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I think that is true for a large number of firms, but not for ours. At the risk of allowing you to guess my former employer (and please don't try), they used to be a very big name, right up there with McK, BCG & Bain, and shut their doors after poor cashflow management in 2001. They're now reconstituted with many of the original key partners, and have pretty amazing profitability. Several students at HBS, CBS, Wharton, etc accepted our offer because, as a small firm, it's clear that they can make partner in only a couple of years, and achieve "Fah-Q" money much faster than the stately progression at a Booz Allen. Our firm offers a more attractive risk/reward profile. So while your characterization may be partly true, I don't think it's completely true - we still have a decent selling point and aren't merely picking up leftovers
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<p>Hey, I'm not saying that you don't have opportunities that can interest some people. I'm sure you do have them.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that there are plenty of people who will choose to ONLY interview at the very top consulting firms. It could be that they're looking just for prestige, it could be that they have another strong competing offer on the table (i.e. Ibanking or similar finance job, or maybe with Google), it could be for a variety of reasons. Going back to the example of LFM - I know quite a few people at LFM who said that the only consulting firm they will interview with is McKinsey, as that is the only one they will consider working for, and if they can't get the offer, they'll take a job with one of the LFM partners (which is incidentally why the partner companies have such ire for McKinsey). Similarly at HBS, I know quite a few people who came from Ibanking who said that they would consider working for consulting, but only for one of the very top consulting firms, otherwise they'll just go back to their former banking employer. </p>
<p>So you have the problem of many people not even bothering to apply with your firm because they already know they don't want to work there. </p>
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The question is, how to get the most out of your MBA. And for most people, the biggest boost to their careers comes from using it as a stepping-stone in their previous industry, typically consulting or finance. I'm not just saying that it's "helpful", but that it is a major determinant in the value question of whether to get your MBA or not. </p>
<p>I think a lot of posters on this forum assume that, if you can, by hook or by crook, gain admission to a top MBA school, everything is all roses from that point forward. My whole point with my post is that, aside from the superstars who can get in without work exp after college, the value you get from getting your MBA increases with a few more years' experience. And furthermore, the closer you can get to your target industry with those years' experience, the better odds you will have of making it into that industry.
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<p>Actually, I would say that the relevant question is not really how to get the most out of your MBA, but rather how to get the most * out of your career as a whole *. And the simple fact is, a large chunk (in fact, almost certainly the majority) of people who are geting top MBA's are using it to change careers. As a case in point, at all of the top schools, anywhere from 25-40% of the entering class consists of former engineers (and in LFM, it's close to 100%). Yet I think we can all agree that practically nobody is going to get a top MBA and then go back to being an engineer, and many aren't even going to go back to the same industry as tech managers. Instead, many of them head off to consulting or banking. Similarly, you have plenty of other people who are switching from consulting to banking or vice versa. </p>
<p>I can tell you that of the roughly 20 or so Sloan MBA's who will head off to McKinsey this year, at most a third of them have actual prior full-time consulting experience. A big chunk of them are former investment bankers/investment managers. Another big chunk of them are LFM graduates (who count as Sloan graduates because they are getting Sloan MBA's), none of whom from this year's LFM graduating class have any prior consulting experience whatsoever (not even a summer internship).</p>
<p>The bottom line is this. Nobody disputes that prior experience in your target industry is valuable. The question is, how much value, and specifically, is it really worth it for you to delay getting an elite MBA to get that experience. The truth is, most cases, it probably isn't valuable enough to delay getting that elite MBA (if you can get in). I said it before, I'll say it again - most of the kinds of jobs that people can get right out of undergrad are, frankly, not that good. You don't get to see that much, you don't get to learn that much.</p>