I’m hoping to get some advice on a decision I’ll be making in the next couple of weeks. I’m a business administration junior focusing in marketing and analytics. At the moment, I’m a salesperson in the luxury fashion industry. I like the job and have some longevity there, but I think it’s time to seek more relevant experience. After my internship search, I’ve found two options that would best suit my career development.
Option 1: Marketing internship at a small/mid-size firm
I have an offer to intern at a B2B tech firm about 2 hours away from my current place of residence. The business has between 200 and 600 employees and this is their first time hiring an intern. At first they claimed I would be doing industry/competitor analysis but now it seems like most of the work I would be doing is managing client databases in Excel and reaching out to leads. The firm is focusing on growth and seems to be doing fairly well.
Option 2: Marketing Research Assistant at my college
One of my marketing professors offered me a position to RA for him to aid in multiple functions of the research process (data collection, analysis and editing academic publications). The work is for a reputable business school and would give me a chance to network with other faculty. This position could extend past the end of the summer and throughout the rest of the school year if I do a good job.
My Deliberation: While I do want to pursue private sector employment after college, I would like to graduate with an MBA a few years from now. I feel like the research assistant position would give me an ‘in’ with school faculty, since the professor I would be interning for also teaches MBA courses. The research assistant position would allow my to continue my current sales job over the summer, and give me something to do part-time during my studies next year. It also wouldn’t require me to relocate and sign up for a 3-month lease (less risk than the internship if it didn’t go well).
Ultimately I feel like the research assistant is the more favorable option, but am worried that businesses will discount it as “just another school job” and prefer a candidate with private sector internship experience.
If I use this position as a lever to get accepted into the MBA program and intern during my next two summers, will that be enough to get a good job post-graduation? Will hiring managers respect a research assistant position at a good business school, or consider it to be too academic?
Thanks for helping me out!