Post MBA Career Choices?

Thinking about making a career switch from engineering to finance and from what it sounds like MBA is my best bet at that (in-terms of upward mobility, pay increase etc). I think I could use a bit of advice from the experts here on choosing a career path for after I get my MBA. From what I've learned financial advisory and management consulting are some of the paths that I can take. What are some of the other career choices that are available to MBA career-changers, particularly for those with no finance background but trying to make a switch to finance?

What type of financial services career path or "concentration" have job security/ stability with good pay and good hours? Which career tracks provide the best earnings? Which paths are better for work/ life balance? Is there any website that I can use as good resource?

 
greatgolfer:
Anyone ?

To be honest, many people don't really have a clear cut path. They have a few different ideas, and they know they don't want to be doing what they currently are.

For me, I'm most probably interested in Investment Banking for a few years and then transitioning to PE/VC (either 2 years and exit to associate at PE, or 5-6 years and exit to principal/VP at PE). My top choice would be IBD at a Bulge Bracket in San Francisco Tech group, but I'd keep an open mind to New York.

 
greatgolfer:
Hey ! I'm a bit surprised. I thought you're much older based on your profile. Your path seems solid. All the best.

Do most Stanford and Harvard MBAs stay away from IB or is it just my perception ?

This is correct. Chicago, Wharton, NYU and Columbia are the top IB feeder schools.

 

Agreed, 90% of material (free and paid) on here is very analyst heavy. Part of me thinks it is because at the analyst level things are very organized and follow a general process that is more or less the same on a broad level.

Associate recruiting is a lot more bespoke based on your experience, potential fit, bank's specific need at that level etc. So it is harder to give advice and not economically favorable to crate a 'guide'.

Although there is that 10% of material that you would find relevant and interesting just need to learn how to look (following people who consistently post well thought out remarks is best way imho). Also can pay-up to speak with one of the mentors here, lots of good profiles.

 
Sullivan:

30% of all Chinese university students get an MBA. If you plan to work in in China, it is a requirement for a foreigner, and you better have some connections as well. To learn more, google "China back door jobs".

Terrible advice. Someone is trying to make a life-changing decision and you are sending him to a for-profit internship placement website?

And seriously, you are commenting on a post from 7 YEARS ago? Is your company that desperate to rid off some college kids?

 

You're asking too basic of questions so I doubt you'll get a response. But at a high level, there are no unicorn jobs - the more lucrative, the worse the stress and hours will be.

The highest paying is banking, but it's also the worst hours. A few buy side jobs pay a ton and are better hours, but you won't have access to them (only go to the best of the best who wasted their first 25 years of life working non stop at school and their first jobs).

I chose consulting. It pays a bit less than banking, but still a ton, and you get weekends free. Travel is tough though.

 

It is impossible to provide anything constructive given the fact that you sound like you are all over the place. Consulting, banking or corporate? Congratulations you just covered 85% of post-MBA career options. Personally, I think you would benefit from another year or two of work experience so that you can gain a better understanding of what it is that you would like to get out of your MBA experience because right now it sound s like you are looking for a 1 year vacation with a bunch of Euro people and an additional credential.

 

Im NOT looking for a vacation, but certainly something to enhance personal growth not just more business classes. I think your missing the point that I'm well aware of the options, consulting, banking and corporate and have had some degree of varied exposure with almost all of them. The point would be to get feedback about which area would compliment my skillset and allow me to grow as a "businessman" and not specifically a banker or consultant or corporate manager. Im looking to build more on management and international language skills as opposed to more technical finance and accounting skills, the actual tag related to the MBA is irrelevant otherwise I would just be applying to Northwestern or Chicago and stay here. The blend between all of these areas is not what Im targeting but the point being that consulting firms can offer corp fin and restructuring advice while banks can offer strategy advice so the answer of what I am looking for is not so clear cut. That being said like you mentioned I am all over the place to a degree, but its within reason to gain as much varied industry and sector exposure as possible. But I suppose its difficult to guage intentions or character from a thread so thank you for the response.

 
lifeofpurpose:
Patrick,

I have noticed that it is hard to find threads about post-mba jobs.

for example, when i go to the investment banking threads, it is 99% focused on internship and analyst positions. When we post something about associate roles we get replies regarding analyst roles. This happens in consulting, Asset Management, etc.

I think at the end, once you get into an MBA there is no useful info in this site. Can't you create a sort of post-mba thread so that more "seasoned" users still find an excuse to hang in this website? Or maybe you create a sort of "mba Certified User"? Or maybe we can filter the threads and put a "sign" saying"MBA" next to each thread to make sure we draw the attention to our "peers".

Anyone else shares my opinion?

Ouch, no useful info? Out of the 100,000+ discussions you sure about that? Out of the thousands of compensation data points (hundreds from Associates), in our Company Database, you sure there is no useful info here? :-) just busting your balls...

Clearly, there is more content geared to analysts and interns, but if you ask properly and make sure to specifiy. "I am looking for guidance from post MBAs", I am sure you will get some guidance...the volume won't be as high (plain #s), but we do exist on here.

Are you using Search or just browsing the Forum topics in the Investment Banking forum?

 

A CFA is not going to help at all with banking.

You have good work experience. If you get into MBA business schools">M7 b-schools, make sure to join the investment management club and work your ass off on stock pitches. At those schools the on-campus recruiting for buyside is sick, so you will have easy access to all the big investment management firms. Once you have your pitches down you can do well in the interviews and get offers. It will be tough, but if you work hard for it, your chances of getting an IM offer is pretty good. This only holds true for M7+tuck, however.

