Is this realistic at all? It seems like corporate strategy/corporate development is already a small, tight part of the industry. Making it even tougher, it seems like so many of the jobs in the department are only for guys with many years experience in investment banking.
I really enjoy the overall “big picture” view of the business. Determing how to source our capital, what new products to phase in or out, hiring strategy, M&A, buying rights to IP for new product development, etc.
It’s sort of like being a mini-CEO. This would be absolutely ideal for me.
My resume right now consists of
MBA final semester-Top13% admissions selectivity Bschool princeton review (state university) w/ a 3.9+ GPA
bachelor- dual major finance/economics from a state university
MBA Finance paid coprorate finance internship
a variety of high percentiled standardized test scores.
several entreprenureal endeavors. Nothing amazing, just 2-3 little self-started busineses I made up to earn a few $1,000 in profit each.
Do I have a chance of finding any sort of entry-level job in the field? What should I do if corporate strategy/development is my goal?
Reach out and start talking to people who are in those roles already. Let them know that you are interested. They may be glad to help.
Some firms have an corp strategy program. Something like 6-24mo. B-school grads are hired to rotate through the program. Some may stay in strategy, most will flow to whatever department they like best.
I’ve seen candidate resumes for such roles. Pretty competitive. Funny though that I’ve seen a couple of CFA charterholders & candidates violate ethics with their incorrect usage of the CFA designation on their resumes. They were not hired.
All the guys in business development I know worked into the role after years of experience in the industry. I suppose there may be some grunt work admin jobs in the area… But if I’m hiring corp development I’m hiring an industry expert. I had the opportunity to get into this a few years back from an FP&A and treasury background. Too much travel though. Don’t really want to work that hard every day.
Kiddo, I’ll help you out. I’m in such a role M’n’A’in on the buyside. PM me as I don’t want to give out the inner sanctum secrets for the world to see.
Look hard for financial analyst rotational/development programs. Ford has one open now and it was recently passed my way. Not sure if Detroit is where you want to be, but Ford would be ag reat company. Every F500 company has a M&A group operating on a daily basis. Some are just larger than others.
Leverage your career services.
Leverage your school’s network, get talking to people in those roles just to get a day in the life insight.
I’ll do my best. I appreciate all the guidance and help. Good to know that every F500 company had one. I didn’t know that for sure. Gives me plenty of places to try.
Let me correct you on some issues as your perception is a little far from reality. The role you describe could be the case in a very small family business but how many small businesses have strategy departments?))) Larger organisations will most likely split “the mini CEO role” between very many - not necessarily always team-working ))) - parties.
Also, there are few guys from IB in this sector. Strategic controllers, engineers, certified accountants with 10+ years of experience dominate the field.
As I said, the structure and tasks are very dependent on the organisation. It is like buying into Pandorra box every time you start in the new place.
hmm. Well i can definitely believe that about you saying the role is split amongst different people. I have only seen one roll that claims to actually have the “mini CEO” role, and it’s actually a comcast role on their site like Cory was mentioning above. Most companies seem to have it related to either M&A or capital budgeting of new locations and IPs.
I disagree with your thoughts that the jobs aren’t for ex-IB guys. That is consistently what it says on almost all of the job descriptions I’ve seen. (There are exceptions, of course, though)
