I'm currently interning at Walmart. If I accept a full time offer, I would enter into the company's Accounting and finance development program (AFDP). Has anyone heard anything about this program? I never hear this program mentioned with the other Corporate FLP's.
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A Fortune 1 FLP is going to be looked at favorably by everyone (b-schools, other employers, etc.), so there's no real reason to worry about that. Your decision should just come down to how much you enjoyed your summer work-wise and how you feel about living in Bentonville for the next few years. If you do receive an offer, they should give you enough time to decide that you'll be able to go through on-campus recruiting if you so desire.
Since Wal-Mart is Fortune 1, wherever you go its going to be looked upon very highly. That being said I have had a few friends that had offers for the program but never took it because of the location, since you are already going through the internship and haven't brought up Bentonville that doesn't apply to you. I've had one friend who went through the program as an internship (similar to you) and said the AFDP will be a fantastic experience according to some of the people he networked with who are in the program. They have plenty of international rotational opportunities and the quality of the rotations are great. Retail may not be "sexy" according to some people here but if you think about it its extremely interesting since there are so many fields involved (supply chain, economics, psychology, etc). If you happen to accept the full time offer you'd be making a great choice at the end of the day it all comes down to how much you enjoyed your time at Wal-Mart and the people you worked with. I don't know any specifics of how it feeds to the top MBA programs but like BTD mentioned above and I mentioned earlier, it's literally Fortune 1 and therefore its considered pretty elite if you ask me.
From your username I am assuming you go to Texas McCombs and according to one of my friends that goes there you'll have time to "shop around" other companies and recruit for full time. From what I understand their policy is that you have until mid-october to accept your offer or by the date Wal Mart tells you (whichever is later) so you have a solid 6-7 weeks from the time fall recruiting starts to see what you really want.
Yes, you're spot on. The timing of things will give me time to recruit for consulting positions once I get back to Austin. Unfortunately, IB recruiting does not occur until later on in the semester. However, I'm not sure that IB is a career I want to pursue, so it's not necessarily the end of the world.
I feel ya man. It's definitely far from the end of the world. With Wal-Mart on your resume you'll easily get FT interviews left and right at F500. The guy I know I mentioned did the internship from UT Austin decided to do FT recruiting had a 3.4ish GPA and got plenty of interviews from top F500 firms and other brand name places too (Microsoft, Ernst and Young, Boeing, etc.). He ended up at E&Y Advisory FT I believe.
If the location thing bothers you he tells me that transferring locations is pretty smooth. As you probably know Wal-Mart E-commerce is located in San Francisco area so if you are looking more of a city vibe you can easily transfer there if the Arkansas scene is not your thing. As you get to the manager level through the program (which is relatively fast of course) you can transfer internationally as well. Same person was telling me one of his seniors that went to the program became Manager of Sales Division for Pacific/Asia and is in Tokyo! So opportunities to move to more exciting places is there but you may have to stick it out in Arkansas for a little while to transfer.
Good to know. Funny you mentioned your friend went to E&Y Advisory FT. Prior to my internship with Walmart, I interned with Deloitte Valuations, so as of now my decision is between Walmart and Big 4 Advisory. Do you have an opinion as to which opportunity would be better?
Yeah, I think that while location should factor into my decision, it shouldn't be the main reason I decided not to work for a company. And a lot of what I've heard from people within the company echos what you said... you don't have to jump through an excessive number of hoops to move into an international market or out to the eCommerce office.
Wow what a coincidence. As far as Big 4 Advisory as opposed to Wal-Mart or any FLDP for that matter it depends on what are your career goals. I would give a slighter edge to the development program simply because of the leadership aspect and the relatively fast rise in the hierarchy (being able to be manager in like 3 years - how awesome is that?). Don't know much about Big 4 advisory but I'll give my honest $0.02. Since It seems like you are pretty interested in consulting from your posts here though and if you are serious in pursuing that in the long run Big 4 Advisory would give the choice and will good some good experience and preparation for that career path. If you happen to manage to sneak in Wal-Mart corporate strategy during your time at the program, then disregard the previous suggestion and stick with Wal-Mart! Then also keep in mind you have a shot at recruiting for the bigger management consulting firms (heard MBB [particularly McKinsey] , Oliver Wyman, and Booz/Strategy& loves to recruit UT kids). If you happen to get into any of those then that's a whole 'nother story. Hopefully @"D M" will run across this thread and give some insight if I missed anything or was completely wrong about anything since he's the WSO corp finance guru haha
Also just curious since I don't know much about Big 4 valuation groups, was there anything particular you didn't like about it or was it just not a right fit for you at Deloitte?
