An Open Letter to MBA Students Considering Different Internship and Full-Time Offers

“What internship (or full-time) offer should I take?” “What’s the right first step now that I’m finishing up my MBA?”

The life of an MBA student is demanding.?Managing?the classwork and interviewing process today is much harder than when I was an MBA student. Outside of class, students must spend more time networking and preparing for the interview gauntlet to live up to the expectations of recruiters and compete effectively against impressive peers. You can have dozens of smart, talented, exceptional students vying for one or two coveted positions. It’s simply not easy.

However, what I’m noticing is that with all of the preparation to get the offer(s), there isn’t much time or energy left to think through what these first jobs mean to a 40-year career. Often times, when I ask students where they want to work, the response is: “On a brand I love." I also find a number of students who want to pursue the?Mark Zuckerberg career path and?start their own company or work for a small start-up.

As somebody who did neither of these things, I want to provide a different perspective on how to consider job opportunities. This is obviously biased by my experience, and there are many paths to success and happiness, but I do believe these are important aspects to at least consider?before rejecting a Blue Chip company opportunity.

An Open Letter?to Students

If I may, I’d like to provide you with some thoughts about the decision regarding your first post-MBA job. I’m going to give you some perspective on how these early decisions will impact your entire life – thoughts you may not have had. These are considerations I didn’t make when I accepted my internship offer at Procter & Gamble in the 80's. I got lucky and had the right mentor, Chris Puto, who pushed me in a direction toward companies that had reputations for superior training. He convinced me to turn down exciting offers (I turned down two internship opportunities to work at Ogilvy & Mather on Microsoft – the Google of the late 80's – and Mattel – the fun brand at the time) to take a “corporate” and less exciting job at Procter & Gamble, where I spent all summer working on Dash, the world’s smallest and most insignificant laundry detergent brand (not really the world's smallest, but the smallest at U.S. P&G). On day one, my boss (Rick Thompson – a great coach and mentor) asked me what laundry detergent I used and I said “I don’t know." That’s how passionate I was about laundry detergent. But here is some perspective:

1.??Your work “brand” is enduring. Procter &?Gamble was and still is considered a top-tier general management development company (see here for a list of the top-ranked companies for MBA marketing students). Just like Harvard, Wharton, and Darden are “ranked” higher than many other business schools and have reputations for finding and cultivating talent, companies are also ranked?(see here for a top-ranked companies that develop C-level marketing leaders).?However, while your educational brand influences early job opportunities, your work brand will dominate over the course of your career. It endures. When I talk to executive recruiters who place C-level executives in different roles, they care about the “training” and “experience” a job candidate has had, particularly in the formative part of their career. Working at a great company?(I mean businesses that are successful, that have a pedigree for being leaders in their industry over time and that have a reputation for creating best-in-class businesspeople) is a brand stamp that will follow you for the next 40 years. It can open doors that otherwise would be shut. I learned this when, during my second year of the MBA program, every company I wanted to interview with wanted to interview me. Why? Because I now had P&G on my resume.

2. ?As a result, your internship and full-time employment after the MBA program have “annuity-like” benefits. As an example, in a review of C-level marketing job specs I did, 70% of C-level marketing jobs list as a requirement that the candidate have “P&L/brand management experience." Nearly 20% of the job specs overtly stated that the candidate should have had prior “Blue Chip” company experience. ?In reviewing the work history of more than?100 C-level marketers, most had a “Blue Chip” company early in their background. These early experiences provide you with greater opportunities later to pursue whatever path you want. I have many Procter friends who have become CMOs, CEOs, consultants, entrepreneurs, PE partners, executive recruiters, faculty, etc.?Early brand stamps (great companies) provide?a broader and stronger launching pad from which to consider later opportunities.

3. Real-world training matters …. a lot. Why do recruiters and companies look for C-level marketers with Blue Chip companies on a candidate’s resume? Because they know that they received best-in-class training. MBA programs are not designed to train you to be a marketer. They hone your strategic/critical thinking skills, your communication skills (especially if you come from a case-based program like Darden), and your technical skills. MBA programs can help develop you?into?a business leader, with an enterprise-wide decision making perspective. However, your company experience will train you to be a general manager. If you go to a start-up where you are the only person in your function, who will help coach and develop you? And if you want to be a CEO, what skills do you need first to increase your chances of success? The rigor and discipline with which a great company approaches business offers outsized training opportunities.

