<p>btw, any word from the wildflowerwall guy?</p>
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<p>Good time management skills means that you can write posts here and still get other things done. </p>
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<p>Actually, I think it’s far more accurate to say that that companies believe that they find consulting firms to be highly effective. Whether they actually are effective is very much an open question. As far as I know, nobody has ever actually performed a rigorous study to determine whether consulting firms truly to provide benefits to their clients. Consulting firms clearly provide extensive benefits to themselves. That much is clear. But it is far less clear as to whether clients actually receive benefits above and beyond what they have to pay.</p>
<p>As to why this would happen, I think it can be explained as a matter of marketing and behavioral economics, along with a dash of social networking. It’s highly intimidating for most industry managers to have a bunch of slick-talking Harvard and Stanford graduates who are trying to sell you on a consulting engagement. The top consulting firms market themselves extremely well. Furthermore, the top consulting firms are highly skilled at instilling a sense of loyalty among their employees, even (or especially) when they leave to join a regular company, as that is seen as an opportunity for the consulting firm to enter that company. </p>
<p>But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The modern management consulting industry is directly responsible for such disasters as Enron. Enron was a long-time client of McKinsey. Jeff Skilling was a former Enron partner. He filled the management ranks with many of his old buddies from McKinsey. We all know what happened to Enron. But nothing at all seemed to happen to McKinsey’s reputation. Very very savvy marketing. </p>
<p>Keefer, I’m not making this stuff up. I invite you to read the works of Pinault and O’Shea, who talk about the problems within the management consulting industry. A lot of projects simply fail. Even of those that do work, many of them are probably not worth the millions of dollars in fees that were paid. </p>
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<p>Like I said, I have specifically excluded the boutique consulting firms which are like you have described and hence may indeed be able to add significant value.</p>
<p>However, the fact remains that, at the name-brand consulting firms such as McKinsey, the vast majority of the engagement team is not comprised of ‘experts’. Most of them are exactly as I said - people fresh out of school (either undergrad or MBA) and who have limited (if any) experience in the industry in question. </p>
<p>Now I agree that there are some ‘experts’ that do work for the name-brand consulting firms and, like you said, the engagement teams do sometimes confer with them. But that begs one serious question - why doesn’t the client just make a consulting engagement with that expert? Why do you need to pay for the entire engagement team? After all, if the expert is the one who’s providing the real value, then it seems that the answer is to go directly to that expert. </p>
<p>To unpack this further, I should point out that many of these ‘experts’ are not actual employees of the name-brand consulting firms. Rather, they actually run their own small business and have contracts with the name-brand consulting firms. In essence, the name-brand firm is subcontracting the expertise to others. </p>
<p>As a case in point, Andreas Merkl is purportedly one of McKinsey’s green-energy “experts”. The problem is that he doesn’t actually work for McKinsey. He used to work for McKinsey. But he left 8 years ago to start his own small boutique consulting firm. Nevertheless, McKinsey has an arrangement to work with him whenever one of their clients needs green-energy expertise. But the question then is, why doesn’t that client just strike a business deal with Merkl’s company directly? Do they really need to bring on an entire team from McKinsey in order to access Merkl’s expertise? In short, what the client is really getting is McKinsey’s brand name. </p>
<p>In short, I agree that companies often times need expertise. But expertise is not really what the name-brand consulting firms provide. As I said before, the vast majority of employees at those firms are not experts, but just guys fresh out of school. Those guys don’t actually have expertise in the industry in which they are consulting - a fact that has been remarked upon time and time again. </p>
<p>A long time ago, my father once asked me a common-sense question: ‘Why do people who are fresh out of school, who have never even held a job, nevertheless get hired to consult for some of the biggest companies in the world?’ This this day, I still don’t have a good answer for him. Yet it happens. A lot. </p>
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<p>Then you need to read my posts more carefully, because I think I am quite clear about what I am saying.</p>
