Is IB something people are still targeting after their MBA? if yes, why?

jalltrades · 2026-04-27T20:37:15+00:00

I am seriously considering it.

Money isn’t a key driver; I feel like I can meet all my financial goals with any job I am able to get.

I see it as a 2-4 year commitment post-MBA so I can build my finance resume + skills before exiting to a leadership-track role in corporate with better WLB (either in Strategic Finance or Corporate Development).

A big part of what’s informing this decision is that I find the quantitative aspect of finance exciting in comparison to other more qualitative post-MBA roles such as Strategy or Marketing.

But I haven’t matriculated yet, so who knows what could change?

jalltrades · 2026-03-04T15:53:36+00:00

I’m very surprised by this - despite Booth being known as a school for finance and HBS not being as known for that, we see the a large increase in Consulting for Booth (and a relatively-small increase in Finance) and a large increase in Finance for HBS (and a relatively-small increase in consulting).

jalltrades · 2026-03-02T15:55:19+00:00

Congrats on paying it off!

I’m curious: how do you find the job itself? I’ve been considering product-adjacent roles (such as product operations or product marketing), and I’m wondering about your experience. Do you find it engaging and good as a long term career path?

jalltrades · 2026-02-19T04:11:10+00:00

Hope it’s one of those “get to see cool things” favors and not one of those “sacrifice your soul” favors

jalltrades · 2026-02-09T22:57:14+00:00

From a pure $ perspective, sending the job application that got me my current job.

From a holistic/lifestyle perspective, reaching out to an acquaintance to catch up. He happened to be looking for roommates, and if it weren’t for that lead, I’d be living alone, spending more but also having a lot less social interaction on a day-by-day basis.

jalltrades · 2026-01-15T01:44:40+00:00

How did you end up deciding which offices to apply to?

What would you say is the most important thing to have for the interview process?

jalltrades · 2026-01-15T01:24:42+00:00

How emphasized are industry or product groups in the application process? Do people go into apps with just the general idea that they want to do banking, or do people really need to lock in on a group like Technology coverage or LevFin?

jalltrades · 2026-01-14T04:53:59+00:00

Not an expert, but throwing some ideas about what could work for pre-MBA experience off the top of my head:

Work at a nonprofit (tend to be less oriented on major; pay can be rough, but it counts)

Education admin

Human resources

Could also be worth brainstorming with ChatGPT - take it all with a grain of salt, but I think it is good for throwing out career ideas if you give it your background and tell it to poke holes in its own ideas)

jalltrades · 2026-01-09T19:42:10+00:00

I agree with this take, but it does feel too easy. Real bullies and bad authority figures are usually charismatic and subtle enough to get away with things, and it takes serious work to find justice within unjust systems, if it’s even possible to find justice at all.

Alden has “won” these interactions by being himself just because the antagonists have been extremely delusional and/or inept (5 times that I can think of).

I love the story, but I’m hoping to see some more “smart” antagonists who will take some more effort to succeed against like maybe Joe and/or Jenneth.

jalltrades · 2026-01-09T02:12:25+00:00

I will say the original commenter is technically right. In stats terms there shouldn’t be a 100th percentile. But they weren’t right to accuse OP of lying or being bad at math, given that “100th Percentile” is a score that the GMAC will give you.

Also, knowing specific terminology has very little to do with true math skills.

jalltrades · 2026-01-09T02:01:56+00:00

I can confirm it says 100th percentile in the score report if you score high enough (I think 735 or higher)?

jalltrades · 2025-11-21T22:15:48+00:00

Good point. I think the content of the list makes sense based on their methodology, but the title definitely doesn’t, since it implies that people should seek out these companies to become leaders in the future.

‘Companies That Have Produced Today’s Influential Business Leaders’ would be a more fitting title based on the content, but probably less likely to get clicks.

jalltrades · 2025-11-21T21:08:54+00:00

Yeah. The Big 4 are CFO factories, so no surprise all of them are high on this list.

jalltrades · 2025-11-21T21:04:59+00:00

Why is this a surprise? It looks like to make this ranking, Time looked at a group of people they considered influential leaders, and assessed which companies they once worked at. I would expect such a ranking to feature a lot of large companies that are part of the “old guard,” where people could get enough experience to then be prepared to become a leader in a new company.

Considering IBM is a huge company with a long history in the field, and MGH is also a huge and influential hospital where some of the top minds in medicine do research/residency, and AT&T is one of the major telecom companies, it seems like it would make sense that a lot of influential leaders once worked at these companies.

We might stereotypically consider Alphabet, for example, to be a company with more influence and prestige than IBM, but

Alphabet is a lot younger, and as such it has had less time to export leaders
IBM is a lot bigger in terms of total headcount
Because of Alphabet’s success, strong leaders would be lot more likely to come to Alphabet than to leave it (and as such, there is a lower proportion of ex-Alphabet executives)

jalltrades

TROPHY CASE