Tiger Sisters - Do You Need Finance or Consulting to Get an MBA? EP 4

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

What are the most common industries that MBA students worked in before business school? In episode 4, Cherie and Jean discuss why Finance, Consulting, and Tech are the most common pre-MBA roles today from both the applicant and admissions officer perspective. Then, we share  advice on how to approach your application when applying from any industry, even unconventional ones. Roses & Thorns this week include Jean’s plea for recommendations from Tiger Pack listeners for the biggest issue in her life right now. And we debut another fun new segment: Force Ranking! Like and subscribe to get the scoop next episode on why we created the Tiger Sisters podcast (hint – the reason dates back over 25 years). 😯  Hi everyone, it's Cherie and Jean, the Tiger Sisters. We’re your career mentors and internet big sisters! Cherie Brooke Luo is an influencer who’s demystified big tech, finance, and MBAs for millions with 100M+ views, and Jean Luo is a tech product exec and investor with over 50 AI patents. Between the two of us, we’ve survived stints at top investment banks and big tech, founded startups, and hold four Ivy League degrees – if we’re counting Stanford – all while doing our best to stay healthy and fit, nurture our friendships and hobbies, read, date, feed our shared love of fashion, and perfect our skincare routines.  We’re here to spill the tea on all the ups and downs of our lives so let us know in the comments what questions you have about career, technology, entrepreneurship, school, and life. Join us in pursuit of fun, wealthy, and joyful lives!

Hi, I'm Jean and I'm Sheree. And where are the Tiger Sisters? I graduated from Harvard Business School seven years ago. And I graduated from Stanford's Business School two months ago. In this episode of the Tiger Sisters, we're going to be talking about the top industries that apply and get into business school programs. And don't worry if you're not in the top three or four. We talk about all the other industries as well and how to get in.

Now we're going to move on to our next segment, roses and thorns, which you guys have encouraged us to keep into the podcast. So, Gene, what is your one rose and your one thorn? Okay, I noticed that I've been limited to one after last week. Subtle. I'm just kidding. Okay, my one rose, and I'll do a combination here. My one rose is that we did an amazing hike this past week. That was so fun and it was even like a little bit muddy, which I liked. Why didn't you like that? Because it was like, part of the challenge. It's kind of unusual. You had to avoid the mud, and it's

fun to, like, walk around mud. Okay. And then as part of that, on the way to get to the hike, as we were driving there, we stopped at an outlet just to like rest for the driving, and we were able to

get these new phone cases. Oh. Which I am obsessed with. I didn't realize this would be your high. Well, it's just, it's part it's part B. Part B. Yeah. Wait, what? You could only get one. That's what I said. Combination, 1A, and then this is 1B. That's sneaky.

So these are our new phone cases. And we also got a bunch of hairclubs, too. And it's just like the little things. They're matching phone cases. My phone is green. And my phone is silver or slash white. But you know why? This is also one of your highs.

Why? Because it was $3. Yes. Each phone case was $3. And as we've mentioned, we love a deal. I love a deal. We love a good deal. It sounds like everything I buy is only $3.

based on this episode and the last episode. But there's nothing like having a new phone case that you're like excited about. It's like such a like cheap thrill, especially with $3. But I also feel like it's something since we use our phones every single day, it's something that like you want to be happy with or at least have it bring you joy. Yeah. That it's like clean, it's new. Yes, but like the pattern.

It's just like nice and fun. Yeah. It's an investment like similar to how I like to do my nails and my nails are not done right now. but when I have them done, it's like I see them every single day. Yeah. So it just doesn't this look so good? Like, I'm so happy. That's a good high.

Yeah. Okay. And then my low is kind of ongoing, but I... You have COVID again? No. No, but I think we've mentioned this before where I am a night owl and Sheree is the opposite. I'm a morning person. Yeah, early bird gets the worm.

Something like gold in the mouth, that's the Italian version of it. Oh, is it? Yeah, like the morning person gets gold in the mouth or something like that. What does a night person get? I don't know, platinum. But anyway, so I'm a night owl, but it's not just that. Like, I feel like I have a really hard time going to sleep before, like, literally. Midnight.

