sehej wrote:
My first post at gmatclub
I am an economics under graduate currently in a pickle. I am currently working in my first job at an internal risk management division of a Big 4 audit firm and am about to complete 2 years working here. I plan to apply to US b-schools after 2-3 years.
I currently have two options:
1. Work in the current firm (which is not even the middle office but actually a captive KPO) and work up the hierarchy to possibly being a team lead of 15-20 people (optimistic but probable) by the time I start applying. The obvious upside is learning management skills and displaying leadership which I can highlight upon and that schools tend to favor in applications. Downside is that the work sucks and has no impact. I am not dealing with clients and my work involves minimal research and majority of data processing.
2. Transition to a mid-tier consulting or finance role. I will be starting from scratch at an analyst level but the work would be more interesting, challenging, better quality of peers etc. If I perform well, we're looking at senior analyst or sorts managing a team of 2-3 after a couple of years.
So which according to you is better? In terms of experience, learning, personal growth, future prospects etc. Both scenarios entail a different type of learning. If I stay at my current job, I will get to learn people, work management, leadership skills, mentoring etc. If I move, I would be working at a consulting or finance role, learning loads both from work and co-workers, managing hectic hours etc.
I haven't mentioned my post MBA career since I haven't really decided on one
I'm interested towards strategy consulting, branding or corp dev.
Thank you for reading through my long post. Hoping to get some clarity and advice on this.
I was in a similar situation in my previous position--working in a back office finance role and choosing between a promotion or front-office lateral transfer (I also considered outside finance/consulting jobs). In the end I went with the lateral transfer to a front-office role, which gives me more client exposure and better pay and more use of my analytical skills.
I'm glad I stayed with the same company because it shows a degree of continuity, but if I couldn't have made a lateral transfer the way I did, I definitely would have switched to a completely different role in a new company.
The way you describe your current job, it sounds like it might drive you crazy/bore you to death before too long. I think that needs to be a guiding concern here. I'm not sure if the benefit of gaining leadership experience is worth it if, as you describe, "the work sucks."
I think this should be your primary concern before even beginning to consider what will look good on an MBA application.
Best of luck!
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28 Jan 2013, 13:12
