Can you get a good job with a business degree if you are not an accountant or investment banker??

Parent Cafe
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I was looking for feedback on this subject My son is still in high school and he has an interest in business.I think that is good,however, I was thinking of what jobs are really out there for a business major from a good school,not an ivy or a near ivy like chicago, colgate etc. I ruled out IB only because it is nearly impossible to land a job like that and you really need to go to an ivy to have a real shot at a job unless you are connected. I think accounting is great because you are a professional and if you can get a cpa, you will always have a job. You will not go hungry, however, what happens if he hates it and he is not a salesman type so that would rule out being a stock broker becuase lets be real, you have to be into sales to go into that line even if you pass your series 7 test etc.

So after analyzing the business route, I came up with 3 major areas. IB, Accounting,and sales. Marketing is also an option I guess but my point is if someone hates accounting and sales, and is not an ivy league student so that rules out investment banking, what is really out there that you can make a good living at??

I was not sure if marketing was a big field these days. In my day it was huge, but I am not sure about today.

I was just looking for feedback so I can guide my son IF he does not go into accounting, sales, or IB.

Thanks in advance

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Sales is often (but not exclusively) what marketing majors end up doing in their first jobs out of college. What I also think of is that so many people in this country work for businesses, and so few of them have an educational background in business at all. That basic knowledge of accounting, finance, marketing, operations, management information systems, business law, supply chain management, etc is really lacking. Most people learn it on the fly if they have to. I have an undergrad business degree, and find that it is dead useful to know some of this stuff going in. It saves me cycles when others around me don’t even know the basics. It also allows me to work effectively with many different areas of a business, and come up to speed quickly.

I have a marketing degree, but ended up working the information systems field because I had also taken some comp sci classes. I now move freely back and forth between IT and business as a project and program manager.

There are a lot of people out here who poo-poo a business degree – somehow they think business majors never learn to read, write, or analyze. In a good business school they do, though.

I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about steering your kid into a given area. Let him take his intro business classes and see what he likes (warning: Marketing departments are pros at putting their best profs and most interesting subject matter in the intro class – duh, they are good at marketing their major! Just warn him about this as he is evaluating his choices…) :slight_smile:

Have him spend time with the career office at his school, and start trying to get summer internships even starting freshman year (sophomore year for sure). The students who do best coming out of college these days have some internships experience as well as academic credentials.

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MIS and program manager type of jobs are good right now. Agree with above post.

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Thanks intparent. Being a 53 yr old, I have seen alot, not all but alot. I favor being a professional if you can, like a cpa etc because when you hit a certain age, and you are laid off, it is difficult to get a job. However, if you are a professional, and have a liscense, you never stare. You may not set the world on fire, but you can always make a living.

The problem is that if someone hates accounting, you cannot be miserable for the rest of your life so you have to just make the best of it i guess.

Thanks Again

5

Ditto on post # 2’s advice about not worrying about your son’s college major. There likely are HS clubs he can join to participate in business activities now. Then he can choose a college/university with business school opportunities that fit his then current interests. Once he starts college he will discover the specific major(s) that most interest him and go from there. It will be interesting for you to see the path his schooling and life take. Some seem to have a straight path with known direction even in HS, others meander to the same destination. I’m wondering where my son will be at 30- didn’t expect his current life at 25 (although it is in the probable fields for him).

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I think the name of the game today for students is continuing to build skills, not settling in with one credential and hoping it holds for 45 years of employment. And I am not necessarily pushing the MIS/project management path, either. But honestly, the jobs I do today barely existed when I came out of college. If I weren’t constantly learning new things and taking on new challenges, I might have struggled with employment. As it is, I change clients every 2-3 years, and have worked across a wide range of industries and business areas over the years. I am 52, and still don’t have any trouble landing a new assignment because I am a quick study and have been exposed to so many environments. I feel like more and more of our kids will be doing the same, I was just an early adopter. :slight_smile: I do think that building skills that straddle more than one area can be helpful. For example, I had business and some computer science skills – that has proven to be a very strong combination over the years.

