We all write about our long term and short term goals in our admission essays. We work hard to convince admissions ppl in b-school interviews that this is exactly what we want and our entire life we have been working towards it. Finally, our hard work pays off and we get admitted into a good b school.
You would think that after putting in so much thought, one would be sure about his/her goals. It is amazing to see how many people are still not sure about what they want (including me) after getting in. I still remember that on our first day, the dean asked us, "How many people still want to do what they wrote in the essays?". Only a few hands were up.
There is nothing wrong with being undecided, but the sooner you know, the better it is. Here it why. Let us say you are confused between Finance and Consulting and you try to pursue both in the beginning. By doing so you will burn out very quickly, because the preparation for i banking and consulting is completely different. Your networking will be very different too. You will only have time to go for one career trek (a short trip to various companies where you meet alums), so you will have to choose. In the end, you will be left in the middle with average prep for both industries.
Now think about the other scenario, you know you want to be in marketing. You start preparing your resume and interview answers accordingly. You connect with the right companies and alums at those companies. So, by the time internship resume offs happen, you will be all set and ready with your story.
I switched my career choice from venture capitalism to private equity to consulting to marketing to the internet industry. Yea, it was BADDD!!!! I wish I had decided early on that I wanted to be in the internet industry, I would have a much better shot at my target companies.
Well, its too late for me, but you guys should get started on what you want to do right away.
Get started on your career choice early
Posted by
Anshul / June 10, 2009 /
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2 comments:
Hey TrueConfessions -
I can't tell you how much I was wrestling with this issue just the other day. I was trying to look into the crystal ball to figure this out, and truth be told, I don't have a good answer. I know I talked about TARP in an earlier comment post, but frankly, that's not my #1 option.
Anyway, I guess why did you think VC/PE originally? I ask because I work at a hedge fund right now. I know I don't want to leave this space (and by space, I mean finance, though that's still *very* broad).
But again - shifting from VC to PE to banking to trading - I can understand this to an extent. What then made you shift from VC to PE to consulting to marketing to the Internet?
Lastly - and this may be a cliche - but given your career shifts, its fair to ask - do you think the MBA was worth it for what you're currently doing? Why or why not?
Thanks again! If I do end up at b-school, you've already given me the inspiration to blog the experience start to finish!
-GM00
@GM00,
Well I was totally lost when I came to UNC. All I knew was that I wanted to NOT do what I was doing, and wanted some formal business training. My preferred country was US, so here I came.
Now, I actively invested in BSE and really liked it. However, I did not like all the ground work that goes into it, so that kinda pushed me towards PE. But since I had no experience in Finance, I quickly realized that my chances of getting in PE were slim, so VC was the next option as you dont need as much finance.
I participated in one of the VC-ish activities in school, and soon realized that reading business plans was not what I really enjoyed. So, now my only option to get into PE was through consulting. Looked at consulting but again did not enjoy it because I dont like to travel and I wanted a good work life balance. I had learnt from my past experience that money without work/life balance is nothing.
So, with the economy tanking, I did not really have any options. I started digging deep inside to find what I really liked. I always liked the internet. I spend hours on it looking for new things and trends. Plus, I wanted to start a business and starting an internet related business did not have a lot of visa issues. So, internet it was. I then got an internship in this area and am pretty satisfied. Though the money sucks, but if I were given an option of choose between a well paying consulting intern vs this one, I would have chosen this one.
Long answer for a very short question, my apologies for that. :D
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