Oh, I was going to say 1.30 a.m. Like, I think my night. natural sleeping time is 1.30 a.m. until like 9.30 a.m. So in order to like adhere to our capitalistic structure, in order to adhere to our like capitalistic, um, Western way of living, I have to try to wake up early and go to sleep earlier. I don't think it's a Western thing. I think it's like a worldwide thing. Yes, but it's like in what it's, it's sure, it's capitalism, but like in the entire world. Where is the place, the country, where they do not have... I'm.

Where they don't have... I actually think maybe my first job may have been maybe the root of my issues because, like, we would basically work from like 10 a.m. to like midnight-ish or even later sometimes. And so then that's what I got used to as like a sleeping schedule. And then tech was the same after that. Yeah. So like my like work schedule ever since. since, you know, college has been, like, 10 a.m. to, like, midnight-ish. But then what happens after? But then you worked at a startup, which I understand. But then after you worked at, like, a bigger company, was it similar late hours, a bigger tech company?

You mean at Snapchat? Yeah. Well, it was still a tech company. Yeah. So, like, you know, I was flexible. Is that what you mean? Or are you saying that? It's not as early as, like, I feel like a normal other Fortune 500 company, the normal working hours would be like 8 to 5 or like 8 to 6 p.m. But like in tech, it's usually you start a little later like 9 or 10 or something like that. I see. Or like the meetings start later. Yes.

Yeah. Except for when I was, except for like most recently, I was working a lot with like Europe. So I actually do all these meetings at like 7 a.m. which killed me. Yeah. It's not good. My low is that I have been like reverting to my natural sleep schedule of going. to sleep at 1.30 and then waking up later. And now I'm trying to like move back to the like

capitalism approved sleep schedule. But so if anyone, so I try to like, I take magnesium glycinate. This is not medical advice. No, I'm asking for medical advice. Okay. This is seeking medical advice. Seeking medical advice. Yeah. I'm just telling you what I already do my method. So I take magnesium glycinate. And I try to not drink coffee after like 2 p.m. or like any caffeine after 2 p.m. If it's really bad, sometimes I will take melatonin, but I try not to take myelotonin. I try to just do that as like a last resort if I need to like, you know, reset my sleep schedule. So what she's not telling you is that she will do all those things, but then be in bed. Did you just kick me under the table? I just, I was moving my foot. Um, well, she will be in bed scrolling on her phone, which we all do.

We all do, yes. But like with, if you have so much trouble sleeping, like, I really feel like you need to, even more so put the phone away so that you don't have the blue light keeping you up. Anyway, so yes, I am seeking feedback. I'm seeking any advice from people who are also night owls but have to like shift their schedules earlier because I wish I were a morning person like you. It would just be a lot easier. This is like a real request because I am so concerned for Jean's sleeping schedule because I don't think she gets enough sleep and I'm like a very biohacky type of person like I love listening to

Andrew Andrew Huberman's podcast and like different ways to optimize your life and like one of the big things he talks about is how important sleep is yeah for health for aging for brain activity for processing everything for memory yeah like not getting Alzheimer's anyways I believe it I believe it, but that's why I'm, you know, submitting this, like, genuine request for advice. Genuine request is seconded. So if any experts or self-claimed experts, just have any thoughts. Please leave them in the comments. So we can get Gene to go to bed. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you in advance. Okay. So you like how I skirted the rules. Yeah, seriously. What the heck? That's so sneaky. I limited you to one. And you said one A, one B. Well, it was a combination because it was the

hiking and then on the way to hiking. See? Gotta get it in. Do what I got to do. Yeah. Okay. So what about you? Okay. So my high for the week is that I've been investing in this podcast some more. And so we got some new gear. We bought a new camera and we have new microphones that are not yet set up, but they will be hopefully next time. Yeah. And this is a new camera. So share any feedbacks, like if you notice a difference. Are we in high definition? Yeah. So we got all this new gear and I'm in the process of making this podcast the best that it can be in terms of quality,

which is super exciting because we're investing more time, energy and hopefully providing more information and just putting this podcast out. Along with that, I think a low of mine is that it takes a lot of work to set up this podcast. Yeah. A lot of podcasts out there are like sponsored or owned by other agencies. And so they have like a whole entire team dedicated to it. So this is more the behind the scenes where like there's producers of podcasts. There's editors. There's an entire crew.