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My son, a senior in college in a big city, is getting a degree in business. He is very smart and also creative, graduated high school near the top of his competitive class. Did well in all subjects, math, science, writing. Because of the demand for engineers, I wanted him to go for an engineering degree; I knew he was capable of the courses. It just didn’t appeal to him.

He started as an entrepreneurial major thinking he’d like to start his own business someday. In his sophomore year, after checking things out and looking at the big picture and asking questions of deans and professors and doing his own bit of research, he also chose a second major, information systems management. He’d been advised to consider finance or economics as a second major, but he went with the ISM.

By a stroke of good fortune, while finishing his sophomore year, a professor recommended him for an internship. In describing the job, my son said, “Mom, it’s an entrepreneurial incubator.” It took me a while to understand what that meant, but I get it now. It is an organization or agency which seeks to attract small businesses to the city and provide services to help them grow. So, it falls under the category of economic development. He’s worked the internship almost two years now and they are offering him a job.

Some of the things he’s done at the job: designed business brochures, interviewed ceo’s of some of the businesses and posted the interviews on the company’s website, created websites for some of the clients, compiled data required for grants they submit. His boss has even asked him to network at a few functions to make connections with possible new business partners. It’s quite a variety, and I think that appeals to his creative side.

In choosing a college with an accredited business school, one additional criteria our son had was that he wanted it to be in a big city, because he figured there would be more internships and job availability. It made sense to me and seems to have worked out for him.

I would have loved if my son had decided to become an accountant for the job security. But it’s just not his personality, too cut and dry. My son also really does have a creative side that I think he needs to honor, and why not figure out how to do that now, when he is young and unencumbered?

I agree with intparent, I’ve known other parents who act like a business degree is no big deal, like they are a dime a dozen. But I can tell there is a vast amount of information my son has learned in the past four years regarding many aspects of business, things I think most parents don’t know about when it comes to business.

Still, it is always reassuring to hear real world experiences like yours, intparent… Your posts make me feel that much better about my son’s choice of degree and majors. P.S. I like your avatar picture.

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There are millions of jobs in business that are not accounting or IB Lots in finance for one. See this placement report for an idea of the real range of companies and job for biz grads that are not in IB or accting.

http://bus.wisc.edu/~/media/bus/bba/employers/yir-2013-2014.ashx

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This is an interesting thread, for a parent of 2 majoring in business at the undergrad level. My DD is studying finance and supply chain management. My DS is a graduating senior in high school.

I’ll start with my DD. She had no idea what she wanted to pursue in business. Fortunately, the school she is attending focuses on careers/job placement during the first few weeks of school. Students must bring a suit to school. Resumes are worked on almost immediately and they are encouraged (perhaps required?) to attend the job fair on campus early in their first semester on campus. Then through the schools business career services/alumni network the freshman schedule “job shadows” during their first winter break. As a parent, I loved it!

Jump ahead to second semester sophomore year and DD has a well paying internship lined up for the summer. It’s fantastic! Yes, she is a driven, high achiever. But her school provides a lot of wonderful opportunities for those students…and that is what is important when choosing a school. I firmly believe that one does NOT have to attend an Ivy League school for opportunities and success. (I’ve actually been having a lot of discussions with my friends about this topic.)

Now for my son. He will be making a decision about the college he will attend in the coming weeks. As we discuss the ‘pros and cons’ and the fit, we feel very strongly like @intparent does. It’s about building skills. We’ve actually have talked about this with our children for years. Here’s an example: when choosing his classes for his senior year, we debated the choice of AP Lit versus Advanced Speech, a non-weighted class. Although he could have handled AP Lit and padded his GPA, he understood the ability to speak in front of an audience is an important one. He chose Speech.

I have no idea what my children will eventually do for careers, but they will possess skills to adapt to the changing workplace. In my opinion, the best skill we can teach our children is “learn how to learn” and do it at a high level.

