General Mills FLDP Program

Question

I'm graduating (undergrad/msf program) in May and I have a job offer from General Mills for their FLDP Rotational program (financial analyst). Down the road I'd like to pursue an MBA, hopefully from a top 10 program. I was wondering how this experience would be viewed by adcoms in terms of admission to the program. Any insight into the prestige and quality of work experience of the program would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

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highhopes · Answer

It should be fine...there will obviously be some people with a more prestigious name on their resume, however, they're mostly looking for a firm with name recognition so that your accomplishments are somewhat more validated (reading your resume, it's a little easier to understand a bullet point about being involved in an acquisition of some yogurt brand at GMI than it is for me to tell what it meant to increase sales in a company I've never heard of).

nbd52 · Answer

Thanks highhopes. That is exactly the response I was looking for. Obviously, General Mills doesn't carry the same level of "prestige" as Goldman or McKinsey or something like that but it's good to know the name recognition is good enough to carry weight with the adcom.

riverripper · Answer

One of my good friends at Kellogg was a General Mills finance guy...he was sponsored and had a pretty good deal from them. I think in terms of quality of corporate finance programs its probably going to be well regarded. Former consultants due make the majority of top programs, along with banker types...however there are still tons of people from other areas. If you intend to return to corporate finance then you will have a compelling story. Plus General Mills does value an MBA so you may luck out and get them to fund it.

nbd52 · Answer

Thanks Riv. Out of curiosity, what percentage of the "top" program students (lets say at Kellogg since you are an alum) would you say are Consultants or Bankers? I was checking out the Kellogg Employment Report and I noticed that the top hirers are mostly MBB, other consulting firms, and then a few F500 companies (General Mills being in the top 10 was nice to see). This makes me wonder if MBA adcoms would be looking primarily for Bankers/Consultants who have a higher likelihood or returning to the same field (to improve their placement numbers at the most prestigious firms). I think the GM program will give me some really great work experience and the opportunity to rotate through different business units is nice but I don't want to be viewed as an "average corporate finance guy" when applying to top MBA programs.

nbd52 · Answer

On a side note, I have heard from a current Financial Analyst at General Mills that the company will sponser students if they can get into 1 of 6 MBA programs: HSW, Kellogg, Booth, or Ross. This is one of the reasons I am focusing my questions mostly on the "top" programs (in this case the top 5).

riverripper · Answer

Probably true, obviously my buddy was at Kellogg. But several companies I know of only sponsor folks for fulltime MBA's if they get into specific schools. They dont want to drop a bunch of money so you can go to U of Phoenix or something.

General Mills FLDP Program

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