4. What will your network look like at 50? Your MBA?network is important. However, many?of your peers will not end up in your same function or industry. Most executives who reach the C-level have had a Blue Chip company experience at a formative point in their career. And this network of connections is as valuable as your MBA?network. If you want to start a company at 40, who will you turn to for advice? Or to become a partner? If you need to learn about a new technology, from?which?successful marketers will you seek advice?? I would have not been able to predict the importance of the P&G?network decades ago.

5.?The more limited your geographic target, the more limiting your opportunities. At one point in my early 30's, I conducted a survey with individuals who made it to the VP level (or higher) fast. They had to be less than 35 by the time they reached the VP level. The No. 1 factor that they indicated enabled them to achieve success fast was geographic flexibility. They took the jobs based on the job … and what it could do for their career. If your priority is location, then understand that there is a cost associated with the choice, and it can be career satisfaction and progress (e.g., the compensation, the company you work for, the job you have, the pace of promotion, etc.). Very few people “have it all” at the same time – the location, the job, the company, the compensation, and the hours that they want. It comes down to trade-offs and if you prioritize location, then you most likely will sacrifice something else. Also, please do not interview for a job in a location that you wouldn’t move to. It robs others of the opportunity.

6. Loving your job is NOT about the product. By the way, I LOVED my job. I didn't care about the "widget," whether laundry detergent or bagels or houses or clothing or pet food, but I really enjoyed understanding and helping consumers who did. I loved figuring out how to identify new and different insights, and position new products successfully so that we could steal market share and grow the category. I grew up playing competitive golf and I love competing and solving puzzles. Running a business is about identifying unique value for consumers, delivering it better than your competitors, and managing the levers of business to create sustainable profitable growth. I loved working with and learning from very capable people. Rick Thompson was my internship boss. I rewrote one recommendation during the summer 77 times. He taught me how to “think” through writing. How to persuade on paper. What a gift! I don’t think the joy of the job or the work is really about “the product." It’s about the learning, the business challenge, the ability to create solutions that excite the target and the opportunity to be around talented people who help you build your capability. If the goal is to be successful, then surrounding yourself with more experienced talent early on will drive you further, faster.

7. Understand the difference between P&L and Staff roles. P&L roles are the functions in a firm that have ultimate responsibility for the profitability of the business. They are the "quarterbacks" and often times are the ones being groomed for CEO and C-level positions. Staff roles are all of the functions that help support the quarterback, such as the center on the football time. Jobs flow from P&L to staff. For example, at P&G, the brand management function is the one that drives the P&L. It's hard to go from PR (staff) to brand management (P&L) but easier to move the other direction. While marketing may be a P&L role in consumer packaged goods, it often is not in other types of firms, and the functional value and training is different based on whether you are in a P&L or staff role. Many staff jobs, such as consultants who support clients, may want to transition into a P&L role but it is far harder than starting your post-MBA career in a P&L, General Management position. David Wiser , Managing Director at Wiser Partners, indicated that he gets a lot of requests from staff-trained folks, such as consultants, who want to migrate into P&L positions and it is very hard to do because they are competing with P&L-trained individuals. His suggestion - if you want to be a CEO or General Manager, take a P&L role out of the MBA.

Last piece of advice. Students often agonize over the “right” school to attend for their MBA. They are concerned with how the MBA school choice will?impact their?ability to get a great job...or?to have a great career...or to do what they?want to do in the long run? The decision regarding internship and full-time job offers can have a similar, if not greater impact on the answers to these questions. As Colin Smyth head of marketing for BIC suggests: “Your career is a journey and you need to think strategically about each step along the way so that you end up at the right final destination.”

This is your decision and you have to make the right one for your circumstances. But think it through and make sure you choose your first company wisely!

Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler

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