Admissions Blog

P&Q: MBAs Switching Careers At Massive Rates

By 27th October 2016 February 3rd, 2018 No Comments

Source: Poets & Quants

by Nathan Allen,
10.26.2016.

mba-deciding

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Rob Schoder arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in July, he boasted a new, shiny MBA from an elite business school and a robust network, but only about a year or two of part-time startup experience. Despite not having much experience in a professional bubble saturated with top talent and obsessed with things like “hacking” and “disrupting,” Schoder certainly wasn’t unemployable.

He had actually turned down multiple offers before graduating from the Chicago Booth School of Business last spring. The former history major turned executive search associate from the Midwest knew what he wanted — an operations role at an early- to mid-stage startup. So Schoder tapped into the network he’d built both within and outside Chicago Booth, spent the first few weeks in San Francisco bouncing from multiple meetings and interviews a day, and within a month landed what he wanted.

Once a recruiter scouring professional networks to find the next CEO, CFO, or board director for Fortune 500 companies, Schoder is now happily eight weeks into an operations gig for a bona fide Bay Area venture capital-backed software startup called Flexport. And his story is not totally uncommon. Using the MBA and a network he pieced together, Schoder did exactly what droves of top-talent young professionals are doing: He completely reinvented his career and jumped industries and functions.

Data released exclusively to Poets&Quants from TransparentMBA, a career platform specifically for MBAs, confirms what many have believed and known to be true for years — the MBA is likely the most powerful career-changing graduate degree on Earth. According to the data, which includes over 1,100 data points largely from recent graduates of the most elite U.S. business schools, 87% of MBAs switch either functions or industries in their jobs directly before and after B-school. Some 69% switch both functions and industries. Individuals using a full-time MBA from an elite B-school to accelerate their current career paths are in the significant minority.

“To me, it confirms what most people expect, which is the full-time MBA is a career-switching platform,” says Kevin Marvinac, co-founder and COO of TransparentMBA, adding a caveat that the data does not include executive or part-time MBA programs. “Chances are, if you are doing the full-time MBA, you are going to switch that career.” Plus, Marvinac notes, switching into higher-paying roles that are more specific to interest areas and functions immediately after an MBA likely leads to what TransparentMBA data previously showed in reporting by Poets&Quants: about an 82% increase in wealth and 58% increase in job happiness.

Notre Dame University's Mendoza School of Business leads the final quartile of the FT's 2018 ranking. This year, 101 schools are ranked due to a tie for 100th place between Copenhagen Business School and the University of Bath
2018 Rank & School2017 RankY-O-Y Change2016 Rank2015 Rank2014 Rank2013 RankFive-Year Trend
77. Notre Dame (Mendoza)60-177689NRNR————
78. IIM-Calcutta9517NRNRNRNR————
78. McGill (Desautels)NR————851008476-2
80. Lisbon70-1040365261-19
81. Babson (Olin)87690739580-1
82. Pittsburgh (Katz)853989780NR————
83. Rochester (Simon)77-686855559-24
84. ConnecticutNR————96NRNRNR————
85. Minnesota (Carlson)883718354NR————
86. Toronto (Rotman)65-2160535146-40
86. Boston (Questrom)82-4717875959
88. ESMT Berlin70-18646389NR————
89. Rutgers70-19NRNRNRNR————
90. Western (Ivey)94488978978-12
91. SMU (Cox)NR————NR76NR987
92. LeedsNR————98NRNRNR————
93. Texas-Dallas (Jindal)93————NRNRNRNR————
94. UCD (Smurfit)70-2479739164-30
94. WHU BeisheimNR————NRNRNRNR————
96. EssecNR————NRNRNRNR————
97. Univ. of San DiegoNR————5966NRNR————
98. Strathclyde80-1863807387-11
99. EMLyonNR————NRNR9592-7
100. CopenhagenNR————NRNRNRNR————
100. Univ. of BathNR————98848472-28

TRANSPARENTMBA DATA CONGRUENT WITH SCHOOL-SPECIFIC DATA

The new data confirms what career services directors at MBA programs have noticed for a while. “When the MBAs are here, the strongest interest is around pivoting or switching,” says Maeve Richard, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Stanford GSB, Richard says, does “informal polling” of their entering MBA students to get a sense of how many want to explore, switch, pivot, or accelerate their careers. Generally, she says, about 80% indicate interest in exploring, switching, or pivoting. “They’ve had about four years of work experience, plus or minus a year or two experience, and they want the MBA to enable them to do something else,” she says.

