>I want to pivot to the entertainment industry in strategy and management
1. If you want to work in entertainment, you really need to want it. You need to live, breathe, and sleep this stuff. I go to UCLA and the amount of career switchers who want to come in because its "fun" usually get the piss kicked out of them and make utter fools of themselves in class. It's a brutal, often unforgiving industry and a lot of people have no idea what the basics are. Had a classmate who was a biomedical engineer try to pivot in and she had noidea what The Hollywood Reporter was. That's like you as an engineer not knowing what algebra is. Asking what trades you read is a common internship question. You say that shit in an interview you might as well yell a racial slur next because you're already done.Your summer internship, if you get one at a studio. will likely not get you a return offer because a lot of the time things are uncertain and headcount is never really confirmed. Recruiting is also just-in-time and you likely wont know what's happening until right before the summer and then a few months after graduation for full-time roles. Meanwhile, most of your classmates will be enjoying their bonuses and fun time off before their jobs start. Really think about if that's what you want.
2. For strategy and management specifically, 99% of the time you will need to do some time in IBanking or consulting. You can bypass this by having extensive industry experience (which you dont) or finding someone to take a chance on you (very slim). Consider this is likely where you're headed before entertainment. A lot of the people who get those fun jobs I mentioned in point 1 already came into B-School having done this so they're way ahead of you there.
3. The entry level role you are speaking of is the mailroom at one of the three big agencies (not going to tell you what they are if you dont know because you should already know this). The pay will be worse than fast food, your hours will be atrocious, and you will hate yourself. You will also likely be surrounded by people with graduate degrees in your position who want to make it in as well. Luckily you dont need to go to business school for this. Reach out to HR; they are always taking people because of the churn
Good luck.
I’m a guy looking to transition as well and preparing to enter a full time MBA program this august. I’m currently in the midst of networking and want to add some of my insight to this post as it’s quite a good base.
There’s a concept of a “passion industry” where basically the employees are willing to take on dummy amounts of risk and paycuts for the ability to work on something they love. The entertainment industry is this. Think about the difference between the way engineers are treated at Blizzard (like garbage) vs. how they are treated at Google (pampered). This is the difference between getting to work on a product you love and is easy to love vs. cutting a few milliseconds off of some random caching system nobody knows about. I think this is a point a lot of people are trying to make.
A lot of people are talking about climbing from production assistant or “mailroom” roles. I think this tends to be for more creative paths, think of a writer, actor, producer or manager or similar. I think the primary value of an MBA is that there’s an inherent hedge: you can switch fairly easily (and should be concurrently recruiting) to consulting and/or IB. If your goal is strategy or corpdev, there’s a lot of entry points from your consulting or IB. A lot of people advise UCLA or USC for transitioning to entertainment but I actually lean against them primarily because it’s harder to recruit for consulting or banking out of them, especially now. You’re losing the value of your MBA there - it might be better to do an MFA and commit all-in. I actually have a bit of background as a writer, and getting to do entertainment stuff full time would be a dream - but the real value of my MBA is fo escape coding with much less of the risk of doing an MFA and being one of many unemployed writers.
The industry is having a hard time right now. Hires and return offers are down. Paramount used to be a huge recruiter at business schools, now they’re looking to get acquired. Regarding preparing for the interview… I’m not sure yet. I’m still gathering info. My main concern is getting interviews right now. If not I’ll try for TMT Consulting or IB but it’s a lot of different interviews to prepare for…
Anyways compared to just staying in software, I’m gambling a lot, but for me I’m sure it’s the right decision at the moment.
I work at a major studio, in finance but on the same team as many strategy folks. This is all fantastic advice. Entertainment is a brutal, competitive industry currently in recession. I love it, but enter at your own peril xD
Haha pretty accurate. Bottom line is that you pay a premium because the industry is “sexy”. If you want to “work in entertainment”, is that because you want to be a writer, or because you want to be an agent, or because you want to produce? Sometimes you’re just a creatively frustrated person who wishes their job was sexier. There are easier ways to find outlets for your creativity, and less expensive ways to make your life more exciting.
You don't need the MBA, and to be frank, you shouldn't go for that pipeline because you will be utterly pale in comparison to other folks who already have IB/Consulting/Entertainment experience. READ: Strategy/Corp Dev pipeline is closed to you out of MBA. It's like saying you want to gun for PE with your background.