Oh and yes, DD knows several recent undergrad business majors who were able to secure stellar employment (IB, top consulting) by being near the top of their class. at a strong public university. But instead of thinking it’s “nearly impossible”, think “it’s possible”.

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I’ve told this story several times on CC (so please ignore me if you’ve heard this before): my D was interested in business but also many other things when she started college - she was an undecided business major who also took lots of English classes as well as other humanities courses. Anyway, in the first few weeks/months of school she was “introduced” to all the different business majors in her intro classes. I clearly remember her telling me, “Mom, I don’t know what I want to major in, but I do know that I’m not going to be an accountant. They’re way too boring.”

You can guess where this story is heading - she’s now a CPA for a Big 4 accounting firm and loves it. My point is this: let your son explore the different majors and career paths for himself. You never know what will strike his fancy or engage his curiosity (yes, even boring old accounting has its converts). A good skill set and a willingness to learn and adapt make for a powerful combination, no matter what the exact major turns out to be.

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Real estate finance and development is a good major. By the time your son graduates college the real estate and construction industry will be fully running again and allot of money can be made in real estate development or even finance. Management is also a good major because it applies to all industries. All businesses need managers from department stores to hotels.

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Management is not a terribly rigorous track at most colleges (both in terms of content knowledge and analytical skills). For someone interested in jobs managing teams of people (which is what I assume Jritch is talking about) better to manage in psychology or sociology-- get some statistics courses in there, as are required in most social sciences, and you’ve got a much more solid footing for a corporate job.

My company doesn’t need someone with a degree in organizational behavior, org design,management, etc. Better to study an academic subject which touches upon these things. More rigor, more writing.

Interested in hotel/hospitality management? Major in good old fashioned math. Yield management will continue to be a hot topic in the travel industry for decades. Once a seat on an airplane goes unsold- you can never sell it. Ditto an empty hotel room, a rental car sitting on a lot at midnight. Inventory management and anything related to it requires really good math skills.

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Yet most large hotel companies prefer Cornell, UNLV, MSU or other Hotel mgt majors. How many math majors do they really hire?? One to write the yield mgt algorithm which are probably available off the shelf. Your firm does not a market make.

RE investment is good but cyclical. You have to be ready to move to greener pastures as needed or put away money for that inevitable downturn. ( I did 35 yrs in the business). Nearly every developer I got to know went broke at least once. You have to have the stomach for that level of risk. I stayed on the lower risk numbers and investing side with OPM.

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@jritch - I would not recommend real estate unless you get a very focused degree at the master level and you want to make a career in the field. Real estate firms generally do not recruit out of school, and, if they did, they can take a finance major and teach them the real estate skills. It is a similar skill set, but real estate has a different nomenclature. It is easier for a finance major to adapt to real estate, but somewhat more difficult for a real estate major to be considered for a finance job. Start in finance, and dabble in real estate.

To the OP, I would recommend starting on the accounting track. If the math is not to your son’s liking, then look at finance, economics and management/marketing in that order. I would also find an interesting minor that either develop writing skills (English, Classics or History) or one that can be tied back to accounting or finance (such as building construction or hotel management).

15

Barrons- hospitality is not just hotel- look at senior management at Disney, the large gaming companies, car rental, airlines, fast food chains. And one math major is a drop in the bucket- an airline has people hedging the costs of fuel, developing risk management algorithms, doing pricing and inventory management, doing sensitivity analysis whenever a decision needs to be made about adding or dropping a landing slot, creating models for environmental impact, doing long range planning on new aircraft acquisition, lease vs. buy decisions on ramp equipment, etc.

Folks from hotel management programs are not getting hired for these jobs. And the idea that they are buying “off the shelf” solutions is dated by about a decade. You can buy a software program to do virtually anything- but you need smart people to figure out how to run a simulation, correct the inputs, recognize that what was equilibrium a year ago is quite different given the shift in the dollar/Euro, etc.

Plus you love math- I thought you’d be banging the table for a kid interested in business to be exploring Yield as a discipline!!!