What’s going on, y’all. The email below is from a very young professional who has hopes of getting a top MBA one day and is deciding between whether to stay at his current job or transition to a gig at a boutique management consulting firm. This is a tough one for me to give advice on, so I’ve tried to frame it out in terms of waht he might get from both options in hopes that he’ll make a choice based on what his plans and aspirations are. Whew, my readers sure do give me some tough issues to tackle…

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SM wrote:

“Sir,

I am Sidd. Working as a field engineer for Halliburton. I am 23 and want to pursue MBA from the best bschool possible.

I have just got an offer from a boutique management consultancy firm based in NY.
1>This firm has 15 people rite now. And is operational since 2004.
2> It specializes in Reengineering, Market research and rewards/Loyalities.

I always dreamed of working for a consultancy but here I am stuck with the dilemma of “oil and gas” v/s “consulting” , brand name Halliburton v/s boutique consultancy and established firm v/s a start up.

I am planning to pursue MBA from the best Bschool in US . Suggest me which path should i choose in order to fulfil my dreams.

I am really confused.

waiting for your suggestion,
SM”

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My response:

SM,

Thanks for checking out my blog and thinking of me as someone you could approach for career advice…it really means a lot to me that my words might prove helpful to you. You’ve asked me a pretty specific question and I’m worried about telling you what to do (because this is truly a decision you’ve got to make for yourself), so I’ll respond in a different way than you might have been expecting. I’ll start off by laying out some decision metrics for you to consider for each option and then I’ll tell you what I’d do if I were in your shoes. That way, I’m not telling you what to do but am giving you a high-level framework to use to think through the situation. Sound good? OK, let’s roll with it…

First, let’s lay out some of the decision criteria that I would use to compare the options:

- Work environment –> I don’t know anything about the work environment at Haliburton or the boutique consultancy, but this is a VERY important comparison for you to make. You’ll want to think about overall corporate culture, internal beauracracy, lifestyle, and connections between managament employees among several other factors to figure outwhich work environment would work best for you. I’d guess that your current employer has an environment indicative of a huge corporation, including strong hierarchy, somewhat standard culture, and stable lifestyle, while the boutique consultancy would have a more fluid, hard-charging, “us against the world” work environment that one would expect to find in a start-up.

- The work experiences that you’d get –> As you think about the job options, you’ll want to think about the nature of the experiences you’ll get in each and how they’ll feed into your future career goals. If your long-term goal is to spend your career in Consulting, the boutqiue consultancy could be a great way to start along that path. Also, because the boutique is a start-up, you could end up doing way more than the standard consultant at your career level, including business development, event planning/management, high level client management, etc. If you think you’ll eventually move back into the Petroleum industry, then staying at your current employer might be the preferred option. One key point to remember is that what you do prior to B-school doesn’t dictate what you can do once you graduate. I have tons of friends who started off in non-business paths (including petroleum engineering, teaching, government, non-profit, hospitality, and technology) and ended up in more traditional business roles after business school, including Consulting, Finance (banking, investment management, etc), Business Development, and General Management.

- The coaching/mentoring that you’d receive –> On-the-job coaching and mentoring is a factor that many candidates overlook when considering their options, but I can’t say enough about their importance, especially early in one’s career. You should find out whether coaching and mentorship are built into the work processes and corporate culture of each company and, if so, try to get a read on how much effort people at each firm put into it. Some might argue that coaching isn’t that important, but, at age 23, you want to make sure you’re around people who are giving you the advce and career guidance that you’ll need as you move forward into and out of B-school. I’ll offer myself as an example…I can’t front…I was a bit of a knucklehead when I got to Stanford GSB, but that was due to the fact that I was pluggin’ away at code for years beforehand and never had to learn how to conduct myself in a traditional business environment (man, I have to laugh sometimes when I think about how I was back then). If it weren’t for some very timely coaching from my GSB classmates and folks that I’ve worked with, I don’t know if I would have ever developed the professional “home training” that allows me to hold it down in client situations. And, in turn, I’ve become a damn near best practice coach to folks I work with at my employer now (Trust me…I’m the bizness when it comes to providing great coaching). In other words, don’t underestimate the value of quality coaching in a job situation and make it something you consider when thinking through your decision here.

