Explain B-school graduates with poor positions...

Hey Mark don't you think this statement is a bit presumptuous??? Perhaps you might consider these positions inferior, but I wouldn't cast aspersions so easily.

In defense of Mark4124:

When he says "truly inferior" I think we all know what he's getting at, I don't think we need to police the forum for Political Correctness. This forum is filled with people shooting for elite schools, so there seems to be a common viewpoint and vernacular that doesn't need endless caveats for every single posting.

For instance, every time someone writes about "Top 10 Schools" in their posting, we don't need replies that say, "You know ranking aren't everything," it's just a phrase that we all know what it means, it doesn't refer to 10 specific schools, it's synonymous with "top schools."

Having done them myself, having seen the level of respect that those in them are afforded... I think I have the right to make that statement.

Thank you johnnyx9...

I enjoy working at McDonalds better than working in some areas of brokerage customer service/sales... I am not being a snob as I definately am not one. If you are a non-profit person and you dont make alot of money but have the ability to get by and that brings you joy and happiness great! But thats not at all what I am talking about here. I am talking about getting an MBA and taking positions that are no improvement over what you could have got over going to college. Or maybe even not having gone to college at all. Why go to b-school if not to advance your career and position??

Sorry, but I just think its a bit arrogant to judge, without knowing the goals and ambitions of the people who took those "truly inferior positions."

And I asked the question because I have a legitimate concern that a particular set of schools might not do for me what I want them to. So I want to know if it is not so much the school but everything else plus the school that makes or breaks the candidate. This forum should be about helping people with questions like this NOT GIVING THEM A HARD TIME!

Well, I think that some jobs are clearly better than other jobs. Of course, different people value different things, but some of the standard concerns are money, chance for advancement, amount of responsibility, satisfaction from work, stature gained through work, working conditions and hours, perks, location, and a bunch of other stuff that each person considers.

Some jobs have a lot of things going for them. Google, for example has great perks, great pay (compared to comparable jobs), great working conditions and an exciting brand to work for. Goldman offers huge compensation, and lots of respect, which helps offset (for some people) the long hours. McKinsey offers good pay, pretty good working environment, lots of responsibility and almost immeasurable career advancement possibilities into any number of fields. P/E companies offer off-the-charts compensation. It's no surprise that these are some of the favorite destinations for the most sought after candidates.

I think that other jobs can justifiably be categorized as less desirable. I attended an info session for Chicago hosted at Pacific Gas & Electric. I guess as part of the deal, the VP of PG&E got 5 minutes to speak to the applicants about their management training program. There was a palpable sense of "stop wasting our time" from the perspective Chicago applicants in the room. I believe the job he was describing offered considerably less pay, responsibility, future advancement possibilities and respect that most people in the room were looking for. Was the job itself bad? No, I think that 95+% of the general population would line up and fight for this job, but people with the credentials to get into Chicago were looking for "better" options.

I think it is fair to categorize the "best" jobs as those that have the most competition. I believe that Goldman, Google & McKinsey receive hundreds and hundreds of apps for each open position. It stands to reason that they are able to thus pick and choose the best candidates from their huge applicant pools. The market says that these jobs are the best.

I think it is true that students at schools outside the top 15 or so (let's just say ultra-elite and elite) must rely on more than just the brand name of their MBA program to land the best jobs. Grades, prior work experience, networking, strong interview skills and other factors will help you land the best (again best means most competitive in this example).

I would break it down like this roughly.

Ultra-elites
Will make you competitive at almost any job in almost any industry, regardless of your background. Kellogg student that wants an I-bank interview? You won't have much problem. Chicago student that want to get into consulting. Sure thing. H/W/S students will have the additional benefit of being competitive for ultra-highly-super-competitive jobs. Many hedge funds hire just a few people a year, from among H/W/S students and a select few from Chicago, Columbia & MIT maybe.

Elites
Will make you competitive for most jobs in most industries. I believe that location and school focuses start to matter at this level. It might be a more difficult task for Cornell, Duke & NYU students to land jobs in California; while UCLA and Haas clearly have less pull in certain regions when compared with other elite schools. Also, Darden, for example, is known to produce great consultants with their case study method, while Michigan can compete with almost any school in general and brand management. At this level, I believe that nearly all students will be able to land jobs that most would consider really competitive. The exceptions would be those that have really poor interview and social skills; if a person sucks at interviewing, they will suck at every single interview. I recall a girl from law school who died her hair purple. Seriously, if you really want a job, consider working on things that are keeping you from being considered - like grooming & appearance, social skills and interview skills.

Anything lower
I know, there are lots of different levels below elite. As I have suggested in the past, anyone considering schools below the elite level should have their next steps planned out carefully. The top 10% of students at most schools will probably have shots at some of the best jobs. You'd need to consider the overall package of grades , GMAT scores, work experience, interview skills, personal networking capabilities, appropriateness of location, etc. If you want to work around Los Angeles and have good work experience, using a USC MBA to tap into their strong local alumni base probably makes sense. If your goal is to get into an I-Bank in New York, you should realize that the only two things that can really help you get there from any of the schools in this range would be a really high GMAT score and experience in the industry. You generally cannot career-switch into I-banking or top level Consulting or top-level management track with degrees from non-elites unless you have an ultra high GMAT which can help you land an interview, and top-level interview skills to help you seal the deal.

I think you're getting hung up on the semantics. When Mark4124 says "inferior" he's not saying that the position is some lowly terrible position, he's saying it is not as good as the type of position you would expect from a person who pursued an MBA.

Like if I'm a US Senator and I lose my re-election bid, so then I take a job as the CEO of an energy company, people would be like, "Okay, makes sense." But if I instead take an entry level job in advertising, working side-by-side with recent college graduates people would say, "Hm, that's weird, I would have thought having been a senator he would have been able to get a better job, but it seems that he has an inferior job working as an entry level advertising grunt."

