitely possible. I suspect that you'll need to do quite a bit of networking and hope to find someone who will give you a shot. My guess is that you may have better luck if you either 1) focus on companies in the Aerospace/Defense industry since you may have more in common with some of your interviewers or, 2) try and get into a consulting's firm Federal practice and later switch into corp strat. I would aim for fresh-out-of-MBA positions, or higher if you want to try to "reach" jobs -- no harm in that.
Right now, I'm making 90K a year. Which translates to about 120K ayear given that I pay nothing for healthcare and about only 40% of my pay is actual taxable income. If I retire at 20 years.I will get 50% of my base salary, which would be a 36k a year. For me to walk away now, I'd have to make 150K plus bonuses. Not sure how fessable that may be. But I do appreciate your advice. thanks
$150K + bonus may be tough for corporate strategy/consulting unless you're targeting positions that are higher than recent MBA grad opportunties. Some of the higher paying consulting firms will start you out at ~$125-135K+ bonus, but this is for McKinsey, Bain, & BCG. Corporate strategy will be even lower. Sounds as if to be worth your while, you'll have to target Manager-level consulting positions or Manager/Sr. Manager-level corporate strategy jobs.
Do you have any good contacts/relationships with people who are higher up in the Navy? Have you considered any kind of Business Development role with an Aerospace & Defense company? I really don't know much about those roles, but I'm sure that you could probably make more in that type of role than you would in consulting or strategy.
Either way, you might as well try to apply to a variety of roles -- worst that can happen is you just stay put, which it sounds like you're okay with. Good luck.
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