Meanwhile, like while we're still small scale, Jean and I are doing all the work for this podcast. So like setting it all up with the ring lights and everything. It's just like all the behind the scenes. And so I think it takes a lot of time and energy to figure out all the technical stuff. and I'm your tech girl. I am figuring it out. And sometimes when the audio quality is not so good or like, you know, the camera's pulsing,

that's like also on me to figure out, which is a lot of pressure sometimes. We appreciate you. Oh, thanks. It kind of is a thankless job, though, you know? It's like all the behind the scenes. It's a thankless to add a heart in the comments. You appreciate Shari. Well, it's, you know why it's so hard?

It's, oh, gosh, shoot. The Gen Z. I forgot. Oh, I was so good at it before. You're so millennial. This heart? Am I doing it? Oh, shoot. This? Okay, I literally, I was doing it so fast before, but then I spazzed. There's also this hard?

Yeah, that one's easy. This one is hard. Okay, but I do want to say the behind the scenes work is really hard, and I will make a analogy here because you only, you never get credit for the work. I'm not just saying this, but also working in tech, a lot of the infrastructure work, never get for love. Because it's all the stuff that happens behind the scenes. You're not supposed to see it. Only when something goes wrong is when you see it. Yeah. You know, when the camera blacks out or the microphone cuts off accidentally, like, only then do you realize, like, this is not supposed to be happening.

Shout out to the inference security teams. Shout out to the inference security. Shout out to my back end friends. My back end friends. To the PMs. Yeah. To the infra PMs, the back end folks. You do get, you get all the blame if something goes wrong. Like if something goes wrong in security or infrared, it's disastrous. Right, because your job is to make sure nothing wrong happens.

Yeah. And if something wrong happens, then you're not doing your job. Do you know what I mean? What would you call that? It's like reverse success criteria, kind of, you know. I'm just thinking about what are they called like Seg alerts? Like what are the alerts that pop up? Oh, Sev.

Seve. We call them Sev. but actually we call them Sef because it was like Sev1. Yeah, yeah. They're called like different things of different places, but yeah. Anyway, that's what it's like

being the tech woman for this podcast. We appreciate you. Thanks. Well, for those of you who are not understanding this, this is the way, if you ask a Gen Z person how to make a heart, they go like this apparently, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Or they go like this? I don't think they do that. Yes, they do. Oh, wait. No, they go like this. Don't they? They do this. And then if you ask a millennial how to make a heart, they'll go like this.

So it kind of shows your... This is the other gen Z. This is also like a Korean thing. Yeah, or Asian. I am so excited for this new segment and at some point we'll stop adding new segments. But no, this one's fun. This one's fun. You guys tell us if you like it or not, please in the comments.

If you like it, we'll continue it. It is forced ranking. Should we tell them how we were inspired by it or no? Sure. Okay, so really quick shout out of how we were inspired by this. We were doing a tour at Friday Beers, the office, and they were filming like a hockey podcast. The Powers Brothers. Dan and Chris, I think their names are.

Was it Dan and Chris? I don't remember. The Powers Brothers. Yes. Hey, guys. The Powers Brothers were filming their hockey podcast at Friday's Beers. We were chatting with them before they got into their film. We're like, what are you guys going to film today?

And they said they were doing forced ranking of hockey sounds. And we're like, huh. And that got us, you know, got us thinking. We're like, we should do force ranking. It's so fun. The topic today is types of people in Zoom calls. Okay. So these are different types of people you would encounter in Zoom calls.

And we're going to get started. Okay. So the first person you would encounter in a Zoom call is a person who turns off their camera and goes away from keyboard without warning. Oh my God, it's so annoying. I hate this type of person because, well, it depends on what their role is in the meeting. You hate them? It depends on what their role is in the meeting because if they have a role where they might need to speak and they're like gone and you're like trying to call on them to be like, hey, like, Persimmon, can you chime in here? Like, can you speak to this and they're not here?

