<p>I'll be a senior at a good but not 'elite' State School, ranked around fifty by USNWR. I did pretty well in high school and did very well on my SAT (98 percentile). Despite all this, and going to a school which I naively thought was a good school, it seems that my job prospects are extremely limited. From my own browsing of our job boards and research concerning good jobs like investment banking and management consulting, it seems that since I don't go to a top 15-25 school or the like, I am automatically disqualified from even interviewing for these positions. I understand that the best companies want the best students, but what I have a hard time grasping is the fact that it is such a clear cutoff. For example, a 20th ranked school may have excellent recruiting from all the good bulge brackets and big consulting firms, yet a 35th ranked school may have none at all. It seems so arbitrary, but in reality it has a huge impact on your future earning potential and perceived success and prestige. Is the difference between a top 25 school and a top 50 school so different that it warrants such differences in recruiting? It just seems odd to me, and extremely demoralizing. I could have gone to a crappy school after goofing off in high school and got the same job I will get now, having worked hard to get into a, at least rankings wise, better school. It is very all-or-nothing, it honestly it gives me no reason to work any harder or even try to excel at my disgrace of a school. Is this really how it is?</p>
<p>There are many, many types of “good jobs” that are not with the top 3 management consulting companies or in IB. Somehow people get it in their heads that those are the only jobs worth having in the world and the only way you can make a decent living. Stop thinking that right now, it is insane and stupid. </p>
<p>What have you done for the past two summers? Have you hunted down internships and built some experience that will be valuable to employers? Those are big stepping stones to good jobs after college no matter where you went to school. It is late now if you haven’t done that, but for other readers who are thinking about this issue, you have to get out there and hunt early and hard to land good internships to build skills that employers want later. What degree have you gotten? Have you looked into a double major or extra certifications that could make you more employable? Have you been to your college career center for help with your resume and interviewing practice sessions? </p>
<p>Browsing job boards for IB jobs isn’t job hunting (it is like looking at Victoria Secret catalogs or $100,000 cars). Building skills via internships, and working hard on your resume and interviewing skills and aggressively searching for jobs are tickets to getting a good job.</p>
<p>I’m in mechanical engineering and have had internships at the NIH, and at a large engineering company. The problem is because of my bad pedigree, I had no opportunity or even exposure to good internships for finance or consulting, and without those internships, I have little hope at landing a full time job with a respectable salary. You can talk all you want about there being other good jobs but honestly, no one is impressed with starting at 65k a year and topping out at around 150k after 40 hard years. My parents did it, their parents did it, and I know that it is not what I want. I would have no motivation in such an environment where my entire career potential and progression is planned out no matter how hard I work or how much value I bring to a company.</p>
<p>You are a mechanical engineering major… you aren’t going to get hired out of undergrad into IB or the top management consulting firms no matter what school you went to. You poor baby, to start at $65K a year. Wow. You come off as sounding very entitled. </p>
<p>If you want to make a lot of money, get a few years of work experience, then go start your own company. Warren Buffet is rich beyond your wildest dreams, and he did not go to a top school. If you want to be paid for your value, then go create it yourself (something IB and MMB employees DON’T do, by the way). Take a few business classes so you know something about marketing, accounting, finance, and business law. And build your own company. You don’t have to work for someone else your whole life. Stop whining.</p>
<p>Wow, if you knew anything about the industry you would know that investment banks and management consulting firms recruit engineering majors from top universities all the time, arguably more so than most other majors (except finance). Also, Warren Buffet went to Colombia, which is a very highly ranked, ivy league school. And yes, I am whining about making a measly salary after four years of hard work which will only go up by small predetermined increments.</p>
<p>Mechanical engineering graduates do typically make good pay at graduation.</p>
<p>Looks like you are idolizing investment banking and consulting. Read this article about the lifestyle of investment bankers: <a href=“Warning: Banking May Be Hazardous to Your Health - WSJ”>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204062704577223623824944472</a> . For consulting, you may be spending a lot of time in airplanes, airports, and hotels. You may travel to interesting places, but not have time to experience anything other than airports, hotels, and the customer’s office.</p>
<p>So first of all, you would be very lucky to start out at $65k a year straight out of college. Second of all, the top 3 consulting firms start out somewhere around $70-75k a year, obviously in the same ballpark as your arbitrary “65k” number. Bulge bracket I-banking companies will start you out much better than that (assuming you perform well, you will be looking at six figures to start), though there you’ll wind up working insane hours.</p>
