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<p>Lol, sarcasm doesn’t work in CC.</p>
<p>A lot of people use investment banking as a stepping stone early in their career. Many opt to go back to school to make a career change or to take time off to assess their future. My son has several friends still in IB (VPs) with no MBA.</p>
<p>My D who is in brand management (CPG) got an MBA with an econ degree from a top LAC.
My S, a Wharton grad working in hedge fund after a stint in IB has no MBA and won’t need one. He has a CFA with self-study.</p>
<p>You can be a brand manager with a BBA from a top school, too. They recruited for those at Ross when I was there among the BBAs. </p>
<p>Intparent, I doubt a fresh grad can be a brand manager. They can be an assistant in brand management, but if you want to be a product manager in a large company, more often than not, an MBA is required.</p>
<p>FYI I mentioned the CPA as an aside. Most of my career has not been as an accountant but in the area of municipal bond finance. While I worked with a ton of MBAs, I was never held back by not having a that degree.</p>
<p>Ross had interview schedules in the brand management departments for BBAs, job descriptions the same as for the MBAs if I recall correctly. I know Ross BBAs who went into some of the major consumer product companies in the brand management divisions and ended up very high in the corporations in their careers. So I don’t think they needed an MBA to success in the brand management side or further up the ladder there. Having both an MBA and a BBA, I think MBAs take themselves far too seriously. The coursework just isn’t that different between the two programs. Sure. an MBA can be valuable if you haven’t studied finance, business law, accounting, marketing, operations, business ethics, etc. But if you have already done it once, there is not much point in doing it again. And while that coursework gives you good grounding in basic business principals that are always useful, it is work experience that really teaches you far more. I personally think giving up the 2 years for the MBA to repeat what you have already done just so you can meet some people who MIGHT be good contacts in the future (because I think that is all an MBA who has a strong BBA gets out of it) is silly and a waste of money.</p>
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Then you have excellent recall abilities. When I was looking for job postings at college, I didn’t look at those for grad students.
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<p>How old are these people? Are their experiences relevant in today’s employment requirements?</p>
<p>I know several BBAs who are now in brand management for major consumer packaged companies, including one who interned for me. My observation of that world is that the bloom is off the rose for the MBA. </p>
<p>Edited to add: cbreeze, these are current twenty somethings so yes, completely current. </p>
<p>“Intparent, I doubt a fresh grad can be a brand manager. They can be an assistant in brand management, but if you want to be a product manager in a large company, more often than not, an MBA is required.”</p>
<p>I have more brand / product managers in my Linked In than you could shake a stick at; this is my professional world and where I “grew up”; and I disagree with you completely. </p>
<p>Like I said- you don’t get a career in “business”- you get a career doing something. Functional expertise, industry expertise. Telling someone that you need an MBA is ludicrous- as is telling someone you don’t need an MBA. What creates advancement opportunities in brand management or supply chain management or treasury or human resources is completely different from the competencies you need to work in municipal finance at a large bank, or in risk management at an insurance company, or to lead an economic development team for the State of California.</p>
<p>OP- relax. You might not even like “business” and will decide to study enthomusicology. Or you will develop a passion for trading oil futures, or for developing complex compensation models to benchmark CEO salaries, or whatever. Nobody can tell you if you need an MBA or not because nobody knows what kind of work you want to be doing.</p>
<p>Someone on the Investor Relations team at a Fortune 50 public company does completely different work from someone who develops delivery algorithms for Fed Ex. Both may have an MBA (or not) but the actual work is completely different. And prestige of the degree is typically more important for the former than the latter, although YMMV.</p>
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<p>I actually do remember because I was a marketing major (which is something consumer product companies specifically look for), and a few companies that came to Michigan to recruit only had schedules for the MBAs (strategic consulting like McKinsey and investment banks). So I was interested in keeping an eye on what schedules were posted for which groups. They posted the schedules right together for signup, just with notes if it was MBA only, etc. for the any restrictions on who could sign up for slots. </p>
<p>I certainly don’t think the MBA has gained any cache since then, either. It is what it is… taking business courses to teach you the fundamentals of business, additional courses with more depth in your area of concentration, and a chance to get to know other students with similar interests studying the same things who may or may not be successful in the business world going forward.</p>
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You are confirming my statement that BBAs are hired in brand management, but are they hired on as managers?</p>
<p>In my D’s company, all of the product managers in marketing have MBAs.She was hired through on campus recruitment at her business school for this position. Her company came to the business school to recruit her position.
