How apt that my 100th post is possibly my last. Nah.
Anyhoos, for the cool news: I got nominated for Clear Admit's Best of Blogging awards. If you think that I've been helpful or interesting in any way, please mosey on over and vote for me.
I've been off the radar for the last two weeks for two major reasons. 1 - Final exams. These occurred over last weekend, and was really the only time in which I didn't do any "company research" (i.e. playing video games). I do have the results back from three of my 5 classes - A's all around, which makes me happy.
Second reason was a plethora of interviews. I was flown out for an onsite interview directly after my finals, and any travel to the West Coast is a good 48-hour trip. On top of that, I was doing my final exam grading as a TA, so it was a busy time.
I still have one final project left to go, but it's not a Tepper class (it's Game Design), and that's due on Monday.
One of my group members for this class asked me yesterday what Tepper courses I should recommend he take. This was not an unfamiliar question - I had been asked this about three times already by other students in this program. I had spent some time thinking on the answer for this also. How does one boil down the experience into the essence of a couple of classes?
The first answer was easy - entrepreneurship classes. These classes show businesses on the small scale, AND how to sell yourself. While I know some people scoff at the idea of going to school to learn small business, it's pretty valuable in terms of how, holistically, everything fits together. Small businesses and startups don't have the luxury of specialized functions like larger corporations do; therefore, a class on finance or marketing doesn't provide the most bang for the buck like entrepreneurship classes do.
The second class I recommended was the introductory OB class, I believe we call it "Managing Teams and People" or something like that. The simple fact for this recommendation: no matter what someone does, they're always going to be working in an organization. Work takes up more of our time than any other activity. Especially for graduate-level students, there is also going to be a heavy chance that one will be in charge of people. So, what is the best way to get them to do what you want them to do? People management is almost always overlooked in terms of competencies and education - there's this feeling that it's a natural thing because we interact with people all our lives. But, the thing is, interacting with people is easy; managing and motivating people is something that needs to be learned. And since the U.S is moving to a intellectual capital-based marketplace, it's no longer about the product but about the people creating the product.
Coming into my MBA, I've had alumni all tell me that their biggest regret was not taking all the OB courses. With the interview I just had, there was a huge emphasis on getting along with people - there was no mention at all on my technical skills and capabilities. (the presumption was that I am a graduate of CMU, therefore that in itself tells people how smart I am). I've always seen the value in this area. I know that some people think the MBA is pretty worthless; frankly, some of them are. But I feel the value is in the education I received about working with people, both in the classroom and out.
Showing posts with label job search. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job search. Show all posts
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Final Tepper Experiences
As I was writing the last post, I discovered a topic I probably should talk about.
So I'm well into my job recruitment phase, much much later than the rest of my class. Last set of statistics said that about 80% had job offers. I'm in that lowly 20% :).
I had my first interview in a while last week, and so I dredged up my old interviewing notes and revised over my STAR stories. I needed to desperately update them to include the stuff I did in my internship. Interestingly, I also found myself talking about the two big projects I'm working on right now - my Capstone and my Mobile App. In fact, my Mobile App project has become a staple mention in nearly every cover letter I write.
Even though we've been told it's OK, I didn't really like talking about my assignments at school. The Mini mester is not set up to be an immersive experience, so all assignments I do tend to be quite shallow. The Teamwork STAR stories I could generate wouldn't be very insightful, as we all tended to divide and conquer. While there have been some good assignments for personal insight, that's all they were - assignments. Things we had to do because we were assigned them, with a narrow band of requirements.
My pro-bono consulting experience at the end of Year 1 gave me some good stories, although I'm not too sure I would go through that again. Then, at the end of last year, I was part of a group who had to develop a Brand Strategy for an existing company. It was a local burger joint called Stack'd. At the end of it, we presented out findings in a presentation and report that the owners actually used. Look, ma, verifiable proof that I can do stuff!
Now, I'm wrapping up my Capstone project, and amazed at some of the things I've been able to do during this time. But more importantly, I feel that my Mobile project is a truly shining example of my education. If we get this published in June, I can now actually point to it and say - "I ran the team that developed that. I identified the features, the target market, and user testing." It is a physical (ahem) showcase of my work, that is very relevant to my career goals.
So many of my classmates haven't had this experience, or have been able to relay this experience in interviews. There is a lack of opportunity to do real projects that people can point to as evidence of their skills.
It makes me wish that there were more project opportunities (outside of tech and/or entrepreneurship).
So I'm well into my job recruitment phase, much much later than the rest of my class. Last set of statistics said that about 80% had job offers. I'm in that lowly 20% :).