It's like, oh. If you're the leader of the meeting, I don't want anyone leaving. If I'm leading the meeting, you got to be there. Like, if you leave, turn off your camera and go away from keyboard and like we needed you, you're dead to me. I'm putting that nine. I don't know what's coming. So I think I want to put a 10.

Here, I'll put that eight. So that's away from keyboard without notice. Yeah, without notice. I'm just writing away from keyboard. The outfit repeater. The person wears the same shirt in every single video call. Oh, I don't care. I don't care either.

Homie, you wear whatever you want to wear. I like that. That's so like, you know, Arthur of you. So Steve Jobs. I just like about all the read from the TV show. Yeah. Yeah. Small talk.

Talks important in Zoom calls. Yeah. Small talk's important in Zoom calls. especially when you're getting started. Yeah. And if you can pick something out from, like, their background or what they're wearing to, like, be like, oh, that's really pretty shirt. Or like, I love your jewelry.

But if they're wearing the same thing, like, eh, you can't talk about that. So they're visually boring. But hopefully their performance or being at their computer when called on. Yeah, hopefully their performance makes up for it. Yeah. Or like their personality. Okay. Next one is that the frozen in time, their video frequently freezes in unfattering positions.

Oh. Well, I don't care about unflattering positions. but if it frequently freezes, that's similar to away from keyboard without notice. But it's not as bad because... It's not their fault. It's not their fault. And you can kind of try to work around it. Would you prefer them to be freezing or to just be camera off?

I prefer a camera off. If your quality is not there... Yeah, yeah. Just be camera off. But be at your desk or at your computer. Okay. Freezing, I'm going to put S7. Freezing, I'm putting it as 6. The Cameo Star.

Their cat or dog regularly. makes surprise appearances. This is a two for me. Yeah, I like that. I like it, but oftentimes it can be distracting. Yeah, I'm going to put it as three. Like, I love seeing someone's cat or dog in the video. Oh.

Yeah. Well, it says the cat or dog. The kids, I feel like I can't say much about, like, you're a parent. I'm not a parent, like, things are going on. You're a kid hater? No, no, no. I'm saying, like, I can't hate on the kids appearing. Yeah.

Whereas I can have more hate for, like, a cat or dog appearing. It's cute. It's cute, but like, it is distracting sometimes. Yeah. I put it as three, but now I want to put it as two, but I'll just leave it for now. Okay, the next one is the interrupter. Constantly talks over others, unaware of audio delays. Oh.

Well, okay, wait, hold on. If they constantly talk over others, that's different from someone who has an audio delay. Like, I feel like there's one that's, like, on purpose and one's, like, not on purpose. This is, like, a combination. Yeah. That's pretty bad. A nine. Eight.

talking over others. Okay, next. The close talker sits way too close to the camera, giving everyone an unwanted close-up. Oh, I don't mind that. I think it's kind of funny. Yeah, I don't, you can be close to the camera if you want. Yeah, why not?

I don't care as long as you're not like, as long as you're like locked in. Okay. Close talker. I put that as two. That's pretty high up. Yeah, it doesn't bother me. I don't care if they're close.

I like it. I'm putting that as a five. So the next one is the multitasker, clearly doing their work or browsing social media during the call. If you're a good multitasker, people won't know you're multitasking. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think like 90% of people are multitasking. It depends on the meeting. 90% of the time. Like, if it's like a large meeting of like 30 people plus and you're not a key player and you can get away with it,

multitask. Key player. Wow. Okay. If you're one of the like, if I'm leading the meeting and you are a key player, like we have like a back and forth, you better not be like that.

There's also, I want to say there's, you can't tell sometimes if someone is multitasking or sometimes you are multitasking in service of the meeting because you're actually back channeling. That's important. That's a key differentiation. Yes, but to someone else on the meeting,

it would just look like you're multitasking the whole time. so they wouldn't know if you're back channeling or like doing other work unless you're the person they're back channeling with and I would say if you are in an important meeting you should be back channeling oh I agree okay I only have four as my top left so multi-tasker I would say the multitasker I would say it's four wait you're putting as four I put it as four yeah I think everyone just multitasking so you see how I turned that on on its head you're sneaky I said you should be well- multitasking. Okay, the next one is the tech struggle. Can't figure out how to unmute, share, screen, or join the video. In this day and age? I would put that as number six. Really? I would say that's like the worst when someone can't figure out the technology, especially if it's in a high-stakes meeting. I guess I'm more empathetic than you are. You're really making me out to be the villain in this episode. The villain with the Brooklyn exit.

