I would avoid Microsoft like a plague. The company has a horrible reputation with its internal employee rating system which requires it to always have winners and losers on each team. You spend a lot of your time competing against everyone inside your group instead of focusing on the goals/projects at hand. Nothing gets done at Microsoft. Please feel free to research my opinion.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickal ... reativity/

golantrevize wrote:Hello

I have job offers frm both MSFT & Apple. The roles are pretty similar. Which one would be better from an MBA application standpoint?
IMO, Apple has more of a charm as compared to MS, but the con is that they can make you work extremely hard, giving u very little time for anything else - which would include extracurriculars or even writing essays.
Any insight on this from the experts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Don't let b-school admissions down the road dictate your job decisions - that's foolish. You need to focus on what is best for your career, and not just what looks good to other people.

With that said, if you are looking at it from what is best for your career prospects, you should probably take the job at Apple. It is a marquee company that can give you more options down the road compared to working at Microsoft (which is perceived as being behind the times, regardless of whether that is true or not). A lot of other companies still admire Apple, and if the job duties are similar between both companies, I still think you will learn more at Apple as it is the market leader in many respects (may not be the leader forever, but at least right now and in the near future it will be). Microsoft on the other hand looks like it is continuing to fall behind.

Finally, if the job at Apple is in Cupertino, you will have a stronger network of tech professionals in the heart of the Silicon Valley (both socially and professionally) compared to working at Microsoft in Seattle. And building that network is crucial, because it can often sow the seeds of your next compelling startup idea that you can build a team around.