 
Relinquis:
slightly off topic, but I'm curious. Why not go into VC, etc... given your background?

To be honest I've thought about it, but since in a VC i wouldnt be using the CFA, i was trying to see if i could benefit from my CFA and MBA together somehow for a career choice, which would make my application look better.

 

Yes, MBAs will consider you. Few of my acquaintances landed top 10 schools in the last few years (each in the 4-6 years experience range). You can easily go on the school's website and look at the profiles of admitted students. There are a few b4 alums in most schools.

The ones I knew all had their cpa's (not sure if the schools cared). Perhaps if your business line does not care about cpa license then you could be fine w/o it. Purely speculation on my end though. I'd focus on performing well at work so you can get promoted quickly and get strong rec letters from your partners/directors. If everyone who does well in your group has their cpa, then I'd take that as a sign that you should have it too. Also be involved and take leadership positions outside of work.

 

Thanks for the responses. I'm considering either high finance or corporate finance. but high finance I'm thinking won't be an option without an MBA from a top school. I don't think I would do an MBA if it wasn't a top school. I feel like an MBA is valuable and doing it now would be better than later on.

 

you don't need an mba to pursue those just apply now and see what you get into... but you did say you're from outside the US. where exactly are you situated?

shouldn't be a problem to break into those fields with an mba.

========================================= We are excited to formally extend to you an offer to join Bank of Ameria
 

Based in Australia - so no additional language skills or detailed knowledge of Asian markets unfortunately

Would be hard to pursue those roles from here as the big names (Fidelity, Capital, BlackRock etc) dont have huge operations here and generally hire at reasonably senior levels from Equities Research. And if I apply directly to the US / UK offices, I'm likely to get dinged as they generally look for locals (who have minimal visa requirements and costs, and also have local experience).

From what I've heard from people who were applying last year and this year into IM / HF from Harvard / Wharton, is that it was quite hard for them to get into those roles - even with substantially more experience than myself (generally 2yr IB followed by some PE). I wonder whether this is the norm or just a function of the markets last year?

Does it make sense to get some additional exp before pursuing an MBA?

 

The masterplan was to always go to one of the big name fund managers. Find IM a lot more intuitively appealing and always wanted to be closer to the financial markets from a buyside perspective. Also from the experience of others who have done IB + PE and then went into IM, they liked the autonomy, the flat structure and the transparency of performance as well as the innate satisfaction of watching your 'calls' / investments perform well.

But admittedly there is also a distaste for being a banker built somewhere into that - the subordination, the hierarchy, the constant sycophancy, the unnecessary hours are all any junior can empathise with, and it doesn't seem to get too much better as you hit the associate ranks either, albeit the pay is good (but not a lot better than IM from what I've heard)

 
This is true. At HBS and wharton, banking was seen as a path for those who couldn't land PE, HF, or IM jobs.

This is not true. Banking recruiting and interviewing takes a little bit before recruiting and interviewing for investment management jobs, and months before that for most private equity and hedge funds jobs. You generally cannot try to secure a job in one of these areas before interviewing for banking jobs. The population of students that pursue investment banking in business school is almost entirely made up of career changers, and most of those students don't have the pre-MBA background to land a job in private equity or at a hedge fund.

 

I think I know who you are talking about and if we are talking about the same person than 1) they're pretty legit and more importantly 2) they were poached into a public markets investing role at TPG not PE. And I'm not by any means saying TPG PE is better than TPG opportunities or anything like that at all.

I guess to use SSG and TPG as an example, I'm just more interested in if 2 years SSG > HSW > TPG PE is possible? Especially given a lot of candidates will probably have Pre-MBA PE experience.

 
jdcrouch:
I think I know who you are talking about and if we are talking about the same person than 1) they're pretty legit and more importantly 2) they were poached into a public markets investing role at TPG not PE. And I'm not by any means saying TPG PE is better than TPG opportunities or anything like that at all.

I guess to use SSG and TPG as an example, I'm just more interested in if 2 years SSG > HSW > TPG PE is possible? Especially given a lot of candidates will probably have Pre-MBA PE experience.

You are likely talking about the same person. From my understanding TPG Opportunities is somewhat harder to get than TPG PE so I think the comparison holds up as to whether or not you are viewed as high caliber enough to get on mega-fund radars. SSG does small cap PE deals (among other things) so it's not like you wouldn't have PE experience.

 

Right but then the whole definition of megafund goes out the window.

Can you go from SSG to any large public markets role including HFs and HF arms of PE firms?? Yes definitely. But to traditional PE the answer is probably no.

The point about whether public vs private investing is harder to get into is a moot point. It's very hard to get a gig at Rentech but that's far away from what private equity is about.

 
Press0:
Right but then the whole definition of megafund goes out the window.

Can you go from SSG to any large public markets role including HFs and HF arms of PE firms?? Yes definitely. But to traditional PE the answer is probably no.

The point about whether public vs private investing is harder to get into is a moot point. It's very hard to get a gig at Rentech but that's far away from what private equity is about.

Why does the definition of mega fund go out the window? As I said, GS SSG does PE deals. If that is the prerequisite and SSG is clearly high profile, then why would it hinder you from a mega fund job post-MBA?

I think the better question is why one would want a post-MBA role at a mega fund? Seems like a high floor/low ceiling opportunity for someone with that strong of a background. It's really hard to make a name for yourself sitting behind that much carry.

 

Because you're using an example of someone going from SSG to basically a HF to justify SSG to megafund PE which is simply not true. This should be easy to understand.

No need to speculate with me, I agree the skillset is likely there, but you're competing against hundreds of kids with actual PE experience for these jobs. It will be harder. Just the nature of the business.

 

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