Tech Struggler, it's got to be a 10 for me. I put it... It's a 10 for me, babes. It's a 10 for me, baby. I put it as 6. It's a 10 for me, tuts. The background disaster. They always have a messy room or questionable item visible behind them.

Oh, ew. I don't like that. I actually, I don't even really like it. The bed, if it's not camped. Okay, maybe I'm more empathetic here than you. Some people have a very small apartment or living space. Yeah, but the bed should be camped. Like, it should be made with all its pillows and stuff.

If there's no pillows, it's okay. I know she literally has eight pillows on her bed. Just exposing you. I was exposed. It's very nice, though. It looks, like, lovely. It's kemped. It's, it's kept.

I put it as five. Bad background. Bad backgrounds. Okay. And the last one is someone who has an impeccable, an amazing background. What? Oh, okay. Well,

I only have 10 left. Well, you mess that one up. Yeah. Wow. Amazing background. What did you put it in then? One. Oh, okay.

I kept one open. I guess, well, that was risky. I know, it was. It was really, really risky. Is it because you have already seen this list? Yeah, next time we'll fix that. But I didn't read it. I didn't read it.

I also flipped the order. Okay, fine. Of which I had read it in, like a week ago. We kind of took the same stream. strategy because I left number 10 open, you left number one open. Oh, that's true. It really backfired on me. Yeah.

And it worked for you. Sorry about that. The opposite. Okay. Did you guys like this segment? Like, tell us if you like it. It was fun for me. I thought it was really fun.

I want to do more of these. Give us some ideas of what else you guys would like us to force rank. Yes. Speaking of giving us feedback, now we're moving on to our main topic, which actually is a mailbag section. New section. Mailbag. New segment. A new segment, new segment is mailbag, which is basically questions that you guys send into us.

We'll just answer them. So I think today's mailbag is meaty enough that we can, that we've made at the main topic. So why don't I, I'll read it out loud. Krisha 754, thank you for submitting this question. She says, thank you for being such wonderful role models. I'm a 21 year old business student just about to graduate and would love to know the career progressions one can pursue moving forward. the paths to an MBA, basically. P.S., it's so cute to see Dear Shiree be a younger Tiger sister.

Right. Okay, so, yeah, basically she wants to know what are the typical career progressions, or maybe she wants to know the best career progressions or, you know, whatever our opinions on it, for if she wants to get to an MBA. How do you set yourself up to get to a top MBA program? Yeah. If you have the foresight, the options, you're to deploy. planning, how do you set yourself up? Yeah. So before we dive into like the top industries that go

into business school programs, I want us to reframe the question a little bit and think about what does a business school program look for and it's candidates? And why do they potentially look at finance, consulting, technology, et cetera, those industries for candidates? And so just kind of like turning the question on its head. One way that I would frame it is like if you are a business school. Like if you're an admissions director, what are you looking for in a candidate? A lot of the times we forget that business schools are institutions. They need to make money and they need to optimize for who are the people coming out of their programs? Like what do they want their alumni to do? So for example, like a lot of presidents and heads of states have

graduated from these business school programs and that really helps these business schools. Yeah. And also, like you said, they're an institution. So back to the theme of capitalism, they want alumni who are making a lot of money or at least enough money to donate and contribute back to the school. Because like you said, these are institutions. So they need to generate revenue to persist. To continue their programming. Yeah, to continue the programming and to continue to exist and reinvest in the schools themselves. So a lot of the times business schools will look to industries that train.