<p>First off, engineering is indeed a very good job, relatively speaking. That’s because, frankly, most jobs out there aren’t that great. Hence, I believe that the vast majority (i.e. 75%) of all engineers out there are getting a pretty good deal, compared to whatever else they could get. Let’s face it. If you graduated as an average student from high school and went to an average college, then majoring in engineering and becoming an engineer is a pretty good deal. By age 22, you’ll be making $50k to start, and that’s probably far better than what you would have gotten if you had majored in something else. Heck, by age 22, you’ll already be making more than the average American. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if you’re just a regular student at a regular college, then these other careers (i.e. consulting) aren’t going to be available to you anyway, so this entire topic is irrelevant to you. Let’s be honest. If you’re an average student at, say, East Tennessee State University, you can’t even dream of joining McKinsey or similar firms, so becoming an engineer is probably the best you can do. </p>
<p>The problem is with the best students who go to the best schools. This is where engineering becomes less attractive, because now you really can seriously entertain the possibility of getting a job from McKinsey or similar ‘high-demand’ jobs. Like I’ve said throughout this thread, a lot (probably most) people, if given the choice between working as an engineer and working for McKinsey, are probably going to choose the latter.</p>
<p>Again, consider the words of Nicholas Pearce, former engineering student at MIT. </p>
<p>Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: “It’s marketed as–I don’t want to say dead end but sort of ‘O.K., here’s your role, here’s your lab, here’s what you’re going to be working on.’ Even if it’s a really cool product, you’re locked into it.” Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. “If you’re an M.I.T. grad and you’re going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day–as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that–it seems like a no-brainer.”</p>
<p>[Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? – Printout – TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1156575,00.html]Are”>http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1156575,00.html)</p>
<p>But note that Nicholas Pearce can say what he is saying for one reason: He went to MIT. If he had gone to some low-ranked school, then consulting wouldn’t even be a serious option, so there would be no point in talking about it. </p>
<p>In short, the real issue to me is that engineering careers are great for average people, but aren’t so great for the * best * people. I have to ask: why? Why can’t engineering companies pay their top engineers better? Why can’t they provide better opportunities? Nicholas Pearce says that he can only get $50k at an engineering company and be stuck in a cubicle vs. getting $60k + bonus and work in a team setting as a consultant. So that begs the question of why can’t the engineering company give him $60k + bonus and also give him a team setting? If the consulting firm can provide that, why can’t the engineering company? </p>
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<p>What I said is that consulting jobs are better for long-term growth of the consultants. </p>
<p>I have also said that consultants don’t know anything…yet. But that’s what makes them appealing for the consultants, because they are given opportunities to learn things. In short, it’s like being paid to learn. In some sense, consulting is almost like graduate school, with the major difference being that instead of paying for school, *you get paid<a href=“and%20get%20paid%20very%20well”>/i</a>. Then, after a few years of this highly-paid training, you find the industry that you really like and you quit the consulting firm to work there. {Most people who join consulting stay for no more than 2-4 years.} </p>
<p>So I think it is quite clear that consulting is a very big ‘win’ for the consultants. It’s actually a quite fantastic deal for them. What I find ironic is that so many companies out there refuse to pay to train their own employees new skills, but will happily shell out millions to consulting firms to, in effect, “train” those consultants. </p>
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<p>I never said that they provide “minimal service”. Consultants do work long hours and they are smart people (because they did get good grades at the top schools). It’s just that most of them are not experts on the projects they are working on. How could you be, if you’ve never actually worked in the industry in question? </p>
<p>However, all of this is really missing the point anyway. The question I am posing is this: Why is it so outrageous for firms to create their own (possibly temporary) internal consulting task forces, when they are already paying millions for outside consultants like McKinsey? All of the objections to internal consultants could apply just as easily to outside consultants. </p>
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<p>Consulting is not a long term career. I never said it was. In fact, most people who enter consulting know full well that they are probably going to do it only for a few years, which gives them the time to find what they really want to do. </p>
