MBA / MS / Grad School · Primly Community

Left MBB for an MBA. Here's what nobody told me about the post-grad job search.

consultant_cam · 5 replies

Finished my MBA at a T10 last May. Came in from MBB consulting, so I thought I had a leg up. Recruiting is recruiting, right?

Wrong.

A few things that genuinely surprised me:

The on-campus recruiting calendar waits for no one. If you want consulting or banking, you're basically interviewing during week 6 of your first semester. You haven't even found your apartment yet. I knew this intellectually. Living it was different.

Your pre-MBA brand follows you in weird ways. I came in as a 'consultant' so people assumed I wanted to go back to consulting. When I said I wanted to pivot to corp dev, every alumnus I talked to spent 20 minutes trying to talk me out of it. The network is incredibly helpful, but it also has opinions.

The post-MBA job search if you don't take an on-campus offer is genuinely rough. A classmate who missed the big banking cycle had to go through exactly the same off-cycle process as any other candidate. The brand helps open doors but it doesn't guarantee anything.

Not trying to scare anyone off. The program was worth it for me, but I wish someone had been more direct about the mechanics.

5 replies

finance_faye

the on-campus calendar thing is so real. i recruited for corp dev at a T15 and literally had a first-round the day after fall orientation ended. no exaggeration. you have to show up day one with your story already locked.

consultant_cam

exactly. and your 'story' at that point is maybe two weeks old because you just landed on a new campus and haven't had time to pressure-test it with anyone. the 'tell me your why for the MBA' question when you're still figuring out your why is a lot.

ops_omar

did you feel like the MBA was worth the opportunity cost? i'm running the numbers on a part-time program and full-time keeps looking better on paper but two years out is a long time

consultant_cam

for a hard pivot or to break into certain networks (PE, banking, some strategy roles), full-time is basically the only path. for 'i want to move up faster in my current lane,' part-time is probably smarter financially. depends heavily on what door you're trying to open.

jordan_pm

appreciate the candor here. the 'the brand helps but doesn't guarantee anything' point is undersold. i've seen people treat MBA admission as the job offer and then coast through and end up with nothing lined up at graduation.