<p>Ok, one of the criterion for b-school admission is to have at least a few years experience in the corporate world, correct ? Say you have a BA in English Literature, or Philosophy, or History. What kind of "corporate" work can you possibly find with these degrees ? Or, is it that b-schools just want work experience, from any field, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in the finance/business sector ? And if indeed, just old any generic work experience is a criterion, what can you do with an Eng. Lit/Philosophy/History degree (besides teaching) ?</p>
<p>Consulting sounds good.</p>
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Ok, one of the criterion for b-school admission is to have at least a few years experience in the corporate world, correct ?
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<p>It's not strictly necessary, but the vast vast majority of successful applicants have significant work experience. </p>
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Say you have a BA in English Literature, or Philosophy, or History. What kind of "corporate" work can you possibly find with these degrees ?
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<p>Consulting and investment banking come to mind, as those industries tend not to care about what you majored in, as long as you went to a top school. You can go to Harvard and study Art History and still get an investment banking job. </p>
<p>Another field that immediately comes to mind is sales. The truth of the matter is, you don't actually have to know that much about your product in order to sell it. Success in sales often times has more to do with charisma, communications skills, and networking, than actual deep knowledge of the product. Hence, plenty of history and philosophy students do quite well in sales. </p>
<p>To give you an example, I know one computer company of which I believe not one of the salespeople had a degree in computer science/computer engineering. Not one. In fact, I doubt that any of them had degrees in any technical subjects at all, nor could I say that any of them truly understood the technologies they were selling and why they were supposedly better than competing technologies. In fact, that's what the sales engineer is for - a person to accompany the sales reps to provide technical backup in case any technical questions come up during a client meeting. The fact is, salesmanship is a skill unto itself that requires constant honing, and it is almost iimpossible for somebody to maintain strong technical skills AND strong sales skills. </p>
<p>The field of marketing also comes to mind. Marketing is just basically "long-term sales". Again, you don't really need to understand your product technically in order to market it. </p>
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Or, is it that b-schools just want work experience, from any field, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in the finance/business sector ?
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<p>It's really the quality of the work experience, rather than just the simple fact of having work experience. Specifically, jobs that allow you to see many different business issues and display managerial potential are the most prized. Just waiting tables at the local bar isn't going to do much for you. Don't laugh - I know a number of college graduates who have ended up waiting tables at the local bar.</p>
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The fact is, salesmanship is a skill unto itself that requires constant honing, and it is almost iimpossible for somebody to maintain strong technical skills AND strong sales skills.
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I'd disagree with this one. I think it's a rare combination simply because strong sales skills <em>and</em> strong technical skills are both relatively rare. There is very little reason (and no data) to think that the people with selling talent are more likely to exist in the general population rather than the engineering population.</p>
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There is very little reason (and no data) to think that the people with selling talent are more likely to exist in the general population rather than the engineering population.
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<p>Uh, what did I say? It's not about TALENT, it's about SKILLS. The difference between the two is that talent is something that you are born with, but you have to constantly practice skills to maintain them. If Kobe Bryant were to stop playing basketball for a whole year, his playing skills would decline. Granted, his talent is such that it wouldn't take him very long to rebuild his skills after that year-long layoff, but the fact is, he's not going to be as good as if he had been playing the whole time. </p>
<p>Engineering is a skill is something that you have to constantly PRACTICE because there are new technologies and new developments all the time. If you're not constantly reading up on them and learning them, then your engineering skills will inevitably decline. And the fact is, there are only 24 hours in a day. You can either spend your time selling, or you can spend your time working on your engineering skills. But you can't do both at the same time. Sales guys do not have the time to be reading new technical literature. They don't have the time to be attending engineering conferences. They don't have the time to be taking refresher engineering classes. They have to spend their time selling.</p>
<p>Can a person right out of college with an Economics or English degree reasonably expect to get a consulting job? Or are consulting jobs almost impossible to get?</p>
<p>yeah if you come from a top school you can be recruited. Bain, BCG, and McK all recruit straight out of undergrad.</p>
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Uh, what did I say? It's not about TALENT, it's about SKILLS. The difference between the two is that talent is something that you are born with, but you have to constantly practice skills to maintain them. If Kobe Bryant were to stop playing basketball for a whole year, his playing skills would decline. Granted, his talent is such that it wouldn't take him very long to rebuild his skills after that year-long layoff, but the fact is, he's not going to be as good as if he had been playing the whole time.