But for the college grad that might be a great job! Right on johnnx!

Nice discussion pelihu I cannot agree more.

Frankly speaking, as much as I admire your analytical and writing skills and read your posts with interest , I am quite sick of you promoting "High-GMAT-Score-Importance" at every possible opportunity; whether it is getting into an ultra-elite or an elite school and now getting a sexy job....and I am sure a very “high-GMATâ€

I agree that once you are in the schools range (or let's say above its median GMAT) a higher GMAT might only help your application on the following cases:

a) To break a "tie" between you and another candidate (or you and many others).
b) To compensate somehow other weak(er) aspects of your app.
c) To get a genuine advantage in schools that typically "hunt for scores". And judging by some data, they are closer to the top than we might think.

Which is not so much, but is also not negligible.

On the other hand, when applying for jobs, it's true that some employers ask for GMAT scores and therefore a high GMAT will provide you with an advantage vs. other applicants (which by the way studied at the same school or similarly considered schools).

The over-emphasis on GMAT also upsets me, but on this occasion I must say I believe there's some truth to pelihu's comments.

Cheers. L.

Although the GMAT score is not the most important factor in post-MBA world, it is true that top MC firms and IBs ask for it. This is simply the reality. If you come from a lower tier school, you will be not only competing against top schools but also top GMAT scorers. Hence, a high score would be at least needed to somewhat compensate for that fact. Of course, GPA is also a decisive factor but remember that many b-schools have a GPA non-disclosure policy and thus, many firms will look at the GMAT score instead.
I think pelihu's assessment is quite fair and having been there myself, I can only agree with him. I have not read his previous posts about GMAT emphasis but I don't think he is implying anything about his own GMAT score; It is only an objective view of the relative weights given to b-schools and GMAT scores.

It's pretty widely known that all of the top I-Banks and all of the top consulting firms require that you submit your GMAT score during the application process. Those are typically the most competitive jobs (other than the handful of PE/VC jobs) so that is why the GMAT is so important. Undergraduate GPA is far less valuable when considering MBA level jobs.

In the sense of competing for "the best" jobs, a high GMAT score would be about 750 (though with the shift it might be 760 this year). I have heard time and again that a GMAT score in this range will almost assure you of an interview. The other way to land an interview is to have a brand name MBA. If you don't have either, then you will probably not be competitive for these jobs.

So going back to my earlier discussion, for those without a brand name MBA, a very high GMAT is just about the only way to get an interview with the most competitive companies. Certainly, a combination of brand name work experience, near perfect U-GPA from a brand name school, top notch networking skills and luck might get you an interview as well. But people that have that kind of stuff generally have the brand name MBA as well, so I'd say it's incredibly rare.

Regarding the usefulness of the UGPA, I believe (and most professional schools agree) that it is far less useful than standardized testing to gauge applicant quality. Certainly, there are flaws in both systems, but with UGPA, you need to consider varying qualities of the schools, grade inflation, differences in circumstances (work, activities, etc.), different majors, and other issues. For standardized tests, each applicant faces the exact same thing in a known environment. It's not surprising that test scores more accurately reflect performance. Employers know it as well. that's why they demand the score.

So, if you are quite sick of reading what I write, then feel free to stop reading, but being sick of it doesn't mean that it isn't true. If you have a valid argument with supporting evidence that it is not true, I'd be more than happy to consider it. I'm not out to promote an agenda, I'm trying to accurately consider real possibilities. Once you get to business school and begin your job search, you will find out what you need to know first hand. Or you can ask some current students and I believe they will corroborate these thoughts.

I think you are being too kind. From what I've gathered from bschoolers and the blogs that I've read (albeit, it might be a sample of not-so-smart/successful bschool students), it begins to get difficult to find the "desirable" jobs outside of the M7 or ultra elites. Anyone outside of the top 15 will find it very difficult to find a "desirable" job.



This stinks for people who have been accepted to top schools with low gmats.



I doubt a gmat score alone will assure anyone of an interview, at least for a "desirable" job.

On a final note:
I've always thought standardized tests measure one's potential and gpa's measure one's work ethic.

I agree totally with Pelihu and others,

Several of my professors believe strongly that the academic system in America is simply a screening process. If H/W/S or the other top 15 find you suitable for their program, then almost every other reputable firm with desirable jobs will most likely do the same.

Just think back to your undergraduate years. If you weren’t a Wharton undergrad, then you knew that grades alone would not land you on the 'Street'. These companies would recruit at Penn, and then trickle down to Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, etc... They would occasionally stop by several 'top' colleges; however, for many others, you had to invest a tremendous deal of sweat equity.

It would be rather presumptuous to say that those who don't attend top 15's can't get great jobs. You might have a credible reason for attending a more local and less reputable institution. I also feel that a great GMAT would definitely get you at least noticed, which is all anyone can ask for. However, even if you score 780 and decide to attend SMU, you’re going to have to sell yourself a great deal more than a Wharton individual, regardless of his/her score.

This is going far beyond what I intended and in fact moving in the very direction that swgotz was complaining about in the first place. It sounds as though some only believe Goldman or Private Equity is a good job. I do not believe that at all. Moreover I'm sure the PG&E exec program that all those Chicago guys didn't want to deal with could lead one to a very highly compensated exec position after a time. I don't consider this to be a poor job. What I am refering to is more the example of a graduate from a top 30 b-school going and working as an Amex financial adivsor or some other god awful customer facing sales type position in brokerage. That would kill me and make me think my whole MBA was a total waste of time. Jobs like that suck, I know... I've done similar things.