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I have recently joined EY SaT group as senior consultant recently in Netherlands. I’m tripple masters in MS economics, MBA and MS business analytics. Have 4 YOE in different industries but no M&A experience specifically. Any ideas what company should be offering me? I’ll be working as expert on commercial due diligence, FDD and valuation teams and doing automation alongside. is it wise to demand higher salary or promotion soon after I have proven that I can work and do it better than most?EY
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You think? Seriously, I don't even think it's necessarily people from very wealthy backgrounds, though they're the worst malefactors. But a lot of kids have been coddled in recent decades and it really shows. Things that should have been a wake-up call in middle school never happened to them, and as young adults they're suddenly stunned to find out they're really not precious and brilliant.
^Yep. :/ And I've found that when other classmates and I provide feedback to them on how they can treat the people around them better, they get mad at the messenger instead of improving themselves.
I wish they'd understand that sometimes the mean thing (someone giving honest feedback) is the kindest thing—and sometimes being nice (using corporate language to be nice about giving feedback, which is more dishonest) isn't the kind thing to do.
It's the difference between paying to succeed and actually having to work for it. Some of the worst classmates I had were the kids whose parents always donated to their schools. They don't want to say a harsh word to their golden goose so once those kids enter an environment where people are actually judging on merit, they don't know how to handle it. I do however find that most of them eventually get their comuppance and after that they take things a little more seriously. Some people just take longer to learn the same lesson I guess lol
I eagerly await karma and business school being the impetus of their character development arc. :)
One thing I found through MBA recruiting (and beyond) is that who you know / connect with is much more important than what you know. Some of the dumbest people from my class got the best jobs in IB and consulting because they were able to network really well. Some of that may have been their parents / friends worked at the firms but I know that wasn’t the case always. There’s a certain baseline you have to get through with more technical interviews but if they like you enough it seems to not always matter.
As someone also of lower-middle class background with an engineering undergrad that is an introvert this process was incredibly frustrating to me. I was at the top of my MBA class grade wise but really struggled with interviews and therefore did not get any of my target jobs, especially first year. I was able to leverage some relationships in my second year for a better full time job offer but it was still much more difficult than my peers (at least it felt that way).
I say all this to prep you for the reality that they may not get the comeuppance you’re hoping. Relationships / people skills appear to go a long way over technical skill / business knowledge, even in post-MBA jobs. I’ve been at a consulting firm for 5 years and have seen far too many low performers get promoted over high performers because the Partners/Directors liked the low performers better.
Unfortunately it’s just a fact of human nature.
So true. This is the ugly reality.
There was a survey that showed that 50+% of my classmates (M7 school) still get financial help from their parents. Mind you majority of my class is 27-30 yo.
In the meantime I had to help my parents financially since 23 yo…
Of course we live very different lives with different outlooks on life, levels of feeling safe, responsibility levels, etc.
You are their peer - not really in a position to give them feedback. Why would you, anyway. Just ignore their flaws and network instead. It’s not like they are your family
I don't give anyone feedback unless they ask for it or if there's a problem that's impacting others, so their flaws do impact others.
For example, I gave feedback to someone on how they need to be more respectful of people's time when scheduling meetings and the consequences of them constantly dropping the ball on projects on two separate occasions. The person responded defensively and hasn't apologized.
Other classmates have asked a messy roommate to clean up after themselves, and they also responded defensively and won't change.
Both people come from very wealthy families, and I can think of several other examples where even small honest feedback delivered in a polite, direct manner gets ignored and the situation turned against the messenger.