<p>Consulting also provides a very fast ladder of career advancement. For example, if you’re an undergrad, then consulting is one of the most popular methods to getting into a top MBA program. {For example, there are ridiculous numbers of former consultants at places like Harvard Business School and the MIT Sloan School. Heck, people still say that HBS is dominated by the 3M’s: Mormons, military, and McKinsey.} If you’re an MBA student, then consulting is a fast way to get into a top corporate management position, i.e. Director or Vice President level at some regular company.</p>
<p>Engineering, on the other hand, doesn’t provide such a fast path. You can work as an engineer, and then 30 years later, still just be an engineer. Ariesathena, a former poster who was an engineer and then went to law school, said that her former coworkers congratulated her when she left engineering, saying that she would probably make more as a first-year lawyer than engineers who had been working at the company for decades. </p>
<p>Engineering salaries start high, but they top out quickly. That’s a good deal for the average American. But not for the top performers. After a certain point, your pay as an engineer is not really going to increase no matter how much more you learn or improve. A superstar engineer doesn’t really make much more than just a “good” engineer.</p>
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<p>Whoever was responsible for making the decision to hire outside consultants either was forced to by the Yahoo! Board (or a contingency of shareholders), or felt more comfortable hiring outsiders. Whether or not I think these engineers should have more credibility is beside the point.</p>
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<p>I didn’t say they were not competent. I know several Yahoo! engineers who are quite competent in their areas of expertise. I’m merely saying that they have not yet produced anything that rivals Google from a business standpoint.</p>
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<p>Why does this matter to you so much? As I said, Yahoo! is a poor example of a model for engineering-led decision making. If it was stronger (relative to Google), there might be more of an opportunity for engineers to provide more direction (provided, of course, that they have some kind of successful track record). It’s not merely enough to be “smart” - you have to produce results that are favorable to shareholders if you are a publicly traded company (and want to see your shares rise). Google, OTOH, is a much better model of an engineering-driven company. While the engineering quality of its products and services varies significantly, they have a few big wins, such as AdWords, that allow engineers quite a bit of latitude in providing the direction for future projects.</p>
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<p>I think you’re imputing far too much power on Boards and shareholders. The truth is, most Boards, and certainly most shareholders, are quite weak, as has been shown within the literature (both academic and practitioner) time and time again. Upper management holds dominant power in most companies. </p>
<p>Just think of it this way. If the shareholders really held the power, then why didn’t they just force Yahoo upper management to sell to Microsoft. After all, Microsoft’s buyout price is unquestionably better than Yahoo’s current stock price - in fact, almost by a factor of 3. The same could be said about the Board. Yahoo didn’t sell out because CEO Jerry Yang didn’t want to sell out, and co-opted the Board (of which he is a member) to support him, to the clearly great detriment of shareholders. In fact, that’s why Yahoo is now the target of a shareholder lawsuit.</p>
<p>But that’s actually all beside the point anyway. Even if you are right - that the Board and shareholders wanted to hire outside consultants as opposed to promoting internal employees - the question is why?. Why would the Board and shareholders believe that outside consultants would be so effective, when the fact is, consultants don’t exactly have a sterling track record of success. Or put another way, if Yahoo employees were not talented, then why were they hired in the first place? </p>
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<p>And the outside consultants have produced something that rivals Google? That’s my point. Did Bain consultants create Google? No. So then why is Yahoo paying Bain? What exactly has Bain done to earn that credibility? </p>
<p>Look, if the real issue is that you want people who have produced something like Google, then a simple answer presents itself - raid Google. Why not? A lot of companies have done this. For example, during the 1990’s, AMD was basically an also-ran microprocessor firm who was destined for oblivion as they simply did not have the expertise to develop the best designs. So what did AMD do? It raided another microprocessor company. Specifically, AMD lured away Dirk Meyer and other lead engineers and designers from DEC who had designed the groundbreaking Alpha microprocessor, by offering far better pay and working conditions. The result was the Athlon chip, which not only actually leapfrogged Intel to become arguably the best PC microprocessor in the world at the time, but more importantly, saved AMD from almost certain death. AMD could finally make a claim to having the world’s best chip designers, which they could never do before. </p>
