Av wrote:
milias wrote:
3underscore wrote:
This is kind of heading down the avenue of "where can I enjoy great success at minimal effort".
Oh no no, it's all about achieving the best ROI!
What's the R in your ROI? If your R is US Dollars, work/life balance is not a factor.
I'd have to agree with 3underscore's assessment of what this topic is really about. If work/life balance is purely about hours worked per week, irrespective of salary, work content, location, etc... You should probably be a blogger
It's impossible to rate work/life balance within a single company, let alone an entire industry, because we all have different preferences.
As it's work the primary R is going to be income (interesting work and perks would be less significant but still count); its the I that matters just as much. I find it really amazing that so many people who get an advanced degree in Business so rarely identify the reward for their job in terms of income per hour. It has almost been enough to turn me off doing my MBA and considering a new career path; to each their own, but money and time each have diminishing returns, and when you're making over $100k, but working well over 50 hours a week, I think money has a lot lower marginal return than time
should. Again this is all personal perspective, but I am surprised that seemingly so few MBA hopefuls and grads agree.
In terms of industries, I have some experience that verifies that government is really quite balanced, I have heard from some that nonprofit might also be similar. Is MC almost always so intense? There are pretty much no firms working on less demanding schedules for their consultants? I don't think it would be an economic
necessity that things be this way...it has to be because consultant hopefuls are willing to give up big hours in exchange for big money.
I would personally argue that a good way to judge work-life balance are yearly hours (some will offer long hours and long vacations, which I think many people would be happy with), and to a lesser extent flexibility - personally I'd break it down as 75-25.
Any other thoughts on options - surprised this isn't as common as threads about salary! What percentage of MBAs really end up working less than 45 hours a week?