If you look at current job listings for marketing/brand Manager at large CPG companies, all states MBA preferred.</p>
<p><a href=“http://jobs.bd.com/us/united-states/strategic-marketing/jobid5595468-senior-marketing-manager?apstr=%26src%3DJB-10300&src=JB-10300”>http://jobs.bd.com/us/united-states/strategic-marketing/jobid5595468-senior-marketing-manager?apstr=%26src%3DJB-10300&src=JB-10300</a>
<a href=“https://nestleusa.taleo.net/careersection/nwnaprof/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=226168&src=JB-10172”>https://nestleusa.taleo.net/careersection/nwnaprof/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=226168&src=JB-10172</a>
<a href=“https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWEbHost/jobdetails.aspx?jobId=1033669&partnerid=25657&siteid=5491&boardid=1911”>https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWEbHost/jobdetails.aspx?jobId=1033669&partnerid=25657&siteid=5491&boardid=1911</a>
<a href=“http://jobs.jnj.com/job/New-Jersey-2015-MBA-Summer-Associate-Consumer-Marketing-Job-NJ-07097/65907200/?feedId=41100&utm_source=Indeed&utm_campaign=Postings_Indeed”>http://jobs.jnj.com/job/New-Jersey-2015-MBA-Summer-Associate-Consumer-Marketing-Job-NJ-07097/65907200/?feedId=41100&utm_source=Indeed&utm_campaign=Postings_Indeed</a>
<a href=“http://jobs.jnj.com/job/New-Brunswick-Senior-Manager%2C-Marketing-GFO%2C-MotrinBengayIBU-Platform-Job-NJ-08901/226725400/?feedId=41100&utm_source=Indeed&utm_campaign=Postings_Indeed”>http://jobs.jnj.com/job/New-Brunswick-Senior-Manager%2C-Marketing-GFO%2C-MotrinBengayIBU-Platform-Job-NJ-08901/226725400/?feedId=41100&utm_source=Indeed&utm_campaign=Postings_Indeed</a></p>
<p>I know a Wharton graduate who started his career in a high tech company fresh out of college. He became a product manager after a few years but didn’t stay in that position for very long mainly because without a tech background he didn’t feel comfortable communicating with the tech people in the product team (so in a sense he wasn’t quite competent for the job). He was considering getting a master’s degree in CS but eventually gave up and transferred to a “non-tech” department. Some people suggested that he should go for an MBA, but with the momentum he felt he had in the company and considering the financial loss going back to school would incur, he couldn’t make up his mind until the promotion he had been working on didn’t pan out. The company hired someone fresh out of HBS as his new boss. He’s now working on his MBA at Stanford.</p>
<p>I guess it is rare that an MBA is <em>mandatory</em>, but if you are not in a specialty that’s heavily certificate reliant (e.g. CPA), an MBA usually helps your career advancement in the long run, especially if you wish to move around instead of sticking with the same company for a very long time. </p>
<p>“You are confirming my statement that BBAs are hired in brand management, but are they hired on as managers?”</p>
<p>In my 25 years of experience, during which I was a director at a major consumer packaged goods company, neither BBAs nor MBAs get hired straight as “brand managers.” The thought of handing over a brand mgr job to someone who hadn’t served as an associate or assistant is laughable! Either way, they are hired into a brand management track and learn the ropes. </p>
<p>I mentored (for a client) 4 MBA students doing an internship. They were offered associate brand mgr positions. Not brand mgr. </p>
<p>And Michigan BBAs are all over the industry - indeed, my closest work friend and I were hired on this track, she with a BBA from Mich and me with a BA from Northwestern. </p>
<p>Some of those jobs you linked to are positions I know intimately! They require EXPERIENCE. They aren’t being handed out to MBAs fresh out of school. Anyway, an MA in Communications and some digital / ad agency experience might be as compelling depending on the person. Or a BBA/BA who “grew up” in another marketing job. CPG is just not as MBA-centric as other industries. </p>
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Yes, but the job posting also said MBA preferred. That’s the main point here. Most MBA graduates have 3-5 years of working experience.
How many years ago ? 25+?If you read my posts carefully, I acknowledged that but it isn’t relevant to current job requirements.
Agreed, after a couple of years, they can be promoted to product managers. But what is the title of someone who just has a BBA in this industry? Does it contain “manager”?</p>
<p>CPG is among the top industries that recruit graduates of Kellogg Business school in your neck of the woods.
<a href=“MBA Employment Outcomes | Kellogg School of Management”>http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/career_employer/employment_statistics.aspx</a></p>
<p>“Agreed, after a couple of years, they can be promoted to product managers. But what is the title of someone who just has a BBA in this industry? Does it contain “manager”?”</p>
<p>???
They have the exact same title once they are in the position. They’re product managers (or brand managers, whichever title their org uses). There is no “alternate title” for non MBA holders. They don’t have stars on their foreheads to distinguish them. </p>
<p>OK, if you choose to just concentrate on my typo, my question is what is the title of fresh BBA grad who lands a job in brand management?</p>
<p>If you’re talking about CPG brand management, an MBA is definitely NOT needed for “credentialing” purposes. </p>
<p>I think MBAs can be extremely helpful for those with liberal arts or STEM UG diplomas who feel the MBA makes them more relevant. (For example, my former business partner with his PhD in philosophy from Harvard who went back to get a MBA so he would be taken more seriously or my friend who was the director of new product development for a major food company whose undergrad degree was in chemical engineering.) </p>
<p>But, as Pizzagirl stated, the key in CPG marketing is experience, and while an MBA may help get that entry level job, it’s not mandatory by any means. </p>
<p>Depends on the company, but generally speaking assistant brand manager. The MBA might enter at that level, or maybe associate. But of course the MBA typically has several years experience the BBA didn’t have. But they’re on the same track to brand manager either way. I’ve sat in HR succession planning for brand mgt and no one paid any attention to where their degrees were from or how many they had. </p>
<p>As an example, I have two clients in the same company in senior mktg positions. One (who is Indian by birth) went to IIT and holds a Harvard MBA. The other holds a bachelors from a state school in PA (not even Penn State). They are peers in the company and that’s that. Their trajectory is up to them and their performance. </p>