<p>But surely, if the real problem is that you want to match Google, it’s not clear to me that the answer is to hire Bain. Like I said, did Bain produce Google? I don’t think so. </p>
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<p>Uh, well, why does it matter to you so much? </p>
<p>Look, I don’t work for Yahoo. And I don’t work for Bain. So, in that sense, I don’t really care. </p>
<p>I am simply saying that I find it remarkable that companies will continue to hire outside consultants when the value proposition is so unclear, yet refuse to train up any of their internal staff. Yet, as long as this keeps happening, it will result in the best people preferring to work as consultants rather than engineers. Think of it this way. Consultants get paid better, have a faster promotion schedule, and get to see and try on different tasks. Engineers don’t get that. I think you can see why so many people would prefer consulting.</p>
<p>But that begs the question of why consulting should continue to offer these advantages? Why can’t engineering jobs offer these kinds of opportunities too? </p>
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<p>Again, none of this explains why Yahoo should be hiring Bain. If the problem is that Yahoo engineers are not highly competent, then the answer is to hire better engineers. Or raid Google.</p>
<p>But in no case do I see how the answer is necessarily to hire Bain. Sure, maybe Google engineers are better than Yahoo engineers. But what does that have to do with Bain? In mathematical notation, just because Google>Yahoo doesn’t automatically mean that Bain>Yahoo. Maybe Yahoo>Bain. Again, Bain didn’t create Google. So why do we automatically assume that hiring Bain will improve Yahoo?</p>
<p>But again, for whatever reason, Yahoo (and plenty of other firms) will hire consulting firms, rather than promote their own employees. As long as this keeps happening, consulting will be a highly attractive career choice, rather than just being a regular employee.</p>
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<p>In this particular case, the Yahoo! Board exercises sufficient power to drive business decisions, more so than engineers.</p>
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<p>Again, I am not arguing that Yahoo! employees (engineers) are not talented, just that they have not had enough success from a business standpoint to drive business decisions.</p>
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<p>Who knows? All that matters is that they have earned that credibility. Or that Yahoo! engineers have lost enough (business) credibility that the company feels more comfortable with outside consultants.</p>
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<p>You think this hasn’t been tried? The word on the street is that departing Googlers would rather work for someplace like Facebook, or an even smaller startup. The current valuation of Yahoo! is also a disincentive to luring Googlers.</p>
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<p>Some engineering companies like Google do. Engineers who care about this try to get jobs at those companies.</p>
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<p>I certainly see no reason why someone should become an engineer if they can get better pay, perks, etc. doing something else. As I’ve said elsewhere, engineering must compete with other industries to attract and retain the best people, rather than claiming there are no such people and that they have to find them in other countries.</p>
<p>[xkcd</a> - A Webcomic - Duty Calls](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/386/]xkcd”>xkcd: Duty Calls)</p>
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<p>Yagottabelieve, all you’re doing right now is simply reinforcing my central premise. As long as top management (or Boards of Directors or whoever) seems to believe that outside consultants are more knowledgeable and deserve better pay than do internal engineers - regardless of whether that belief is justified or not - then the best people will continue to prefer to take jobs as consultants rather than engineers. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along. That’s what engineering student Nicholas Pearce of MIT said: why should he take an engineering job if a consulting job will pay him more and offer him more responsibility and power? </p>
<p>I’m glad you’re on my side, yagottabelieve. I am simply saying that this is a sad and true testament on the state of American business. As long as engineers are not really valued by their employers, the best people in this country are not going to want to work as engineers. They may get engineering degrees, but many of them won’t actually take engineering jobs. </p>
<p>So, I’m glad you’re on my side. Perhaps you could help me convince the other people here on this board of our position: that for the top people, engineering is probably not as good as the other jobs they could probably get. Sad but true. </p>
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<p>Actually, the current valuation of Yahoo would be a huge incentive to luring Google. After all, nobody is actually going to get rich at Google anymore. The stock price is simply too high. What you really wanted to do was join Google when it was still in its stock hypergrowth stage. But that was years ago. It will probably never become a hypergrowth stock ever again. Don’t get me wrong: it may still grow, but not at hypergrowth levels. It is simply too big for that now.</p>