their employees to think big picture, to think strategically, that they think will be great leaders for the next chapter of their lives. Yeah, it's interesting because we just brought up two kind of like different factors. I would say it is like a portfolio construction almost, what the admissions director and admissions team does, because they want in each class for there to be enough variety and enough kind of like sure bets of people who are going to end up being successful by the more conventional terms, like, right, they end up moving to finance and they are just like very financially successful and then can end up contributing back to the school and also helping the rest of the class. And then I think they also want some people who could be outliers,

like massive surprise successes. Yeah, I'd say the three main industries that go into business school most often are consulting, finance, and tech nowadays. And out of those three, taking a little bit into each of them. I would say for consulting, it's mostly management consulting, because there's all different types of consults. Like healthcare consulting. There's IT consulting, but mostly I'm talking about management consulting

or what apparently these days is called MBB, so like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are like the most well-known management-consulting. Well, the three biggest, yeah, the three biggest, most well-known, and then also the most prestigious. Right. So that's consulting.

And then the second one, would say, oh, the second one being finance. And within finance, there's some, like, investment bankers. There's some people who've moved over to the buy side. So that would be private equity or venture capital or other types of portfolio managers, like hedge funds, long only funds, fixed income funds, endowments, people working endowments, or even corporate finance. I would say corporate finance is a little less typical. And then like the most common are private equity and investment banking. And then the third one is tech. I think tech is separate from startups. Within tech, I'm talking mostly about like big tech. People used to call fang, fang, even though like people are trying to

like revise fang all the time. So fang, people say feng ghul. Okay. So it's Facebook, now meta. Amazon. Oh, Amazon, Apple, right? Yeah, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, now alphabet. Google. What's that? U.S. U.S. U.S. Oh. L was LinkedIn, but that's Microsoft now.

Oh, wow. Microsoft isn't even on the list. Things. Well, because Microsoft used to be kind of like old school. Yeah, but it's really taken off since Azure. Yeah. And Satya took over. Yeah, and then people also forget that Microsoft owns Xbox.

Microsoft owns LinkedIn. Microsoft has like a huge, massive cloud business. Yeah. And, yeah, gaming, cloud. They do everything. Yeah. They don't have anything to worry about antitrust at all. Shout out to Microsoft.

Let us know if you want to sponsor this podcast, Microsoft. So what do you think are the attributes that from each of these three that people are like pulling? That's a really good question. I would say starting just from the first one, from consulting, there are so many consultants in my class, and it's almost like a joke because whenever a professor would ask one of our students in the class who was a consultant, a question, they would always begin their answer with, well, when I was at McKinsey, when I was at Bain. Yeah. So that was always like a joke in our class. I think the other joke for consultants is that they are really good at like structuring their thinking because they are so client facing all the time. time and they need to like really be able to like boil down large sets of information into like simple recommendations that are digestible. So the other joke is they'll be like, well, the answer to

that is there are three things. The first, the second and the third and they're like list through it all. They're really good at enumerating their thoughts, which is something. Inumerating. Enumerating. Inumerating. They're really good at enumerating their thoughts so that their answers are easy to follow. But anyways, I think one of the reasons why consultants are one of the top like feeders into business school is because they've seen a breadth of industries and they are like many experts on different industries and they're able to look at strategy across all of them and pull themes from their experiences. And so for example, many consultants, especially when starting out in management consulting in their first two years, they'll be placed on projects

across the board. Like sometimes we'll do an oil project. They'll do a healthcare project. They'll do like a tech project. They'll be in so many different industries and see so many different ways of looking. Yeah. Or like creating strategies. That's true.

Like if someone was just graduating from school today or even if you're still in undergrad and you're thinking about internships, I would still recommend consulting as one of the top options you should pursue. Especially if you don't know what you want to do. Yeah, because it just gives you so much exposure to like understand and learn about different industries. Why do you think finance is a feeder industry into business school? Well, people always say about finance, it's like you're quantitative and qualitative skills, right? So starting with the quantitative, typically you need to have like really strong quantitative skills to be working in finance. So that's something that is it like a predictor of success or it's just like an indicator?

It's more of like an indicator of academic prowess or just an indicator of... Indicator that you're smart. Yeah. Indicator that you're smart. And then I think the other thing is that typically when you work in finance, it is like very high pressure situations all the time. Like looking back on when I worked in finance, we thought everything we did was so important. Like we thought everything that we did was like it was like the end of the world if we like didn't get something in on time. even though like half of our deadlines were self-imposed.

