I don't know what I want to do.....

I think it's confusing because terms are used interchangeably. Like you guys, I think of corporate finance as an in-house finance department at a corporation. However, Morgan Stanley divides their investment banking department differently than some other banks. What Citigroup and Merrill call their Investment Banking division, Morgan Stanley calls the Corporate Finance division of their Investment Banking group.

I am not sure WHAT i want to do but Very clear about WHAT NOT TO DO

Would not do:
IB
MC

Areas of interest:

Gerenal Management roles, where i will be able to work and interact with people rather than sit on my ass and fiddle with PC whole day

Event Management

Entertainment Industry or Sports

Good post Pelihu. I have also seen many PhD's and MS finance grads with a stellar quant/analytical background get into IM directly. And that's another reason why IM is tough, since one's competing with other people besides MBA's.
I'm sure most people would love to get into IM buy side; but like most good things in life, this one is also extremely hard to do.

The company I work at has one of the top corporate rotational programs worldwide. However, all the people I know who have at least some ambition have left the program a few months after joining because, according to them, it offered very little in terms of interesting work and challenge.



What are your thoughts on asset management? and how easy is it to get into after b-school?

Let me join the exodus and list my wants and dont wants.

WANT -
MC
IB
Sales & Trading

PE would be a dream job, but coming from a non-IB, non-MC background, I know it is close to impossible getting to PE right after MBA.

DONT WANT-
Sales & Mktg
NP
HR

You are correct, but recently there has been an influx of JD's and MD's go into IB, so you are not in the clear in that field either.

I would also like to clarify that the entire IM industry isn't always so tough to break into after b-school - it's mainly the equity research/junior PM jobs with prestigous IM firms that are tough to crack. It is very possible to get hooked up with more of a regional IM firm, but the pay will be much less than the big boys (roughly 50-70K) and it is hard to move up to the upper tier firms after you start at a middle/lower level firm.

If you absolutely have your heart set on IM you can make it happen, but you might have to suck it up and give up any dreams of Fidelity or Blackrock.

I am only interested in $$$$$$
From the stats it looks like
1) MC
2) IB

i found this comment very interesting. i work in brand management now (with a background in advertising) and my job is all about people, very little about "things." marketing in general is so much more fluffy and people oriented relative to some of the other careers you guys are talking about here (well, maybe not as much as MC)... my job is essentially being the leader of my cross-functional team to, well, manage the brand. the downside of this, of course, is that you're in meetings ALL DAY! :p

regardless, if anyone has any questions about brand management i'd be happy to offer my experiences up...

Talk about your experiences in brand management.

What percent of your day is spent in meetings?

What are the hours? Weekends?

What do you talk about in meetings?

Who do you work with?

What is your objective?

etc.

I'd love to hear more. I've always figured brand management meant being the guy responsible for picking the font color but not the text or the size for the front label, but not the back label, of colgate brand listerine mouthwash, but only the 12 oz bottle, not the 24 oz bottle, and only the mint flavored option, not the other flavours, and only the US market distribution.

I'm actually a very people oriented person, so your comments are intriguing. Tell me more.

MC and corp finance.. you're not making 300k/year.

There's no other industry out there where you can make 300k/year in your first year without any experience in that industry.

Where do you think all those MBAs straight out of undergrad go? IB is probably the only industry who will take them.

Asset management is the same as investment managemtent.

Eazyb touched on a crucial component of IM. When someones says they are going to IB or MC, you know what type of role they are going to.

But IM is so broad with so many roles. What department or role you get to is more important than the company. Generally, research and trading are the fields to get into. Possibly client services (institutional client services).

well those are broad questions!

my experience in BM is not at a traditional packaged goods company. i'm at a toy company which is decidedly different. but when i was in advertising, all of my clients were pkgd goods companies so i'm intimately familiar with what they do too.

honestly, some days i spend the whole day in meetings. with my engineers to figure out how we can make a product actually work. briefing my packaging team about a new line we're doing and need a new logo for. with my ad agency looking at storyboards for the launch of a new item. it's endless. i call them "beatings."

those days suck. you come back to your desk at 5, with your inbox waiting for you with 75 unread emails.

but other days, like today, you don't have any meetings. i should be writing a deck right now to introduce our sales team to a new children's tv property that we're doing the toys for. and then i have to review the moderator's report from a recent set of focus groups we did and provide the team with some recommendations. and then i have to do a data analysis of competitive sales data to see what trends i can glean about a new category we're thinking of entering.

hours? that's the best part. hours are awesome. for the most part, i work 8-6. i do take my laptop home to do emails (always tons of emails) but at my company we have half-day fridays so it's even better. some days i work late, but never later than 8. i almost never work weekends. and when i have to officially work (travel, attending a conference, etc.) then i get a comp day to take another day. it is certainly not expected that you work on the weekends.

of course, i don't get paid to work 100 hrs a week either, so that is obviously a drawback. pay is good but not amazing. i also get paid less than other BMs because i don't have an MBA but that's a different issue

what is my objective? wow that's an all-encompassing question. i build the brand. i know that sounds rather obtuse, but it's what i do. every part of the brand from product, to packaging, to communications, to managing the P&L, to working with sales to sell the product in to the trade, to making recommendations to senior management about how to increase our sku efficiency, to planning out our long-term brand strategy, and on and on. different brands have different areas of emphasis, of course. my current brands are both new launches so i don't have any POS analysis or damage control going on. it's all forward thinking.

does that help at all?

happy to answer any other questions!

too funny! yes, that's what i would imagine it would be like as an ABM in a packaged goods company. that's why you wouldn't catch me dead there. don't get me wrong, there is certainly prestige and a good foundation to be had at a P&G or whatnot, but determining the softest toilet paper isn't exactly exciting to me.

it varies SO MUCH by industry, i can't even begin to emphasize that enough. while toys can be considered a consumer good, it is night and day different from pkgd goods. see my previous post...

So how is BM different from marketing?

Also, if your company is public and the stock price takes a hit, your department appears to be the easiest scapegoat. That is, your people appear to be "expendable."

Not saying you explicitly, but just generally trying to get a feel for this indsutry.

Hmmm....i've read this a few times and still don't understand what point you are attempting to make. You originally tried to knock IB by saying "anyone can do it", and I responded by saying "anyone" can do MC or CF, as an example. Your response to this is to say MC and CF don't pay as well as IB - what does that have to do with the original discussion? Are you trying to condemn IB because it pays much better than other industries? Odd argument.

Saying IB is the only industry that will take MBAs out of undergrad is kind of a silly statement.

The original statement was, "IB is the only industry where you can make 300K+/year."

Sure MC and CF you don't need any skill. Same thing with working at Taco Bell. But you aren't making 300K/year.

I'm not condeming IB because they pay much better than other industries. I'm saying that IB is (probably) the only industry where you can make that much without specialized skill (like a doctor or physicist).... therefore it is a commodity. Do banks have trouble hiring assocaiates?