Stanford MSx vs Kellogg 1Y vs direct job offer

Hi! Congratulations on your admits!

It’s a pretty tricky choice. Obviously, it would be very ironic for someone who started GMAT Club to suggest that you do not need an MBA but I kind of like the job offer option. You mentioned that it’s a few levels below what you wanted or expected, how would it look on the résumé or on paper?

The job market is so tight right now that companies are very open to a number of candidates. You no longer need an MBA to get into product management and while NBA remains as one of the best vehicles to land a job, it takes time and money.

One question, would you expect to have this job level after an MBA? Kellogg or Stanford? Would you expect to have a higher position? I guess one thing is expectations and another is reality, my understanding is that it’s very tricky to get hired for a senior product management position without actually having product management prior experience. My concern would be that you may not get a much higher job level even with an MBA in a traditional average setting. Obviously reality is always different and you may get a cool rare opportunity. this is the difficulty of recruiting and changing career when you’re fairly experienced. The traditional MBA jobs are to Junior and so you have to kind of trod a path of your own and that’s lonely and hard.

Traditionally you have to work for a year in a PM role until you get a promotion so potentially within one year you would be only one level below your expectation and then after you get a promotion, usually people look for another job and that’s how they get the second promotion 😂. It is absolutely true. Technology is a revolving door and you say frustrating. It’s been that way for five years at least. I feel you got your foot in the door, and that’s what business school would kind of give you so that value has been somewhat reduced. If you’re not looking for a sabbatical or to do some soul-searching, I can see potentially doing this experience a couple years. And then evaluating options.

Add the same time, I feel Stanford name will absolutely bump you up more so than Kellogg and having classmates who are older is a very good thing because you get to learn a lot from them even though you will have to work harder than anyone else to establish a reputation among them and to be accepted as an equal.

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Can you desertEagle support your support with reasoning?

Thanks for these perspectives - super helpful.
I'm not certain I'd be able to get a higher PM role after Stanford, but the hiring manager suggested I take another stab at the interviews then and try to get the next level up - this could be in ~6mo when I start post b-school recruiting. I'd likely miss the company's IPO in this case. But on the plus side I may have a broader set of companies I could apply to.

Hello mrllama,

Congratulations on the admit!

Stanford should be preferred and you will always have a lot of learning in a more experienced class so make good use of it.

Good luck!