<p>But Yahoo is beaten down, which means that it has the potential to grow quickly if the company ever gets turned around.</p>
<p>Let me draw you a scenario. You quit Google to join Yahoo today. Hence, your stock option exercise price is marked at current valuation (i.e. about $12.50). You’re given 50,000 options, which is quite reasonable for a senior engineer or project manager. Then Microsoft comes back one more time and this time, successfully acquires Yahoo for the acquisition price that was proposed before: $33. Just like that, your stock options are now worth over $1 million. Heck, even if Microsoft were to acquire Yahoo for only $23 a share, your options would be worth over half-a-million. Not a bad chunk of change at all. </p>
<p>On the other hand, nobody is looking to acquire Google, because nobody, not even Microsoft, can afford it. Getting acquired is one of the fastest ways to make your stock options pop. {Granted, if your employer is acquired, you may end up getting laid off, but with a million dollars in your bank account, who cares?} </p>
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<p>And not every engineer can get jobs at Google. Those engineers then may be better off working as consultants rather than working for mediocre engineering companies, which is where we surely agree.</p>
<p>I know somebody who joined Yahoo in the beginning and he only got 10,000 shares(I believe). At the peak, he only made $2+ million(10000 X$200). And this is before the tech bubble. Less options are granted now.</p>
<p>I think that you should have ample career opportunities in the US if you gradaute from any ABET accreditied school, because as you know we are near crisis point because of the shortage of engineers.</p>
<p>Having said that, it is always best to go the best school that you can. Going to one of those top schools probably would open up a whole host of opportunities that a “regular” college could not, especially for graduate study. However, for most engineers, the name of your college does not matter to the extent as it does in other disciplines, such as the liberal arts.</p>
<p>I think a point where you (@sakky) and I disagree is whether Yahoo! is a good example of a model engineering company.</p>
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<p>True, but people who are looking for a place to work don’t always see things that way. Yahoo! was losing value even before the financial meltdown. Also, many key business and engineering folks have left. </p>
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<p>That’s a big if. They haven’t done much lately to show any signs of growth. Perhaps they can pull off a miracle, like Apple, but so far, it doesn’t seem likely.</p>
<p>This question is for Sakky since he/she seems to be more knowledgeable that anyone else i’ve come across on this forum…Others can go ahead and answer too :).</p>
<p>Is it true that the school you attend has a bearing on how much you get paid after you graduate?</p>
<p>Is there a website which has the average salaries listed for graduates from different colleges
in the US?</p>
<p>I have a similar question right here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/591169-purdue-vs-ohio-state-vs-ut-austin-industrial-engg.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/591169-purdue-vs-ohio-state-vs-ut-austin-industrial-engg.html</a></p>
<p>It would be GREAT if you could answer it for me!!!</p>
<p>I don’t think school means a damn thing, my friend’s dad graduated with a civil engineering degree from WV and makes a million dollars a year, lol. Yes, I will admit, from what I hear MIT is the best school on the planet for engineering from what I hear. But from what else I hear the learning experience is not there, I know people who got accepted to MIT and turned it down to go else where. Why? Because of the learning atmosphere. They go to Caltech instead, or stanford, or hell, even great public schools. It is all about what you want. They have alot of people who can go to the Ivy’s with perfect SAT, ACT scores. A few of my friends could have went to big name schools, but they didn’t and went to a state school, because they wanted to be closer to home, or closer to family. It’s what you value. I know for a fact, I’ve seen a chart with MIT’s school of engineering graduates salaries, from the BS to Ph.D, and guess what they aren’t getting paid more than any other joe bob from a state school. Engineering is more than just a school name, or curriculm load. It is more about the person, and what they put into it, sure you can brag not only did you have to take all those extra courses and what not, but will you know more than a person who dedicates all of their time to studying a particular subject, no, you won’t. No matter what school you go to. It is all about what that person puts into it, and what kind of person they are when they get into their career. Make A’s on exams, and being able to present your ideas and a work with a group are two different things. You may be great at crunching numbers and figuring out problems, but if you can’t communicate with your workers, or your boss, what does it matter.</p>