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Thank you for the analogy. I knew exactly what I was saying.</p>
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Engineering is a skill is something that you have to constantly PRACTICE because there are new technologies and new developments all the time. If you're not constantly reading up on them and learning them, then your engineering skills will inevitably decline. And the fact is, there are only 24 hours in a day. You can either spend your time selling, or you can spend your time working on your engineering skills. But you can't do both at the same time. Sales guys do not have the time to be reading new technical literature. They don't have the time to be attending engineering conferences. They don't have the time to be taking refresher engineering classes. They have to spend their time selling.
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Guess I'll have to disagree with selling being a skill then. I wouldn't say it's something you're born with, of course. But I do think it's something which you are socialized into.</p>
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Guess I'll have to disagree with selling being a skill then. I wouldn't say it's something you're born with, of course. But I do think it's something which you are socialized into.
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<p>Sales is STILL a skill in the sense that it is something that you have to maintain. This is especially true in, like you said, the socialization aspect of sales. A good salesman relies on a strong network of contacts. But a strong network is something you have to constantly maintain. You can't just not talk to somebody for a whole year and then just show up and expect to sell something to that person. You have to be constantly communicating with all of your contacts, even if you have nothing to sell to them at the time, so that when you finally do have something to sell, you can close the deal. All of this 'contact-maintenance' takes time. That's why it's hard for good salesmen to also be good engineers, no matter what their inborn talent level is.</p>
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<p>Sales is STILL a skill in the sense that it is something that you have to maintain. This is especially true in, like you said, the socialization aspect of sales. A good salesman relies on a strong network of contacts. But a strong network is something you have to constantly maintain. You can't just not talk to somebody for a whole year and then just show up and expect to sell something to that person. You have to be constantly communicating with all of your contacts, even if you have nothing to sell to them at the time, so that when you finally do have something to sell, you can close the deal. All of this 'contact-maintenance' takes time. That's why it's hard for good salesmen to also be good engineers, no matter what their inborn talent level is.
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I know how it works. Trust me.</p>
<p>However, I think your analogy is a bit flawed. Take a job such as a stock broker (a job which is largely a sales job, as virtually all commission based jobs are). If someone dies and leaves you their client list, that hardly makes you a good salesman - yet in your definition it could possibly construed as such. I'd say that being a salesman is more defined by the soft skills which are a required. And those are surprisingly hard to teach - some people have it and others don't.</p>
<p>I agree that soft skills are hard to teach. But they are still teachable. Every experienced sales guy that I know says that he's a far smoother salesman than he was when he started. You LEARN how to improve your sales pitch. You LEARN how to schmooze clients. You LEARN how to pick up on customer psychology. You LEARN how to get over your fear of public speaking. You LEARN the art of the deal. These are things that you improve with experience.</p>
<p>Nobody is denying that soft skills has a talent component, just like engineering has a talent component. But it also has an experiential component to it. For example, the entire existence of the Toastmasters organization is to teach people to improve their public speaking skills. Why does Toastmasters even exist if public speaking skills were not improvable? That would mean that all of its members would basically be wasting their time. </p>
<p>I'm also afraid that your counter-analogy to my analogy is a bit flawed. Simply leaving a Rolodex of a dead guy isn't going to help the new guy that much. Sure, you have a list of names. But since you don't really know who any of them are, that's a problem. You can call them but none of them has any clue who you are. On the other hand, if that guy with the Rolodex were to go around introducing you to all of his old clients, telling them that he is anointing you as his main man, and then he retires, then THAT would be highly useful.</p>
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I agree that soft skills are hard to teach. But they are still teachable. Every experienced sales guy that I know says that he's a far smoother salesman than he was when he started. You LEARN how to improve your sales pitch. You LEARN how to schmooze clients. You LEARN how to pick up on customer psychology. You LEARN how to get over your fear of public speaking. You LEARN the art of the deal. These are things that you improve with experience.
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I'll concede my points. :) However, I still think innate talent in sales plays a much bigger part than most professions. Seeing the new guy streak and get the 3rd highest month on record indicates that innate talent/confidence play heavily into this profession.</p>
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I'm also afraid that your counter-analogy to my analogy is a bit flawed. Simply leaving a Rolodex of a dead guy isn't going to help the new guy that much. Sure, you have a list of names. But since you don't really know who any of them are, that's a problem. You can call them but none of them has any clue who you are. On the other hand, if that guy with the Rolodex were to go around introducing you to all of his old clients, telling them that he is anointing you as his main man, and then he retires, then THAT would be highly useful.
