By the way, you’ll notice from my response that this is was an email that fell through the cracks in my inbox and didn’t get a response for a LONG time. I never heard back from the reader, so I’m not even 100% sure that he saw my reply. I hate when I leave people hanging like that, so, if you write to me and the same thing happens to you, please accept my apologies in advance.
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JA wrote:
Hello, I have a question about the decision for management consultants to pursue an MBA.
I currently work at a top-tier management consulting firm in Australia, where I have been closely involved on cross-functional, CEO-agenda cases in a variety of industries whilst working with teammates of very diverse backgrounds. Previous to this I attended a top undergraduate business school in North America. Most of our courses at this program often overlapped with the courses of MBA students.
In terms of career objectives, three-to-four years down the road I would like to hold a managerial position in the corporate planning and strategic function of a corporation or I would alternatively like to pursue a senior-level position in a start- up, perhaps a chief-of-staff to the CEO. Given my career objectives and my level of professional experience thus far, why would you recommend an MBA? Or, to phrase it differently, how would an MBA be more valuable than continuing my career progression in consulting?
Many management consultants take this course of action, but I have yet to come across an answer compelling enough to make me want to devote two years to further education – many of which in fields I have already studied / experienced in consulting and my undergrad. However, I still have faith an MBA, particularly an MBA from Stanford, will be a transformational experience. But I would like your insight into specifically how I will transform and how I will be better off (financially, skills-wise, etc.) versus continuing my career in consulting.
I contacted Stanford directed with this question and they replied saying “When making difficult decisions like this towards a possible future MBA with the Stanford GSB, the decision is ultimately up to you. We cannot provide specific one-on-one guidance regarding decisions around an applicant’s pre-MBA career. I would suggest reviewing the information provided on our website in order to find out more about the Stanford MBA Program.”
As you can see, this wasn’t very helpful… but please can you provide some guidance.
Thank you!
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My response:
JA,
I hope this message finds you well. I have a feeling that you may not remember sending the email below because you sent it so long ago. I would like to start by apologizing for the tardiness of my reply.
As you can imagine, I receive a lot of emails and, sometimes, messages can get lost in the shuffle. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to yours and I was mortified when I was going through some archived messages and saw yours from early 2012. I admit that I’ve sometimes taken a long time to get back to folks, but 2+ years is a terrible record for me. I really do apologize for taking so long. This is definitely not the way that I like to handle things when people have taken the time to write to me.
By now, my thoughts/comments likely won’t be useful to you anymore, but, since your question is an interesting one, I wanted to take the time to provide a response on the off chance that there might still be some relevance. To restate the central question of your email, you’re looking for my perspective on why it would be worth it to pursue an MBA instead of simply moving forward with your career in consulting, right? This is something that I’ve been asked a few times in person, so I definitely have some thoughts on it.
Here are a top-of-mind thoughts that come to mind when I think about whether an MBA would be useful for someone with a background like yours:
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- When one pursues an MBA, a key value-add is the actual education, but the largest benefits go far beyond that. In my view, more important benefits include:
- The alumni network of your school –> If you attend a top MBA program, the alumni network from the MBA program, other graduate programs, and the undergrad program can be a goldmine that will pay dividends for the rest of your career. You say that you went to a top undergrad business program, but why wouldn’t you want to tap into a second killer network along with that? My Princeton network has always been a winner for me, but, when I added the Stanford network to it, my alumni network became absolutely KILLER. In my career, I’ve witnessed several instances where career opportunities can literally appear out of thin air as a result of networking and anyone who aspires to maximize his/her career success should aim to have the strongest network possible. The long-term financial and non-financial benefits that come as a result are worth far more than the $100K+ cost and 2-years worth of pre-MBA salary.
- The community that you join for 2 years –> If you were to ask any alum of a top-tier MBA program about the most impactful part of his/her experience, I’m willing to bet cash money that the answer will usually be “the people”/”my classmates”/”the community”. There are a lot of ways to look at this, but, in my mind, it’s pretty simple. When you go to college, you end up meeting some great folks who will do some tremendous things, but you’re also meeting those people between the ages of 17/18 and 21/22. In other words, you’re meeting those people while they’re figuring out who they will become and still have lots of growing and developing to do. In an MBA program, you’re meeting people between the ages of 26/27 and 31/32…or, in other words, you’re meeting folks when they ARE the people that they will be and are poised to kick off the rest of their lives. There are some big time differences in the types of relationships that you’ll build and the nature of the bonds that are formed in business school. The classmates that you’d have around you will push you, support you, develop you, and have a whole lot of fun with you while you’re all immersed in something that is truly unique to the people in your specific class. It’s difficult to articulate how important this sort of thing is unless you’ve gone through it, but trust me when I say that it is one of the most life-changing things that a business professional can experience.
- Signaling to the market –> Earning an MBA from a top program is a huge signal that you’re one of the best of the best in the business game. Think of the admissions process at each school as a big filtering mechanism for aspiring business leaders. As you can imagine, the top MBA programs receive thousands of applications each year and, in order to fill each class, they have to apply rigorous standards to ensure that they end up with the strongest collection of students possible. In addition, with a few exceptions (due to financial aid, personal preferences, etc.), MBA aspirants pretty much end up in the best schools into which they are able to gain admission. So, if you look at the Stanford MBA program as an example, the admissions rate is usually somewhere in the 7%-8% range, which makes it the most selective program in the world. As such, kids who end up earning MBAs from Stanford made it through the most stringent filtering process in the MBA world. When people in the business world look at those Stanford MBAs later, there is a certain assumption of qualifications, ability, and business understanding/foundation that is assigned to those graduates. I’m not just saying that because I’m one of those alums…it’s simply the truth. The same thing applies for other top programs like HBS, Wharton, Kellogg, Booth, etc. That signaling is real and it can be a huge equalizer at several different stages in one’s career.
