There are lots of places you can take your career, but today we will take a look at the two most popular areas: management consulting and investment banking. Assuming you are currently in another industry and want to break into these industries, read on.

Let’s take a look at these two options

This is how I entered the management consulting industry with Booz & Company. Most top consulting firms with an “up-or-out” policy will want consultants from undergrad to stay for 2 or 3 years and then make a career decision: either you go get an MBA and come back as an Associate or you find something else to do. So even if you are in the management consulting industry or are on track to getting into the field from undergrad, you will eventually find yourself at a fork road deciding to MBA or not to MBA.

Talk with your company to find out if an MBA is required for upward mobility. Most management consulting and investment banking firms require it, although a few do not.

Getting an MBA is a deep decision that requires a lot of self-preparation and self-reflection that extends beyond the scope of this article. But if it is even remotely within your potential career plan within the next 5 years, it might be a good idea to get your GMAT exam out of the way as the exam score is valid for up to 5 years.

Up to 5 years.

That’s a lot of time. Say you just graduated and are starting your first job.

If you take your GMAT now, then by the end of your 2 or 3 years at your current job, you will have already completed the first major step in the MBA application process.

Trust me, the GMAT is the last thing you want to think about at the end of your 3 years as you contemplate on an MBA and have all kinds of extracurricular, social, work, and life issues to deal with.

A few pros with this option include entering the management consulting firm at a higher salary and generally more responsibility. If you come from another background (IT, engineering, retail, etc), then you’ll need to do the MBA route in order to have access to these recruiting channels.

Is it possible to get in directly to management consulting without doing the MBA route? Sure. But it’s definitely not as common.

With business school, not only do you have access to management consulting recruiting programs, but you’ll also have access to a variety of other career channels including investment banking, corporate business development, etc.

But be careful! Do NOT assume that getting a top MBA automatically = getting into a top investment bank or management consulting firm. Whatever your career goals are, you should definitely do your research on them NOW. Even if you decided to do the MBA, don’t just sit there and wait for the offers to come to you.

If you want to get into real estate, then call up your school’s alumni contacts and tell them you are about to attend ABC business school and want some career advice. Set up an informational interview/phone call to get their perspective.

Remember, the MBA is a great platform to be on–it increases your personal branding and opens the doors for networking. However, you still need to JUMP off the platform and end up where you want to be! Do NOT assume the MBA is a magic bullet like most people assume.

Now, depending on your career situation, you may be in option #1 or option #2.

Both options involve taking the GMAT exam at some point.

With business school, the GMAT is required at most top schools. And even if you get into the industry through your undergrad, you still might find yourself taking the GMAT.

Why such a long period of time?

Expensive $1500 prep programs revolve around 12-16 week courses that eat up your Saturday afternoons. 12-16 weeks!

I’ve never taken a sub-atomic physics class before, but trust me–there’s a TON more difficult material in a 9 week sub-atomic physics class than there could possibly be on the GMAT.

Most of the concepts on the GMAT were covered in high school. You’ve seen all this material before! So all you really need to do is to review high school math and writing and maybe learn a few new concepts. You’d also need to familiarize yourself with the various ways the GMAT guys try to trick you on the exam.

So given that most people study 3-6 months for this exam that covers high school level material, why then is the average GMAT score in the low 500s? Seems like a perfectly legitimate question!

At first, I thought the only two reasons were
1) the material is very difficult
2) the test is very tricky

But it wasn’t until my two friends came out of the exam that I realized there’s actually a THIRD reason.
You see, my two friends came out of the exam disappointed with their scores.

The prep book was full of grammatical terms like participial phrase, dependent clause, and subjunctive.
It would take me forever to understand what those terms mean.

They spend their time learning these useless fancy grammar terms. The critical reasoning section was also filled with these weird terms I did not understand.

After a few minutes of being confused by this observation, I quickly fell asleep as my eyes wandered across the pages and pages of the book. It was just way too easy for me to lose focus.

The quant section of the prep book put me to sleep and the explanations were very unclear. Part of it was that I’m a visual learner–there’s only so much I can learn by reading a book.

It was clear to me that part of the reason my two friends didn’t do well on the exam was the ineffective approach of the prep resources they used. These prep books used confusing words. They taught concepts–which are important–but they were missing something important–an efficient thought process. So what happened was my two friends understood all the concepts, but they didn’t know how to think through exam questions in a time-pressured environment.

During my two weeks of intense, marathon-like studying, I didn’t waste my time on “concepts” and instead developed an efficient thought process with frameworks that help me identify what is being tested.

I eventually showed my friends my thought process and they retook the exam with success. You can read more about our story.

So back to the original question: Why do most people study GMAT for 3-6 months?

1) the material is very difficult
2) the test is very tricky
3) confusing, inefficient studying techniques

The material is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Yes, the test is very tricky so understanding the ways the GMAT guys try to trick you is important.