This year, for the first time, Richard and her team collected similar data for the graduating class of 2016. According to the self-reported data from graduates seeking employment, 56% switched industries, 61% switched functions, 52% switched geographical location, and 44% switched their level of responsibility. Some 83% changed at least two of those four areas — and 45% changed at least three. Both of those figures, of course, fit within the 69% switching both industries and functions reported by TransparentMBA.

At Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Jonathan Masland, director of Career Development, says the broad data is “not surprising” and something Tuck “definitely” sees. “The punchline is, lots of people are switching industries and functions. There is no doubt about that,” Masland says. “That speaks to why people do an MBA and the value of the degree.” Similar to Stanford GSB, Masland and his team also do an informal poll of how many people plan to switch jobs. For the eight years he has been in the role, he says a majority of students have indicated a desire to switch.

Maggie Tomas, director of the Graduate Business Career Center at Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, confirms what the West and East coast schools are seeing. “I don’t think it’s that surprising,” Tomas says of the data. “I think that’s one of the things that’s appealing for an MBA.” Tomas and staff also do a career intake form that asks incoming MBAs to indicate their plans before they even arrive on campus. At least two-thirds indicate interest in “switching” or “creating,” she says, while another third are looking to “accelerate.”

TRACKING INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC CHANGES

While the broad switching might not be a surprise, Marvinac and TransparentMBA have gone deeper, tracking industry switching. For example, 21% of the recently graduated MBAs reporting coming from consulting. In their first roles after B-school, the number ticked up to 25%. Just 3% of the population reported having pre-MBA jobs in investment banking, but 11% reported taking investment banking roles immediately after B-school. “Consulting does a really good job of retaining people through the MBA,” concludes Marvinac, noting that many consultants use the MBA as a “career augmenter.” But, he points out, “with other careers, it’s increasingly not the case.”

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More interesting trends pop up in the industry-specific tracking data. For example, some 46% of consultants stay the course and end up being consultants after an MBA. Consultants also tend to have the most ability to move across fields, with at least 3% moving to one of seven fields outside of consulting. Perhaps not surprisingly, 25% of corporate finance roles switch to investment banking out of B-school. Like their consulting brethren, people coming from marketing tend to switch less than most: Some 43% of those coming in with a marketing background stay in marketing. (Another 43% go into consulting.) Those coming into B-school from general management positions also tend to switch fields at a greater rate, with a quarter of the population going into investment banking. Similarly, more product management roles switch to corporate finance than switch to any other field.

The original TransparentMBA team. Pictured from left to right are Jeremy Selbst, Mitch Kirby, Alyssa Jaffee, and Kevin Marvinac. Courtesy photo

The original TransparentMBA team. Pictured from left to right are Jeremy Selbst, Mitch Kirby, Alyssa Jaffee, and Kevin Marvinac. Courtesy photo

The field switching the most, however, is operations. At least 86% of those coming from those roles go into either consulting, business development, or corporate strategy. An astounding 63% of that percentage go into consulting.

Of course, as Marvinac points out, some industries are “weighted heavily towards MBAs.” Business development, consulting, and investment banking all fit into that category, he notes. TransparentMBA also has tracked what types of pre-MBA roles are filling post-MBA roles. Take consulting, for example. Some 40% of post-MBA consulting roles are filled by people with consulting roles before B-school. Remember the 63% of those in operations roles, cited above, who switch to consulting? They are making up the next largest percentage, but at only 11%. Consultants and those coming from corporate finance make up a combined 40% of post-MBA investment banking roles. For post-MBA corporate strategy roles, more than a quarter (27%) are former consultants. Interestingly, nearly half of post-MBA corporate finance roles come from either corporate finance (23%) or product management (22%). Similarly, 55% of post-MBA business development roles are filled by individuals coming from corporate finance or product management — except the percentages are flipped to 22% and 23%, respectively.

