I'm 24 years old, and my goal is to eventually get into an equity research position. To that end, I need to get admitted into a decent MBA program, but I'm starting to think that my current job will be a detriment to me.

For the past 17 months, I have been working for a state banking regulatory agency as an examiner. We go into state chartered banks and analyze their liquidity, capital adequacy, earnings, sensitivity to market risk, and other areas such as compliance with laws, adequacy of internal audit, etc. The end result is a report of examination which rates the bank's safety and soundness in several areas. On occasion we also need to determine the validity of an institution, and if worse comes to worst, shut down the bank.

I'm questioning the perceived benefit of this job on b-school applications for two reasons. First, there seems to be a stigma against government workers, especially on the state level. We're seen as lazy people who hide behind unions. Second, the job is not exactly relevant for the field that I want to enter. I really don't have any idea about the criterion for b-school admissions, so can anyone advise me on whether my perception is valid?

If it is valid, what other job should I get? I would ideally want a job that would give me some sort of investment experience, but I seem to be caught in a catch-22. I can't get the job without an MBA, and I can't get the MBA without the job!

One position that I think I could easily get into is to do customer service or sales at a mutual fund or some other sort of fund, but do you think this would help my application or make it worse?