And like everyone felt that way. There was just like a lot of pressure. Like you have to work really, really hard. There is an expectation of excellence. I think that's the other thing between both consulting and finance, especially at the really renowned firms. Sure. Yeah.

Especially at a high level, there's like a very high bar of excellence. And that's why I think consistently people will hire from those two industries, even if the role has nothing to do with actually like, like modeling out, you know, financial models or has nothing to do with like the industry that the person has worked in. You kind of just trust you're like, this person has gone through intense training. Yeah, it's ingrained in this way. Their presentations will look a certain way. They will present themselves a certain way. They will act in a very professional manner.

Yeah. Because their like first X number of years were in such a rigorous environment. Yeah, like the training camp. The boot camp. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I would like to come back to this point at another time because I think there's a lot more we can say here about like the first five years out of school. Where did you grow up professionally? Because you talked about it earlier in the sense of your sleep schedule is kind of screwed because you grew up in places that were super high pressure and length. Yes. Well, and the other thing I will say that I've noticed over time as like a hiring manager and having hired like many different people into my team is that many different people's many different persons, many different people into my team, is that you can really see, like,

their career upbringing or their like first few jobs out of school, like, reflected in their work, right? Like, people who are consultants, they're just kind of more constantly professional versus people who maybe grew up in like the startup environment. They're like super scrappy and they're like really fast moving, but they will give you work product that has like all sorts of like typos in it which ultimately like does it really matter if it's an internal memo that's like kind of like up for a discussion yeah but it's just something that like I would like never do like I would be like mortified yeah if I handed in work that had like typos in it like I could just never well it also but then I also probably work slower than the people it depends on the industry

that you're into like do they value like value having no typos yeah or do they care that it's out faster. Like, it depends on the company culture as well. Like, we're just saying no typos as a way for, like, completeness of higher quality of work. Yeah. I think consulting and finance are also way more traditional than tech. So, like, like the people that you're working with who are maybe a couple, like a generation or two above you, above us, like, they have different expectations as well that are like trickled down to everyone who is just coming out of school. Yeah. But it's hard to like let go of those expectations when it's been like so ingrained in you from working like a hundred hours a week and that being your like Bible.

Yeah. Or being your North Star of what is good quality work. Yes. High quality work. Yeah. It's hard to like unwind that. But okay. The last part of this was like tech being a feeder into business school programs, which I think

is something that's more recent. Yes. Because you and I talked about previously about how when you were applying to business school like eight years ago it was a different con oh sorry like 10 years ago sorry when you were flying to business school when the dinosaurs were around 10 years ago when I was only 12 years old so weird like it was a different time well I don't even mean it in that way it was just like things have evolves I'm being read to fill here like it is way more common now for people coming in the tech world and you have to go to business school.

I've noticed that. Of course, I had nothing to do with it. But I think it is way more common now. And especially as like the startup curriculum has expanded both HBS and GSP. I think people are way more excited going from like big tech into business schools to learn more about like the startup world as well. Yeah. And also to get a more traditional, like, business background if you've never had that. The last 10 years, there was a bit of like a tech renaissance, more than 10 years, maybe like 15 years.

Business schools were more interested in recruiting people from tech because they were seeing these like outsized outcomes of tech startups. So they were like, oh, maybe we'll bring in some people who can then be the next version of like Mark Pinkis went to HBS. So he was the CEO and. founder of Zinga, which created Farm Bill, which is the company that I worked at before HBS. They're like, oh, yeah, we want the next version of that. So, like, let's try to purposely, like, recruit more people who are in tech these days. One thing I will say that all three of these industries have in common is that typically they're very competitive to get into these roles. And there's a lot of vetting that goes into even getting an offer in any of these rules. So, like,

for business schools, it's kind of like a bit of shorthand. where they're like, well, I know if this person worked at McKinsey or Bain or Goldman or whatever, they've been vetted multiple times over. So like I can kind of take that to mean something. All that to say, consulting, finance, and tech are three of the main industries that go into business school. But even if you don't come from those industries, there are so many other industries as well that go into business school, but on a smaller percentage. Yeah, like I would say if you just look at like Fortune 100 or,

Fortune 500 companies, it's a good representation of the types of industries that people come through. So big oil, I don't know, is big oil still a term energy? Yeah. Healthcare, pharma, biotech. What else? CPG. CPG. It's a pretty small percentage.

