General Management programs

To be honest from my discussions with alums, career center folks, and professors...the idea that MC and IB will fast track your career ahead of people who join a company straight out is kind of misleading. Many MC and IB people do well when the leave, however they really wont be true general managers. MC will end up in strategy functions, they have never implemented anything and in reality their view of business is on the strategy side not so much well rounded with operations and leadership skills. IB people depending what they do will more likely end up in a finance, M&A, treasury, or something along those lines. Their skill sets while incredible are once again not set up the same as someone who did a rotational program or even just a straight GM role. I have talked to numberous alums in fairly high positions within different companies and they say that their friends who went the other way often do get great positions but they often aren't in the fortune 100 companies that have highly developed management programs.

The advice I have gotten time and time again, is don't listen to the hype about MC and IB being something to slingshot your career. If you enter a GM program at a top company (pretty much the only type that are going to pay the 100k+ salary needed to attract top tier MBA grads), then you are going to have incredible opportunities for advancement. Those programs are set up to provide you not only a great foundation for your career but plenty of exposure to and mentorship from top level management. A lot of these companies value loyalty still, so if you come straight out of school and have that recognition then its going to help you along. So if a company you really could see yourself at for a career then definitely think hard before entering a different industry...if you do get into that company then its a good chance you will be siloed into a function based on your MC/IB experience.

GM programs arent for everyone and while there are a lot out there they are usually fairly small. GE is huge at 125ish but that still pales compared to McKinsey. There are others that are 4-10 a year and some of those even have the C-level executives do interviews for final rounds. Some industries value IB or MC experience more than others too, so find out how your target views those skills. Is it an industry that relies heavily on financing skills and would look very positively on IB or is it more operations based? I mean if you want PE or something like Real Estate then obviously IB is the route to go but if you are looking at something like a widely diversified company then they probably have a specialized program that will do you a whole lot more good.

Besides as you can see these days there are going to be times when certain skills may flood the market at which point there is very little value in them. Would you rather have skills developed during a GM rotational program and that on your resume right now or just another one of those thousands of IB'ers looking for a gig?