- Company reputation –> This is a pretty basic issue, but it should be considered as you look at the future. Your current employer has a huge brand and would need no explanation as you move forward in your career and B-school applications. Your other option would be a company that most people would not have heard of, which isn’t terrible in itself, but presents some challenges. Prior to business school, I’d worked for companies that no one had ever heard of and it made me anxious as I put together my B-school applications and resumes for the recruiting cycles. It wasn’t a catastrophic situation because I turned out OK, but I swear I was buggin’ out over it something serious a few years ago. Don’t take this as me saying that you HAVE to have big names in your work background to get into a good B-school or get a good post-MBA job (because that’s not the case), but you might want to think through all of the possible implications of it.

- Your expected ‘runway’ toward business school –> This is a point that you may not have considered up to now, but you should think hard about it as you decide which path to take here. If you choose to move on to the consulting firm, you’ll be moving into a situation where you’re one of the first 20 employees and, as such, you’d be presented with a lot of responsibility and likely be entering a very strong culture. These are both usually good things, but they may lead you to stay there for several years to contribute to the growth of the company. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you should ask yourself if this is what you’re looking for. On the other hand, I imagine that your current employer has tons of people go in and out all the time and wouldn’t even blink if you left for business school.

So, what would I do if I were in your shoes?…I’d probably be focused on getting into business school as soon as possible (within the next 1-2 years) and, as such, would stay at Haliburton instead of moving on to the boutique consultancy. I’m not sure how long you’ve been at your company, but, at the age of 23, I’ll assume that you’ve been there for around a year. With this in mind, I would be thinking about how to best leverage my time there to build the best B-school application possible within the next year or two. I’d put in work on my own to build knowledge relevant to my Field Engineer role and push my work performance to its peak. At the same time, I’d be trying to build relationships with my managers and peers to both make them allies and convince them that I’m one of the high performers among my peer group. Doing this would serve the dual purpose of developing a pool of folks who could rave about me in B-school recommendations and positioning myself for access to prime assignments that could be the basis for some great B-school essays. Overall, I’d be trying to take advantage what’s around me now to ‘knock it out of the park’ on my B-school applications as soon as possible.

One of your prime concerns seems to be the potential downside of sticking with “oil and gas” instead of moving into “consulting”, but I’d see that “oil and gas” focus as an opportunity to develop expertise in an area that might make me attractive to firms after business school. So, I’d position myself as an “oil and gas” guy who went to business school to get a more comprehensive view of business, but sees that industry expertise as a part of the value that I could offer to a consulting firm, especially one that significant work in that area. Basically, I see staying with the current employer is the optimal choice because it potentially gets me to the short-term goal of a top MBA sooner and also helps with the longer-term goal of moving into consulting and adding value to clients….but that’s just how I see it. Between now and whenever I’d leave for B-school, I would take advantage of whatever leadership training, management coaching, and other development opportunities available to get the most out of being there. Haliburton is a huge corporation, so those opportunities should be plentiful and (hopefully) very enriching.

The boutique consultancy could offer a fantastic learning opportunity, but I’d wonder if I would need to stay there longer prior to applying to business school to extract maximum value from it. Also, because it is so early in its operation, I’d wonder if there would be some ‘golden handcuffs’ that could be offered at some point to discourage me from applying to a top business school. Further, with it being such a small firm, I’d be curious about how it would be perceived within the company when the time would come for me to apply to B-school…Would I be supported in that endeavor or would it be looked down upon and make it difficult for me to get recommendations from people there? Finally, you didn’t tell me anything about the culture and work environment at the boutique consulting firm, both of which are HUGE factors in making this sort of decision and are big ‘question marks’ as I think through whether to make this transition. Given my short runway to B-school, the boutique consultancy presents so many unknowns that I’d stick with the more “sure thing” option of staying in my current job. Plus, if the end goal is to attend a top B-school, consulting would always be a post-MBA option for me, so I wouldn’t feel as bad for not jumping into a consulting gig right now. Remember, what I’ve laid out here is what I would do, but, in the end, you’ve got to make this decision for yourself based on your own preferences, plans for the future, and risk tolerance.

That’s about all I’ve got for you in terms of advice. It may not have been the explicit set of instructions that you were seeking, but I hope it is helpful in framing out your options. Take care and good luck with your career path choices.

-Marquis