I think at the GSB at Stanford, it's around 5%. But there are some folks who come from the military who apply to business school programs. And also I had some classmates who were teachers, public school teachers, who applied to business school. And I would say that, like, if you're not coming from a traditional background, still definitely apply, but you want to craft your narrative so that you stand out and show how you can be a strategic thinker, how you can lead teams, and how you want to create an impact and create change in this world if you're not already doing that in your job. Yes. And I think you need to be very specific about why you want to go to business school and what you want to get out of business

school, even better if you can specifically reference why each specific business school you're applying to. So like if you're applying to Stanford, you could be like, oh, I specifically want to apply to Stanford because of the renowned, you know, entrepreneurship program, et cetera, and like being able to also take cross registered classes at the D school, which is the school of design, which is also super famous. But being able to state why you specifically need to go to business school in order to achieve your goals. So like being super clear about what your goals are after business school and how business school is going to help you achieve them. Basically paints the picture for the admissions officers so they don't have to like extrapolate.

Like, okay, why is this person wanting to come to business school? Why us? And like, what do we get out of it when they achieve their goals and they actually become, not like famous, but when they actually become successful later in life? Yeah. I think it is a bit harder when, you come from an industry that doesn't have as many clear role models of people who have gone through the business school path. So for me, like, I come from the tech world. Many of my bosses and, like, directors, VPs at my company at LinkedIn, went to business school. And so I could see myself going to that path. Now, did they need that business school education or not? That's a different story. Same thing with like consulting or finance. Like many of the higher level MDs, VPs will have

business school degrees. I think if you're coming from like a background such as like education, where there might not be as many people to follow, I would say find those people who have gone through the program, see if you can connect with them and chat with them, because they will be a role model to you of how you can go about your application. What do you think the takeaway is then for people who are watching and they have an opportunity to like plan out their careers if they're, you know, graduating just now? Yeah, I think I'm much more of romantic here in that like it depends on what your goal is but I think that like careers are very long and business school is just one part of that career progression so in my like romantic mindset I'm

like I think people should follow their passions whatever that means and obviously balancing like needing a good salary having like other responsibilities but like if you can follow your passion and find an industry that you're super excited by and super excited to get up every single day to work in that I would say is a very successful start to the career. And if one of those career industries happens to be consulting finance or tech, then I'm like, that's wonderful because those are like theater schools that have a demonstrated path to get into these top business school programs. Yeah. I guess for me, I'm a little bit more a pragmatist.

And I know that there are people out there who, like, one of their goals in life is to go to a top business school. And if that is your goal, then I think it's okay to more. your career to best achieve that goal. Right? So like if that is your, because the other thing I'll say is I have seen the flip side of it of friends who have followed their passions and been super successful in other careers such as like traditional like engineering. They're not necessarily set up to get into a top business school because of factors that we mentioned such as like people in their industry haven't gone to business school.

So the people that they're surrounded by and the people that are senior to them, they may not even know how to write a compelling business school recommendation. That's like such an X factor. It is like an additional point of consideration. Depending on what your goal is, if you really want to get into business school, then you are more likely to be in a better situation if you are in one of the three industries that we talked about. I think that's just like the truth of it. It really depends on what your goal is. I'm like, if you want a happy long career and business school is just one part of it and that like you're happy if you get in, it'll be a great life experience.

But I think like on my flip side of yours is that like if you end up in an industry that you're like unhappy with for like five years, you will be, it's a sacrifice and maybe you'll get into business school and it'll be an amazing experience. But like there is sacrifice of like potential personal. personal happiness for the years before going into business school. Yeah, I can debate this further. Thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode of Tiger Sisters. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to like, comment, and subscribe.

And please share with anyone else, any friends who you think would also enjoy this episode. And we will see you next time. Bye.