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Sorry, I was leaning toward the latter option.</p>
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The fact is, salesmanship is a skill unto itself that requires constant honing, and it is almost iimpossible for somebody to maintain strong technical skills AND strong sales skills.
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And if they could have both strong technical skills and strong sales skills, they would just dominate everyone wouldn't they?</p>
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And if they could have both strong technical skills and strong sales skills, they would just dominate everyone wouldn't they?
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<p>You mean somebody like Bill Gates? Or Steve Jobs? Or Larry Ellison? Or Michael Dell? Or Sergey Brin? Or Jerry Yang? </p>
<p>I guess they did dominate everyone.</p>
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I'll concede my points. However, I still think innate talent in sales plays a much bigger part than most professions. Seeing the new guy streak and get the 3rd highest month on record indicates that innate talent/confidence play heavily into this profession
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<p>I would argue that even this guy had developed his self-confidence and smoothness from somewhere. Nobody is just "born" smooth and confident. There is no such thing as a "sales" DNA gene. </p>
<p>What happened is that, through your childhood, you either learn self-confidence and social smoothness, or you don't. Granted, whether you do can be affected by natural traits. For example, a tall handsome boy is probably going to develop greater self confidence and social skills than a short, ugly boy. But the point is, these are traits that you pick up through the process of socialization. They aren't really "inherent" except perhaps as indirect byproducts of other inherent traits.</p>
<p>Incidentally, this is why I see that so many successful salesmen were former athletes. I was affiliated with one company where not a single salesmen had a technical background, but nearly all of them had significant college sports experience of some kind. The regional sales manager was a former defensive linesman at Stanford. One of his reps played safety at Arizona State. Another played rugby at Cal. The head of sales was not only a former football player at Cal, he even played in the NFL for the Denver Broncos as a reserve for a few years. I believe that their success in sports throughout grade school and college taught all of them to be highly self-confident and self-motivated (you can't succeed in sports if you are not confident in yourself and highly motivated), and those skills transfer well into the sales arena. But the point is, these were learned skills.</p>
<p>To give you another cultural example, many people have remarked at how the sales culture differs greatly between the US and Asia. Those traits that are seen as success factors in Western sales organizations, such as individual initiative, pushiness, high self-confidence, and the like are actually seen as strong NEGATIVE factors in Asia. That's because Asian culture teaches people to not be highly individualistic and aggressive. That's not how you win sales in Asia. Instead, sales success within Asia is predicated on an entire different set of characteristics, and successful Asian salespeople are quite different in temperament from American salespeople. Hence, this points even more to the learned social aspects of the traits involved. Your behavior is strongly influenced far more by the type of cultural socialization you were raised in than by your inborn traits.</p>
<p>I agree. See post #8. :)</p>
<p>Btw, you like hearing yourself talk. A lot. :)</p>
<p>"Consulting and investment banking come to mind, as those industries tend not to care about what you majored in, as long as you went to a top school."</p>
<p>What about the people that don't go to Ivy league schools, but go to very good schools and have very high GPA's? Can they still get into those industries with any major? (specifically an engineering major)</p>
<p>Define "very good". Plenty of people from non-Ivy league schools such as Stanford and MIT go to consulting and banking. Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, Berkeley, the top LAC's - these schools also have a propensity of getting people to consulting and banking. </p>
<p>But if you are not talking about schools at that caliber, then things get far more difficult in a big hurry, for banking and consulting recruiting drop off a cliff once you're past the top schools. And the truth is, it's extremely difficult to get hired into one of these firms if they don't recruit at your school. </p>
<p>Consider the following list of colleges where McKinsey recruits. Also bear in mind that McKinsey, as the largest of the big consulting firms, tends to cast a far wider net than most consulting firms. But if your school isn't even on the McKinsey list, then I wouldn't hold my breath in getting into major-league consulting. Furthermore, while McKinsey may cast a wide net, certain schools are obviously preferred. For example, HYPSM tend to be highly preferred. </p>
<p>Hmmm... well, my country isn't even on that list. I go to school in Canada (the #4 ranked school in Canada; #3 for engineering). So I guess I'm pretty screwed then.</p>
<p>Do you know anything about recruiting in Canada?</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn't say that. The list above deals with only US schools. Somewhere else on McKinsey's site, I'm sure, is a list of all the foreign schools they recruit at. Search around, you may find it.</p>