<p>which would be more difficult to get into: Ivy Engineer, uiuc engineer? it seems that there are a lot of low rank schools with high rank engineering programs. does this meen that it is harder to get into than the high rank schools.</p>
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<p>I didn’t know just outside the top 20 was low.</p>
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<p>I have never said that Yahoo is a good example of a model engineering company.</p>
<p>I am simply saying that Yahoo is better than many other engineering companies, and in particularly, are clearly doing better than, obviously, GM, Ford, or Chrysler. Whatever you want to say about Yahoo, at least it’s still profitable, whereas the auto companies can’t claim even that. </p>
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<p>Obviously I am not saying that Yahoo is the most attractive place to work right now. Yahoo is clearly high risk, as if you join Yahoo, you stand a good chance of getting laid off. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Yahoo is also high reward, because like I said, Yahoo has great potential for growth, mostly because its stock has been beaten down so much, which means that it has a lot of room to recover. Hence, Yahoo still offers you the chance of getting rich quickly. On the other hand, nobody joins Google now to get rich, because they know they can’t - Google is simply too big already. Its stock no longer has the potential of rising quickly. You should have joined Google a few years ago if you wanted to get rich, but not now. </p>
<p>In other words, Google is now the safe, conservative choice, whereas Yahoo is the risky, but high potential choice. It is also true that a lot of people prefer safety. Yahoo is somewhat akin to joining a startup - which are highly risky but also offer the potential for very quick riches. </p>
<p>I’ll give you a historical example. During the height of the tech boom, Cisco briefly became the most valuable company on Earth, with its stock briefly hitting a high of $77 (and market cap of over $500 billion). Then during the dotcom bust, the stock price plummeted all the way to $10.50. Today, it’s still only $17.50. Yet Cisco continued to hire people throughout the downturn. The new hires received stock options at the strike price of whatever was the price on the date of hire. Hence, those who were hired during the tech peak got options with high strike prices, whereas those hired during the trough got options with low strikes. Options with low strikes are obviously far far more valuable than those with high strikes. {For example, those who got hired in 2002 when Cisco’s stock price was $10.50 are now sitting on profits of $7 each, whereas those who were hired in 2000 when the stock price was $77 have no profits at all.} </p>
<p>Many of the old-timers at Cisco complained loudly that the new hires were getting options that were more valuable than theirs (because of the lower strike price). In response, CEO John Chambers famously remarked that those old-timers were free to quit and then see if Cisco would hire them back. The implication is if they did get hired back, they too would get low-strike options. But of course, Cisco might not hire them back at all. </p>
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<p>Of course it is a big ‘if’. </p>
<p>But like I said, Yahoo doesn’t need to grow. They can just be acquired. That almost happened just a few months ago, and many people still suspect it will happen. If/when Yahoo is acquired, the stock price will pop, which will mean instant riches for those employees with low-strike options. </p>
<p>But in any case, this is a side-issue. My point is not to talk about the benefits of working for Yahoo. </p>
<p>I am simply saying that I find it bizarre that engineering companies don’t treat their top recruits better, such that they often times prefer to work in non-engineering jobs (i.e. consulting or banking). For example, if Yahoo is really in such a financial crisis, how exactly do they have the money to afford to hire Bain? (Or, even more bizarrely, how exactly is GM still able to afford to hire McKinsey?) If you have that kind of money, then why not simply use it to create an internal consulting task force out of your best people? Or simply recruit those people right out of college? </p>
<p>For example, right now there are people who will graduate from top engineering schools like MIT or Stanford and will take jobs at Bain or other consulting firms. Why doesn’t Yahoo (or GM) just step in and hire these guys directly to become internal consultants? They can say ‘Whatever Bain is paying you, I’ll double it. Heck, I’ll triple it. I will also give you full access to top management and all of the perks that Bain is providing.’ Why not? It would still be cheaper than paying for Bain, because consulting firms charge very high fees. Furthermore, if you need an experienced Bain project manager, then just raid them from Bain, by, again, offering double or triple whatever they are getting paid by Bain right now. Again, why not? It would still be cheaper than paying for Bain. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, you’re going to be paying these people anyway, whether it’s directly through these doubled/tripled salaries or indirectly through the fees you pay to Bain. One way or another, you will be paying these people. Since you’re paying them anyway, why not hire them directly? </p>
