four offers - need help - time sensitive
Hello All:
I just graduated from a Top 5 MBA. I am blessed with offers from four different companies. I would like to have your insight on the situation to chose one of them. I would really really appreciate your help in this regard.
My current offers and the details as below:
-
Details of First offer:
Company: Come back to join my company at which I worked before my MBA (a Fortune 700)
Location: SouthWest
Type of Position: Manager, Corp Strategy
Report to: VP, Corp Strategy
Duties of Role: Identify organic and inorganic opportunities for the company. Help in preparing for board of director meetings, build dashboards for sr. mgmt, research markets for new growth opportunities; Not sure if there will be growth...Dont want to be pigeon holed into some lame strategic planning stuff... Not sure if this position will directly lend into opportunities in BUs (like in Business development & stuff like that) but can happen... -
Details of Second offer:
Company: A micro Cap company (An IPO) - been in business for a 10/15 years
Location: Mid North - Close to South Dakota
Type of Position: Associate, Corp Dev
Report to: Company's CEO
Duties of Role: Lots of M&A; Identify organic and inorganic opportunities for the company. The CEO is looking for someone who can do both strategy & corp dev (financial modeling) work. She is willing to groom this hire to later manage the group and later to manage one of the business units of the company. The CEO is looking for a strategic hire to later grow this person to some executive level position. Only thing - company too small, have been running their accounts on excel and they aint high tech or top finance...So while everything looks great, there are some concerns such as will company stick around or what next if i get kicked out - kind of questions. I mean while this position will groom me to become a well rounded executive of a small business, can i later join back the fortune 500s or big banks? Most of these big organizations look for specialists and narrowed resumes but what all i get from this experience is much broad based and something i could someday use to manage my own business or be a ceo/coo for some entrapreneurial or small business.
can i use this experience to join a corp dev position later in some Fortune 100? Would anyone respect a corp dev experience from a micro cap? -
Details of Third offer:
Company: Large Investments company in South West
Type of Position: Director, Analytics
Report to: VP
Duties of Role: Identify fraud in investment markets using rigorous analytics; Heavily analytical and technical. -
Details of Forth offer:
Company: Large Investments - Fortune 500 in North East
Type of Position: First Vice President, Analytics (like Sr. Director)
Report to: VP
Duties of Role: Implement marketing strategy set by the CMO using rigorous analytics; Heavily managerial work - work with analytical and technical people but have some marketing strategy work.
I got like 10 years of Analytical experience with a PhD in Molecular Bio/statistics from a Southwestern university.
Which of the above options sounds awesome? If you were in my shoes, which one would you pick & why?
Any insights would be greatly appreciated....time is ticking and i gotta make a decision pretty quick.
3/4 seems like the same stuff you were doing before, no? Seems like you put them in the order of your preference, so you've already answered your question. #1!!!!
I guess it all comes down to how do you feel about going to the company you came from and whether you enjoyed the people/culture. If not then take some chances and go with #2. Then again, I don't know how capable are you to take risks at this point in your career? I.e. do you have a family to support, etc.?
Nope, I didn't order the offers in any specific order. I do have a family to support. The issue with #2 or for that matter any Corp Strat position as I see is that these guys don't have a huge growth opportunity in the company compared to guys who come from Business units (who do Business dev) or marketing/sales.
What I mean is most corp strat or corp dev are former bankers or mgmt consultants. While you have the associate-manager-vp opportunity within the group to grow, after that level, the chances to grow pretty much cap out unless you figure out a way to enter BUs in leading them in business dev or stuff like that. But when it comes to recruiting Bus development, most senior leaders want people who already have done that and have strong exposure to the businesses. I have seen many corp strat people who have high exposure to senior execs but not being able to convert that exposure to high positions in business. May be this is just my experience....Also, to be honest, corp strat people while talk a lot about high level strat, not much gets implemented because finally its all upto people who bring in revenue - which is usually the BUs. So even though you are part of a company, you still are an internal consultant who dont have much impact except that you get exposed to executive leaders and have lunches/dinners.
Also, god forbid something happens to company and you get laid off, finding a job back in corp strat/dev is a pain in the butt because of the huge competition you face from bankers/consultants and other corp strat people. Way more demand than supply.
My two cents: #2 if you're willing to take risk, #4 if you aren't.
2 sounds pretty interesting. And just by the detail you went into it...it seems thats the one you are secretly cheering for hahaha...best of luck to you!
4. At first I though #2 was nice.....until I saw "close to South Dakota." It's a job I get it, but unless you're an oil rig worker in the freezing cold, you shouldn't be doing finance near South Dakota.
Thanks all for your wonderful comments. You have all got silver bananas for your replies :)
Disclaimer: The places, offer details are changed to respect the confidentiality of the employers but in essence the above details provide a pretty good picture.
tough to say, what was your work experience before b-school, and what do you want to do in the future?
Experience before B-school - mostly Marketing; Heavily quantitative modeling; After B-School - wanted to get the position that pays the most; i'm not wedded to any profession, have a can do attittude; Actually have an MBA from top 5 school with specialization in Banking/Corp Finance; I'm a CFA candidate; So applied to Banking, Consulting, Marketing, Corp dev/strat roles; Decided i cant do consulting due to family situation (was able to get to onsite interviews at McK and the rest but had to withdraw my applications as I couldn't honor their travel commitments)
Most of the interest I got was certainly from marketing folks as I had been there, done that...So more growth opportunities at Sr Dir or VP level positions.
With respect to Corp Strat/Corp Dev, its in manager/associate positions, where i have take a pay cut or no pay increase...And so far in life, it has always been that I was living and hoping for future cash flows and hurting current cash flows. After MBA my approach changed...Future cash flows always come with risk and need to be discounted...So with the uncertain markets, future trends, I'm following more of a greedy approach of taking the best of what I get at this point and this is only for 1 or 2 year and again search for the best available opportunity at that point...
Not sure if my approach is sound, certainly it is more tactical and not strategic (or long term) but to be honest, having been in corp world for so many years and looking at the recent trends & layoffs, i doubt the value of holding off on good opportunities in other non-traditional paths (like marketing, bus dev) and waiting or taking pay cut salaries for some uncertain hopes of making it into banking or corp dev positions...
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