<p>Secondly, your starting salary is not really a great indicator of where you will be after - a top performer may take a “low” salary, but as said top performer’s early career progresses, he’ll see salary increases that eventually match his value. The more skilled you are and the better you are at identifying opportunities, the more value you will bring to your company; the more value you bring to your company, the more leverage you will have in salary negotiations. And from there, if you are a top performer, you will be sought after by other companies, setting you up with options - do you develop your career at your current company, or do you make a jump?</p>
<p>Thirdly, you seem to have no idea how top companies work if you a) want to join a top company and b) don’t want your career to be “planned out.” Top tier companies have pretty set paths for their employees from new hire up until the mid-senior levels (we’re talking 10-15 years here) generally following an “up or out” philosophy to employee retention and promotion. If you are looking to make a real mark on a company, you don’t want to work someplace with 100,000 employees worldwide. If you want to have a career more on your terms, start at a small to mid-sized company - once you get your feet wet and learn how the world works, you can develop expertise. Expertise is your ticket to planning your own career.</p>
<p>If you don’t go to a school targeted by one of the top companies and if you have no “in” with those companies, you are probably not going to work there. But what does that matter? You can start out at a smaller, specialized, regional consulting company and do just as well at the end of the day.</p>
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<p>Wow, if you knew anything about the industry you would know that there are kids from non-targets who fight their ways into Wall Street all the time. I’m not going to provide any advice or explanation because judging by your posts on here, you seem to already know oh-so much.</p>
<p>However, I will say this: I strongly encourage that you maintain your holier-than-thou mindset. It’ll keep you far away from those of us who will actually work for the limited BB analyst slots.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
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<p>Warren Buffett started his undergraduate degree at Wharton (Ivy). After two years he transferred back to University of Nebraska and received his undergraduate degree there. He got his MASTERS at Columbia. You want the world on a platter after finishing your bachelor’s. Those firms rarely hire directly out of undergraduate from any college (there is a thread going on over in the Ross/U of Michigan forum right now on this). But, feel free to throw in the towel and expect all your dreams to come true after just 4 years of undergraduate college at the age of 22. More upside potential for everyone else coming out of college, as you don’t have the mindset to be a success from what I can tel.</p>
<p>Also… if the ONLY way you think you could make a lot of money is via IB or the top strategic consulting firms, then you have too little imagination to work in those jobs anyway.</p>
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<p>I pity whomever ends up hiring u</p>
<p>so…you perceive yourself as entitled to being able to just start at the top and coast from there…because you don’t want to have to settle for working for what you define as success (eg., a fat paycheck).</p>
<p>The average family income in the US is not $65,000!</p>
<p>However, I am going to give you a clue. Assuming you are the cream of the crop at what you describe as your crappy school–eg., you have top grades and lots of worthy ECs and leadership involvement, because you took every opportunity available to you, being the whale in a pond of minnows–get 2 to 4 years of solid work experience, and then apply to a top business school and go from there to an IB firm, if that is truly what you want to do.</p>
<p>Two of my nephews are in IB. Their paychecks are indeed very nice. So are their bank accounts, because they never get to spend their paychecks. Eighteen hour days get old fast.</p>
<p>“You can talk all you want about there being other good jobs but honestly, no one is impressed with starting at 65k a year and topping out at around 150k after 40 hard years.”</p>
<p>Most people are lucky if they make more than 65K, not to mention even think about breaking the 100K bracket… If you have that attitude about school and life, it’s hard to imagine you being open to all the opportunities around you. I don’t really understand what a “pedigree” has to do with getting good internships or work experience.</p>
<p>Your career is not “planned out” at all so to speak. You can make choices in your company or at any other company. One of those is to work hard. If you have no motivation to do so, then I’m not really sure what to say to that but good luck. I’m trying not to come off as harsh, but it’s hard not to when you have a skewed view of how the job market works.</p>
<p>Firstly, I never said you can’t get to wall street coming from a non-target, but it is much, much more difficult to do so. Also, from what I can tell, there is no advantage in going to a top 50 school versus any other school, as long as I-Banks don’t recruit from either. My point was either you make the arbitrary cut or you don’t, and no one has offered any evidence to refute that. </p>
<p>To the people saying that IB and consulting (and medical and biglaw) are not the only ways to big money, I would say you are incorrect in the vast majority of cases. Sure you could start a successful startup or entrepreneurial venture, but chances are it will fail and you will be worse off than before. Not trying to be bleak, these are just the facts. And to those saying you can just try to work hard and move up/get raises in a normal company, good luck. I have interned at such places and there is really not much of a difference in pay between an extremely hard working go getter and someone who does just the bare minimum, things are more or less based upon seniority.</p>
