| Topic Name: |
Consulting Glass Ceilings |
| Message Name: |
Is there such a thing as advancing too quickly? |
| Date Posted: |
01/27/2001 |
| Message: |
I posted a really long message yesterday, and it appears it was never posted, or disappeared some time today, so I'll try again. this won't be nearly as detailed, but hopefully I can convey the same general dilemma in hopes of soliciting some feedback.
I'm 22, and a Project Manager at a dotcom owned by a well-known SAT Test Prep company. I make $80,000 + 15% bonus and dotcom perks (dinner, cab, etc).
I managed to get the job out of college because I started a consulting firm at 19. Even though it only had 6 close friends as employees, we managed to win contracts with such companies as GE, Revlon, Key Bank, and the City of Albany.
I received offers during college recruiting from all the Big Five for salaries in around the 60s plus bonuses. I knew the names would be great for my career, but I felt as though they didn't take my experience seriously enough because I was still going in at entry level with a salary not much higher than everyone else.
I revolted and decided to seek positions as an "experienced professional" outside the career development center of my school, and that's how I found my job last March. I was making far more than my all of my peers with far more responsibility. The tradeoff? I'm at a dotcom that few people have heard of instead of a mega firm.
So here's the dilemma - for various reasons, I quit my job a couple of weeks ago and have started interviewing. There is an incredible backlash because of my age. I guess the failed dotcoms started by young people have soured the market. Most companies aren't blunt enough to say it, but they definitely allude to it, and look shocked when they meet me.
I have received some offers for sales engineering positions, consultant positions in small consultancies like K2 Digital, DMIND and Dynax solutions. But I'm worried that I'm going to be typecast as a "dotcom specialist" because the only entries on my resume are companies I created or dotcoms no one has heard of.
It's started already - I-banks won't look at me for non-entry level tech positions because 1) I have no i-banking experience
2) I graduated in 1999, so they see anything done before then as "internships"
Big Fives won't look at me for non-entry level positions because I have no "big corporate" or "big consulting" experience...and I graduated in 1999.
Ny questions are:
1) Can't I sue for age discrimination?
2) Where should I go from here? How do I get out of this situation and play with the "big boys", where I know I belong?
3) How do I break into Big Five/I-banking with no Big Five/I-banking experience?
4) Must I swallow my pride and take a cut in pay/rank in order to escape this dead end, or should I stick with the boutiques for a few more years and try to break into the big market later?
Any other advice, comments or questions are more than welcome!
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