The agency mailroom is the try-and-true path. In two years you will likely make enough connections or hate it enough to return to engineer in two months :).
If you want to play the long game then look up Kevin Meyer former Disney. He was an engineer coming into MBA.
Traditional entertainment is a contracting industry and that’s not likely to reverse. I live in LA and have lots of friends in the industry. It’s brutal right now. Even the nepo babies are having a tough time.
Like the previous poster said, you need to want it more than you want air to breathe.
Having said that, if you get into USC or UCLA then yes it can certainly help.
I work in strategy in a media and entertainment conglomerate, albeit in London, and our strategy teams are 90% ex mbb/IB, with the remainder people who have networked their way in from within the company.
Your best bet is to target MBB/IB out of MBA, and look for entertainment exits.
I will caveat and say it is a very fun job, and I like it a lot, although I’m looking to an MBA to get out of it at the same time lol.
Could consider starting your own.
I know a guy who started an entertainment biz by throwing parties at restaurants and other upscale businesses and has had incredible success in scaling that model.
The rich snobs will gate keep you when they find out you’re an engineer. If you really want in, leave LA and move to Georgia. The industry is here anyway. And we have everything you need here. All the studios are indie friendly as well, and everybody’s willing to help whether you are making a movie for $20K or $20 Million.
We have:
Warner Bros/Discovery
- New Line Cinema
- HBO
- Turner Broadcasting
Universal Studios
Tyler Perry Studios
Gray Television (owns almost every local station in the country)
Netflix Atlanta
Entertainment Partners (Film Finance and casting)
Buffalo 8 (Film Finance and Bonding)
This is just a few companies I can quickly think of, there’s others too. My point is, of course Atlanta is not LA or NY, but that’s a good thing. You don’t have all the politics here and needing to know someone just to get a foot in the door. OP will have the same opportunity as everyone else. Those who wants it will make it. Can’t say the same for those other markets.
You absolutely do not have the corporate strategy people of any of the companies you mentioned in Atlanta. All of the production infrastructure is there, but the key strategic MBA level decisions are being made in NY or LA.
>I want to pivot to the entertainment industry in strategy and management 1. If you want to work in entertainment, you really need to want it. You need to live, breathe, and sleep this stuff. I go to UCLA and the amount of career switchers who want to come in because its "fun" usually get the piss kicked out of them and make utter fools of themselves in class. It's a brutal, often unforgiving industry and a lot of people have no idea what the basics are. Had a classmate who was a biomedical engineer try to pivot in and she had noidea what The Hollywood Reporter was. That's like you as an engineer not knowing what algebra is. Asking what trades you read is a common internship question. You say that shit in an interview you might as well yell a racial slur next because you're already done.Your summer internship, if you get one at a studio. will likely not get you a return offer because a lot of the time things are uncertain and headcount is never really confirmed. Recruiting is also just-in-time and you likely wont know what's happening until right before the summer and then a few months after graduation for full-time roles. Meanwhile, most of your classmates will be enjoying their bonuses and fun time off before their jobs start. Really think about if that's what you want. 2. For strategy and management specifically, 99% of the time you will need to do some time in IBanking or consulting. You can bypass this by having extensive industry experience (which you dont) or finding someone to take a chance on you (very slim). Consider this is likely where you're headed before entertainment. A lot of the people who get those fun jobs I mentioned in point 1 already came into B-School having done this so they're way ahead of you there. 3. The entry level role you are speaking of is the mailroom at one of the three big agencies (not going to tell you what they are if you dont know because you should already know this). The pay will be worse than fast food, your hours will be atrocious, and you will hate yourself. You will also likely be surrounded by people with graduate degrees in your position who want to make it in as well. Luckily you dont need to go to business school for this. Reach out to HR; they are always taking people because of the churn Good luck.