<p>My point is, if you don’t get into the ‘right’ school, you will have a very, very difficult if not impossible time getting the right job which will allow you to be financially successful. Like it or not, one’s entire career outlook I have come to find is based upon one’s high school career which will either allow or disallow acceptance into one of the right schools. Sure you can become rich without such a degree, but is it likely? Not at all.</p>
<p>Wherever you go, you will have to prove yourself. Even if your dad is CEO and hires you straight out of school into a Director or VP-level job, you’re still going to have to prove you’ve got the goods.</p>
<p>So – yes, you can. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth: if you are offered a salaried job from a stable company, and it’s enough to pay the bills and pay for a date now and then… take it. You’ll be in a position requiring you to work your tail off, probably… so do the work and show your talent. On one hand, you’ll make a lot of friends and gain respect from people you may one day manage, if you start out in a non-management position. And having the respect and support of associates is important.</p>
<p>Secondly, hard work is not just a means to a promotion; it is also its own benefit. Hard work and adversity, whether you are using your mind or your hands (or both), builds character.</p>
<p>What you’re saying is true. My point is if I ‘prove’ myself at your standard company in an engineering role, I may move up faster, even into management roles, but my salary will still be relatively capped at around 150k. For example, I know an engineer who has been in the business for almost 30 years, does a great job, really likes the work, and you can see the results in the work. Despite all this, he likely makes less now than a 1st year investment banking analyst right out of college. The new kid didn’t have to prove himself in the job, but he is still going to be paid more than the 30 year veteran of the ‘normal’ company, and after years of work the disparity is only going to get greater (i.e. after 15 years the engineer may make 100k, but the investment banker will easily be pushing the 500k mark). I understand your point, and it should apply to the job market in general, I wish it did, but sadly it doesn’t according to salary information.</p>
<p>My grandpa became one of the top civil engineers at Kimberly-Clark. He has a few patents to his name and has quite a travel budget now that he is retired…</p>
<p>He did not start in management. </p>
<p>The “really big” money – assuming you’re not going to become a popular artist or athlete – is at the VP level jobs or above, in some IB jobs or law (if you don’t mind working 90 hours per week), in medicine… and as an entrepreneur/business owner.</p>
<p>If $150,000 is not enough for you, move to South Dakota and make that much (Hehe)… or go into one of the fields listed above.</p>
<p>I bet you’ll find that as long as you are making enough to pay bills without stress, put some money away for kids/yourself and spouse, and have some fun… that being in a job you enjoy, and which allows you to spend time with your friends and family, is far more important than being the richest guy in town.</p>
<p>You do realize how many people wash out of IB after the two year training programs post-college,right? Some go into private equity or other corporate/ consulting jobs… And some don’t .</p>
<p>@Terps93 </p>
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<p>False.</p>
<p>I graduated from a state school with a 2.8 GPA for a BS Computer Science. I was able to graduate with a BS CS with zero educational debt because of my service in the National Guard. Within a month of graduating, I was able to land an offer from only a phone interview for a software engineer position at a defense contractor in Maryland.</p>
<p>I was offered $75,000/year, over 6 weeks of vacation per year, work less than 35 hours per week, health benefits that even God can’t buy. This was in an area where the cost of living was substantially lower than cost of living than NY/CA. When I factored in my military income along with my civilian income, I netted > $90,000 in my first year after college and I was already stacking a military retirement on top of private sector pay. I was not a genius. My parents were not rich or connected.</p>
<p>To put it into perspective, I would not move to NY/CA for a job in finance unless they were guaranteeing $170,000 per year with no more than 40 hours per week for a junior software engineer with no experience. I ended up doing a lot better than my peers with “pedigree” and went into the financial sector. Work less, live better.</p>
<p>@Polo08816 You are one lucky person, to find a job like that is truely rare and although I strongly disagree with the extreme prejudicism of the OP. I think your experience is merely a rare exception to the rule or a great example of how critical interview skills are. I just can’t imagine from a business standpoint what would make you worth that much; higher starting salary than the median of entry-level software engineers, less hours per week of a entry-level software engineer, and a ton of vacation time per year, other than your military background which for a defense contractor very well could have been the turning factor.</p>
<p>@Polo08816 You are one lucky person, to find a job like that is truely rare and although I strongly disagree with the extreme prejudicism of the OP. I think your experience is merely a rare exception to the rule or a great example of how critical interview skills are. I just can’t imagine from a business standpoint what would make you worth that much; higher starting salary than the median of entry-level software engineers, less hours per week of a entry-level software engineer, and a ton of vacation time per year, other than your military background which for a defense contractor very well could have been the turning factor.</p>