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NewsvineWith lucrative salaries and perceived prestige, it’s no wonder investment banking and consulting are attractive first jobs for graduating Stanford seniors. Yet as summer internship application season for non-graduating students begins, alums and career counselors are advising job hunters to look beyond big paydays.
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Career Development Center (CDC) Director Lance Choy has seen a surge in interest in consulting and investment banking over the last several years.
“As the economy has improved, so has recruiting in these fields,” he said in an email to The Daily. Firms like McKinsey and JP Morgan run highly visible recruiting campaigns on campus, holding information sessions, advertising in campus publications and flooding dorm chatlists with advertisements.
But Choy said he is concerned that student interest in consulting and I-banking can be fueled more by post-graduation insecurities than a real interest in those fields.
“Many of them have limited knowledge about other career paths or alternatives,” he said.
Tim Chueh, a 2005 graduate, said that while compensation was a factor in his decision to enter I-banking as an analyst with Merrill Lynch, he said that it was interest in financial markets and his desire for experience that led him to the field. If you’re just in it for the money, Chueh says think again.
“It’s not worth sacrificing your life when you’re 22 for an extra thousand bucks,” he said.
According to the CDC Web site, reported salary offers for the Class of 2006 averaged $54,357 for consulting and $61,250 for I-banking. By comparison, offers in education averaged $37,900, and in government, $40,958. But Choy noted that these figures don’t account for number of hours per work week.
“Though students may think it’s worth putting up with a 60-80 hour work week for a couple of years, I know some pretty miserable young alumni,” he said.
CDC Career Counselor Stephanie Eberle noted that many students think they will love consulting because of the extensive traveling it requires, but fail to realize how stressful business travel can actually be.
And while corporate positions do make a good entry point into the professional world, Choy added that they are not the only way to succeed in a new career or to impress an MBA program. CDC survey results from 2004 to 2006 show that while many alumni do find positions with consulting and I-banking firms, they also entered a wide variety of fields including engineering, communication, education and research.
Junior Lindsay Reinsmith is graduating early and already has plans to work for the consulting firm Accenture. While she was mainly attracted by the chance to use her analytical and communication skills in a business environment, salary considerations also weighed heavily on her.
“I felt nothing else was going to pay me enough to start paying off my debt,” she said.