- The alumni network of your school –> If you attend a top MBA program, the alumni network from the MBA program, other graduate programs, and the undergrad program can be a goldmine that will pay dividends for the rest of your career. You say that you went to a top undergrad business program, but why wouldn’t you want to tap into a second killer network along with that? My Princeton network has always been a winner for me, but, when I added the Stanford network to it, my alumni network became absolutely KILLER. In my career, I’ve witnessed several instances where career opportunities can literally appear out of thin air as a result of networking and anyone who aspires to maximize his/her career success should aim to have the strongest network possible. The long-term financial and non-financial benefits that come as a result are worth far more than the $100K+ cost and 2-years worth of pre-MBA salary.
- While your undergraduate business school curriculum may overlap with MBA coursework, I am positive that you could still gain educational benefits from the elective courses in an MBA program. Of course, you will have seen courses like Accounting, Statistics, and Economics before, but what about higher-level courses in Competitive Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Global Management, or Sales Strategy. I had several Stanford classmates who’d completed undergrad business programs and what I learned from them is that the “secret sauce” of an MBA curriculum is the elective coursework. The MBA Core is mainly there for people like me who’ve never learned about business before, but, for folks like you, there’s the option of taking advanced/turbo Core courses or testing out of them altogether. The key for you will be those higher-level classes that dive deeper into business concepts than your undergrad professors likely did back in the day. Don’t underestimate the potential benefit from those opportunities.
- For people who become Management Consultants right out of undergrad, an MBA isn’t exactly NEEDED, but it is incredibly HELPFUL. If one is fortunate enough to end up at a top-tier consulting firm, he/she will receive world class training on business concepts, problem solving, people management/leadership, and structured communication. This is something that I’d argue is unique to folks who go into management consulting versus other post-undergrad career paths because the firms need to reinforce that sort of foundation early on to gain maximum utility from folks at the Analyst level.
When it comes to the basics of business, it could be argued that 2-4 years at a top-tier firm is equivalent to the MBA Core curriculum. But, this is where my point above about the elective courses in an MBA program comes into play. Those elective courses can be really helpful in rounding out a person’s business acumen and helping him/her develop expertise/specialization in a given topic (e.g., marketing, sales, operations, organizational leadership). Of course, that “rounding out” can happen through on-the-job situations in consulting, but, in those cases, the stakes are super high because potentially millions of dollars (and one’s career trajectory) are at stake. Business school is a place to gain that development in a safe and supportive environment prior to re-entering the business world and putting those learnings into action. Very, very helpful indeed.
Note: When I say “top-tier consulting firm”, I really do mean “TOP-TIER” (I have a feeling that you’ll understand what I’m getting at here — M/B/B and a couple of the firms that are seen as being possibly a step behind them). Going to some small boutique consulting firm where the kinds of standardized training programs aren’t provided and where the level of work and problems being solved aren’t killing it, wouldn’t be a suitable substitute for an MBA. Not making a judgment here…just expressing something that I’ve seen several times over in my career.
- If you aspire to remain in Australia for the remainder of your career, your current background may be enough to allow you to move upward and distinguish yourself in your career. If you would like to work in other countries, an MBA will be a useful differentiator.
Let’s think in terms of competition for the kinds of roles that you’ll want when you’re 30-, 35-, or 40-years old. You might have a stellar background and collection of experiences that will make you a killer candidate by then. Awesome. But, what about the tens of thousands of other people out there who also have stellar backgrounds and collections of killer experiences but who also have MBAs from top programs? In some cases, you may have an equal chance at a given role as those other folks regardless of whether you have any MBA or not, but, as more and more people pursue MBAs, the degree may become almost necessary to have in order to be considered for certain roles in some industries.
It would be silly of me if I didn’t acknowledge that there are many, many successful business leaders out there without MBA degrees. I’m not saying that having one is necessary. I’m just saying that a top MBA is a great way to make one’s self stand out as a candidate and, given the relatively low financial and opportunity costs to pursue one, I don’t see why doing so wouldn’t be in an aspiring business leader’s opportunity set.
- When it comes to getting an MBA, unless someone else is paying for it, it only makes sense to do so if you’re getting it from a top-tier global program. And, in most cases, even if someone else is paying for it, the longer-term benefits to earning an MBA from a lower-tier/unranked/unknown, regional, online, and/or unaccredited program just aren’t there. I’ve given this advice to people several times over the years and it has always proven to be true.
If it comes down to getting an MBA from a program that won’t get you any run or not going to business school at all, someone with a background like yours would be better off skipping business school. With a degree from a top undergrad business school and experience from a top consulting firm, you’d be doing damage to your professional profile if you aimed below the top-tier for an MBA. It’s worth neither the cost nor the risk to your career to make that kind of move.
I’m sure that you already know this though…
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I hope that my comments above have been helpful, even if they’re somewhat tardy in getting to you. When it comes to taking the MBA plunge, it certainly makes sense to think through all of the pros and cons before making a final decision. I commend you on your thought process.
Take care and have a great evening. Again, I apologize for taking so long to respond to your message.
Marquis
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