<p>Nevertheless, at the end of the day, for whatever reason, companies still refuse to do this. Hence, that is why the top students like MIT engineering student Nicholas Pearce prefer to take jobs as consultants rather than engineers. I find it noteworthy that so many of the best engineering students don’t actually want to work as engineers, and the problem seems to be one that aibarr and others have noted - that many engineering jobs are simply not very good.</p>
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<p>I don’t know if pay is necessarily the best metric to describe success. Success is more than just money.</p>
<p>But let me put it to you this way. With the election of Barack Obama, we are now going to have 32 consecutive years (1981-2013) where either the President or Vice President is an alumni of either Harvard or Yale, and during some of those years (i.e the Clinton Administration), both the Pres and VP were alumni of Harvard or Yale, and during other years (the GWB administration), the President himself was an alumni of both Harvard and Yale. That is a tremendously telling fact when you think about it. There are thousands upon thousands of colleges in the country, the vast vast majority of which have never been represented in the White House, yet a handful of schools crop up over and over again. </p>
<p>That also demonstrates the limitations of just using money as a metric. Anybody who can become President or VP could have made far more money doing other things. But they obviously weren’t interested in that. They were more interested in changing the world.</p>
<p>Attending a top school provides you with an advantage in terms of pursuing success, whatever your definition of success is. Granted, that’s not to say that you can’t be successful if you don’t go to a top school. Obviously many people are. But we also live in a competitive world where you can’t always get the job you want because other people will want it too. Hence, every little advantage helps.</p>
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<p>People who get into MIT will turn it down because of the learning atmosphwere, and instead choose Caltech? Uh, really? </p>
<p>Look, don’t get me wrong. I am not taking a shot at Caltech. Not at all. My brother did exactly what you said - he got into MIT and turned it down for Caltech. Yet he also freely admits that many of the Caltech professors are absolutely terrible teachers. Terrible. Nor is he the only one. The Princeton Review has consistently ranked Caltech as having among the worst teachers in the country. In fact, this year (and I think in many other years), they were ranked #1 in terms of the worst teachers. So, why did he choose Caltech over MIT. Well, for him, the answer is simple. Caltech offered him a full merit ride. </p>
<p>To be sure, there are other reasons to choose Caltech over MIT. Caltech offers a far smaller environment. It clearly has better weather. It may arguably offer an even more intense quantitative education than MIT does (although that is a matter of debate). Some of the programs, notably physics and Earth sciences, may actually be better at Caltech. </p>
<p>But, at the end of the day, Caltech’s yield is relatively low (for a top school), something around 30-40%. That means that most (60-70% of) people who are admitted to Caltech will choose to go elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Arguably, those who care about stock options can just buy Yahoo! stock on the open market and wait for it to pop.</p>
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<p>Same applies here as above. The old-timers could’ve bought Cisco stock on the cheap after the bubble burst.</p>
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<p>Yahoo! is not in a financial crisis. It’s in a valuation crisis (because its profitability is not as good as its rival, Google). Arguably, they have the money to hire consultants (whether this is or isn’t a good thing is debatable, but in this particular case, I don’t think it matters much either way, for reasons I’ve explained earlier). OTOH, GM is in a financial crisis. But they are not a “new breed” engineering company (unlike Google). I’m just speculating here, since I have little knowledge of GM’s engineering culture, but my guess is that there isn’t much precedent for “bottom-up” approaches such as you’d find at places like Google.</p>
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<p>Well, I for one do not tout engineering as some sort of superior career choice. I think it makes perfect sense for people to pursue other careers, such as consulting, if they are concerned about money and feel those careers pay better.</p>
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<p>Hey, don’t drag me into this. Engineering’s not special; there are plenty of crappy jobs in every field.</p>
<p>I guess the argument is if you’re good enough to get a crappy engineering job then you’re good enough to get a non-crappy non-engineering job. Maybe something in finance or IB. :p</p>