A couple fields, like marketing, have MBAs with less-diverse backgrounds. Some 70% of post-MBA marketing positions are filled by individuals coming from pre-MBA marketing, corporate finance, and consulting roles. Similarly, 67% of post-MBA investment management roles are filled by pre-MBA investment managers. Another 17% come from investment banking, making investment management a very closed-off field for those outside of traditional finance.

Others, like operations, are represented by a very diverse set of pre-MBA roles. Besides 52% coming from many roles and lumped as “all other,” the highest specific industry is analytics and data science at 17%. Same goes for general management roles, where six pre-MBA fields make up at least 8% of post-MBA general management roles. While post-MBA product management roles have five pre-MBA fields making up at least 8% of the total population, it definitely helps to be coming from an engineering or product management background, which combined make up 45% of that field after B-school.

MAKING BIG-TIME CONNECTIONS AS AN ‘INOFFENSIVE’ MBA STUDENT

As Marvinac explains, product management and private equity roles are especially hot among current MBAs. But both seemingly require specific backgrounds — another fact reflected in the data. At Tuck, Masland says, there is no hard data to back up what he’s seeing, but he’s noticed an increase in MBAs interested in private equity, technology, and earlier-state “pre-IPO” companies (also reflected in TransparentMBA’s data). Richard says the diversity in professional backgrounds among MBAs at Stanford GSB fosters a cauldron of increased expectations of job switching. “Certainly when the MBAs get here, their expectations increase substantially,” she says. “They end up talking to each other. They talk to MBA-twos and it’s a compounding effect.”

Or, like Rob Schoder, they come in with specific plans in mind. In his case, a change into entrepreneurship and tech was paramount. “I thought the best way to accomplish that change was through business school,” Schoder notes. For someone who built an early career in reaching out to powerful people with even more influential job opportunities, Schoder was instantly amazed by the ease in gaining face-time with higher-ups at companies he admired. “The beauty of the MBA is, it provides a platform for you to reach out to people. It’s a way to access the outside world in a way you probably wouldn’t be able to otherwise,” Schoder says. “The default assumption is, you’re a smart person. Whether or not I’m actually a smart person, who knows? But you can use that to your advantage to get in the door.”

Schoder believes the “outside” network potential in B-school is one of the most underrated aspects of the MBA — and one of the most important for job switchers. “Most people, when they go to school, don’t take the opportunity to network,” he continues. “And it’s a massive, massive opportunity. If you can hack your away around to finding an email, you almost always get a response. It’s remarkable.”

Indeed, Schoder seems to have taken a “no-holds-barred” approach to who he emailed, noting that he was able to connect with “CMOs at publicly traded companies” and the Forbes Midas List, a ranking of top tech investors. “It’s totally low-risk to reach out to these people,” he says. “In a way, being a student makes you unthreatening — or at least inoffensive, you know? I’m not going to get on the phone and bother you or try to sell you things. I just want advice. Or career guidance or direction.”

B-SCHOOL AS A ‘TREMENDOUS PLATFORM’ FOR CHANGE

And when the dream job search came, that attitude paid off. When Schoder first flew to San Francisco, he had five interviews in his first five days. “After the meetings that week, I decided there really wasn’t another way to do it and packed up and made the move,” he says. When Schoder learned he’d need to permanently relocate to have a chance in the competitive environment, he had weeks of meetings booked ahead of time. “It is remarkably easy to get in front of people if you’ve invested the time in building relationships with them,” he says, noting that the result likely wouldn’t have been the same had he not already built those relationships.

Anecdotally and now quantitatively, the full-time MBA seems to be one of the most risk-averse ways to switch careers. “I think business school allowed me the opportunity to test out all of these different things and make an educated decision on what I wanted to do and didn’t want to do,” Schoder says. “For me, I used it as a tremendous platform to gain an understanding of new spaces, and to build a network well beyond the Booth network that I was able to tap into when I moved out here to San Francisco.”

A Chicago Booth Classroom

A Chicago Booth Classroom

Where Post-MBA Job Roles Come From:

TransparentMBA data shows which pre-MBA industries lead to post-MBA jobs.

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Where Popular Pre-MBA Industries Go To Work:

TransparentMBA data reveals where pre-MBA industries lead to in post-MBA jobs.

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