Thanks for the feedback. From my understanding the program is relatively new, so I am not surprised that there is not more info about exit opps/MBA chances/etc. Truthfully, the location is one of the major reasons I am unsure about pursuing a full-time position at Walmart. Moreover, I ultimately want to get into a Corporate Strategy role, and most AFDP graduates will take positions in Ops, FP&A, or Merch Finance. That being said, the program does a great job of giving participants exposure to upper-level management and a wide variety of business issues.
Congrats on your internship at Walmart! Working at a Fortune 1 company in an elite leadership development program is an insane opportunity. The Arkansas location may be a huge drawback for many but this works to your benefit. It signals to future employers that you are flexible and you can live a great lifestyle. Also can you imagine how extremely competitive this program would be if it were located in a major city?
Thanks! It's been a great internship thus far. I think that the company realizes that a lot of recent college grads won't want to work for the company because of the location. The majority of the other finance interns are from a small private liberal arts school in Arkansas. But almost of the these kids will sign on full-time with the Walmart because the location adjustment isn't much of an issue for them.
Note that these are generalities and I'm not working in corpfin right now.
The program is great because of the brand name, not necessarily because of the program (which is probably good, just no different from any other F100 program). It will look good on MBA admissions so long as you show increasing responsibility, usually through promotions/changes in position titles, also recommendations from your direct superiors help.
If I were in your position, I'd go into interviews with MBB and try to kill it. If that doesn't pan out, whether you go Big4 or Walmart is up to you. Your chances are probably roughly equal at getting into a top MBA (keep in mind it's a crapshoot). Wherever you're happiest is probably the best place to be.
From there, you want to position yourself for a top MBA. That means you'll be working for ~4 years and then applying. As I mentioned before, the most important thing is increasing responsibility. You'll want ~700 GMAT, higher doesn't necessarily help, but trying to pull off Harvard with a 600 GMAT will be difficult. Don't slack off senior year, your undergrad record may have some sway. Outside activities can play a role if they're significant, but usually work performance and GMAT are most important.
I will say that having substantial experience with accounting and finance is considered valuable. I know one corpstrat guy on here specifically noted he wished he had a more substantial background in those areas before he started in CS (not that he regretted it, it would have just helped a bit starting off).
Honestly nobody can really tell you where to go from here. I'd probably put the Wal-Mart job slightly above the Big 4 options because you'll be rotating and getting a variety of experiences within the acct/fin department. You really have to make a decision as to what you want to do though. If I were in your shoes and more interested in B4, I'd take that over WM in a heartbeat.
Thanks, this is really helpful!
I think I will be able to show increasing responsibility at Walmart. As @freddyflintstone mentioned earlier, a lot of people that go through AFDP will exit the program at the manager level. Getting promoted to the senior manager level within another two years or so will be difficult, but I think it is doable.
Will working in corporate finance pre-MBA limit my job options post-MBA? Say I want to move into consulting or PE post-MBA… would that be a possibility?
Sounds like I've got a decision to make. I think that my biggest issue at this point is that I am not extremely passionate about either option. While I think that I can show interest and be successful in either position, I want to keep my options open for later on in my career when I do find something that I am truly passionate about. Obviously, if I’m able to get a position with MBB this is a mute point. I think the best position for me as of now would be the one that give me the most career flexibility and best MBA chances.
Post-MBA PE will be tough unless you did pre-MBA PE (or at least IB/HF/MBB etc). It's not unheard of though. Consulting won't be a problem - in fact they'll probably like your work history from either place. This applies to both the Big4 gig and Wal-Mart
There's quite a few threads regarding Pre-MBA F500 experience transition to Post-MBA "high finance" as well as MBA prospects for F500 experience. To give a summary on the first inquiry: the pre-MBA experience MAY have an effect depending on the industry. I know Post-MBA Consulting and IB you shouldn't have a problem since associates from both industries come from all different pre-mba backgrounds and one of the reasons you to go MBA anyways is to switch careers so you shouldn't worry for those industries. When it comes to PE or HF I think it starts to get significantly difficult because they usually take people who did pre-MBA IB or Top tier consulting.
You'll be fine man just focus on MBB recruiting for the meantime, go to all the case stuff/info sessions your career center puts on, practice cases hardcore and you'll be fine. Even if things don't work out in MBB recruiting you'll always have the AFDP and Big 4 Advisory options as well, which are both fantastic options as well.
Only thing I know is that it is in Arkansas. Where is Arkansas.
If its in Arkansas, you'd prob live like a king with that type of cost of living.
Wow, didn't know Walmart had a FLDP type program. Do you know when it first began?
From what I've seen on LinkedIn, at least since 2008
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