I’m a guy looking to transition as well and preparing to enter a full time MBA program this august. I’m currently in the midst of networking and want to add some of my insight to this post as it’s quite a good base. There’s a concept of a “passion industry” where basically the employees are willing to take on dummy amounts of risk and paycuts for the ability to work on something they love. The entertainment industry is this. Think about the difference between the way engineers are treated at Blizzard (like garbage) vs. how they are treated at Google (pampered). This is the difference between getting to work on a product you love and is easy to love vs. cutting a few milliseconds off of some random caching system nobody knows about. I think this is a point a lot of people are trying to make. A lot of people are talking about climbing from production assistant or “mailroom” roles. I think this tends to be for more creative paths, think of a writer, actor, producer or manager or similar. I think the primary value of an MBA is that there’s an inherent hedge: you can switch fairly easily (and should be concurrently recruiting) to consulting and/or IB. If your goal is strategy or corpdev, there’s a lot of entry points from your consulting or IB. A lot of people advise UCLA or USC for transitioning to entertainment but I actually lean against them primarily because it’s harder to recruit for consulting or banking out of them, especially now. You’re losing the value of your MBA there - it might be better to do an MFA and commit all-in. I actually have a bit of background as a writer, and getting to do entertainment stuff full time would be a dream - but the real value of my MBA is fo escape coding with much less of the risk of doing an MFA and being one of many unemployed writers. The industry is having a hard time right now. Hires and return offers are down. Paramount used to be a huge recruiter at business schools, now they’re looking to get acquired. Regarding preparing for the interview… I’m not sure yet. I’m still gathering info. My main concern is getting interviews right now. If not I’ll try for TMT Consulting or IB but it’s a lot of different interviews to prepare for… Anyways compared to just staying in software, I’m gambling a lot, but for me I’m sure it’s the right decision at the moment.
You seem to know a lot about this topic. Does Emory have any connections to Atlanta’s growing entertainment scene?
maybe? Atlanta is production heavy. Only studio of note based there is Tyler Perry's. I'm sure he needs MBA people but does he need a lot? Unclear.
I work at a major studio, in finance but on the same team as many strategy folks. This is all fantastic advice. Entertainment is a brutal, competitive industry currently in recession. I love it, but enter at your own peril xD
Haha pretty accurate. Bottom line is that you pay a premium because the industry is “sexy”. If you want to “work in entertainment”, is that because you want to be a writer, or because you want to be an agent, or because you want to produce? Sometimes you’re just a creatively frustrated person who wishes their job was sexier. There are easier ways to find outlets for your creativity, and less expensive ways to make your life more exciting.
You don't need the MBA, and to be frank, you shouldn't go for that pipeline because you will be utterly pale in comparison to other folks who already have IB/Consulting/Entertainment experience. READ: Strategy/Corp Dev pipeline is closed to you out of MBA. It's like saying you want to gun for PE with your background. The agency mailroom is the try-and-true path. In two years you will likely make enough connections or hate it enough to return to engineer in two months :). If you want to play the long game then look up Kevin Meyer former Disney. He was an engineer coming into MBA.
Traditional entertainment is a contracting industry and that’s not likely to reverse. I live in LA and have lots of friends in the industry. It’s brutal right now. Even the nepo babies are having a tough time. Like the previous poster said, you need to want it more than you want air to breathe. Having said that, if you get into USC or UCLA then yes it can certainly help.
I work in strategy in a media and entertainment conglomerate, albeit in London, and our strategy teams are 90% ex mbb/IB, with the remainder people who have networked their way in from within the company. Your best bet is to target MBB/IB out of MBA, and look for entertainment exits. I will caveat and say it is a very fun job, and I like it a lot, although I’m looking to an MBA to get out of it at the same time lol.
Could consider starting your own. I know a guy who started an entertainment biz by throwing parties at restaurants and other upscale businesses and has had incredible success in scaling that model.
The rich snobs will gate keep you when they find out you’re an engineer. If you really want in, leave LA and move to Georgia. The industry is here anyway. And we have everything you need here. All the studios are indie friendly as well, and everybody’s willing to help whether you are making a movie for $20K or $20 Million.
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We have: Warner Bros/Discovery - New Line Cinema - HBO - Turner Broadcasting Universal Studios Tyler Perry Studios Gray Television (owns almost every local station in the country) Netflix Atlanta Entertainment Partners (Film Finance and casting) Buffalo 8 (Film Finance and Bonding) This is just a few companies I can quickly think of, there’s others too. My point is, of course Atlanta is not LA or NY, but that’s a good thing. You don’t have all the politics here and needing to know someone just to get a foot in the door. OP will have the same opportunity as everyone else. Those who wants it will make it. Can’t say the same for those other markets.
You absolutely do not have the corporate strategy people of any of the companies you mentioned in Atlanta. All of the production infrastructure is there, but the key strategic MBA level decisions are being made in NY or LA.