I had my first interview in a while last week, and so I dredged up my old interviewing notes and revised over my STAR stories. I needed to desperately update them to include the stuff I did in my internship. Interestingly, I also found myself talking about the two big projects I'm working on right now - my Capstone and my Mobile App. In fact, my Mobile App project has become a staple mention in nearly every cover letter I write.
Even though we've been told it's OK, I didn't really like talking about my assignments at school. The Mini mester is not set up to be an immersive experience, so all assignments I do tend to be quite shallow. The Teamwork STAR stories I could generate wouldn't be very insightful, as we all tended to divide and conquer. While there have been some good assignments for personal insight, that's all they were - assignments. Things we had to do because we were assigned them, with a narrow band of requirements.
My pro-bono consulting experience at the end of Year 1 gave me some good stories, although I'm not too sure I would go through that again. Then, at the end of last year, I was part of a group who had to develop a Brand Strategy for an existing company. It was a local burger joint called Stack'd. At the end of it, we presented out findings in a presentation and report that the owners actually used. Look, ma, verifiable proof that I can do stuff!
Now, I'm wrapping up my Capstone project, and amazed at some of the things I've been able to do during this time. But more importantly, I feel that my Mobile project is a truly shining example of my education. If we get this published in June, I can now actually point to it and say - "I ran the team that developed that. I identified the features, the target market, and user testing." It is a physical (ahem) showcase of my work, that is very relevant to my career goals.
So many of my classmates haven't had this experience, or have been able to relay this experience in interviews. There is a lack of opportunity to do real projects that people can point to as evidence of their skills.
It makes me wish that there were more project opportunities (outside of tech and/or entrepreneurship).
Sunday, March 31, 2013
GDC Week
I've just spent the last week in sunny, warm San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference. While this post is not going to be exactly Tepper-experience-related, it is related to my own ambitions post-MBA.
GDC, as it's known, is a week-long conference for people in the video game industry. They had a Free-To-Play summit at the beginning of the week, which confirmed my attendance for the entire conference. There was also a Career Expo in the latter half of the week, which is what I've been waiting for all second-year to truly kick start my fulltime job recruitment experience.
Last year, I only attended the Friday Student day, as GDC coincided with Mini 1 finals. This year, it only fell in with week 2 of Mini 4, so I figured it would be all ok.
I learned a lot about the industry and the state it's in currently. I found that to be very useful, as I'm finding myself leaning towards mobile and social games in terms of career - where my MBA will be the most useful - as opposed to big studios where MBA is usually concurrent with either Finance or Marketing. The Free-to-Play (F2P) business model is also fascinating to me - I don't think I've encountered anything like it in any other environment, so it seems unique to video games. Being involved in the early stages of a successful business model is very enticing, I'll admit. I also discovered that a lot of Product Managers in this space assist in the actual game design - to try and integrate monetization methods primarily - which is also just as exciting. To be able to help design a game would be very very cool and tap into that creative side of me that rarely gets any light of day under normal working conditions.
On the other hand, I was a little disappointed with the Career Expo. I was there primarily to network and get a lot of opportunities for fulltime positions. My experience last year looking for internship was tepid - very few people had opportunities for MBA interns; the majority was full-time hire. And there were a lot of companies at the Expo. This time, it seemed that there weren't very many opportunities at all because the number of companies there were fewer! Casino games have become the Next Big Thing, and I really really don't like casino games.
Overall, it was a fun but exhausting week. I reconnected with a contact I made on LinkedIn last year, who I've been in regular email discussions with, and he's taken it upon himself to be a champion of me of sorts - absolutely amazing! I met a good number of people too, of which I have to follow up on.
It was rather sad to have to come back to school and this learning environment after having been immersed in the industry. I wanted to go back to work to apply the things that I knew, not just sit on them to be later forgotten.
As an aside - I am one of the 8000 Google Glass Explorers!
GDC, as it's known, is a week-long conference for people in the video game industry. They had a Free-To-Play summit at the beginning of the week, which confirmed my attendance for the entire conference. There was also a Career Expo in the latter half of the week, which is what I've been waiting for all second-year to truly kick start my fulltime job recruitment experience.
Last year, I only attended the Friday Student day, as GDC coincided with Mini 1 finals. This year, it only fell in with week 2 of Mini 4, so I figured it would be all ok.
I learned a lot about the industry and the state it's in currently. I found that to be very useful, as I'm finding myself leaning towards mobile and social games in terms of career - where my MBA will be the most useful - as opposed to big studios where MBA is usually concurrent with either Finance or Marketing. The Free-to-Play (F2P) business model is also fascinating to me - I don't think I've encountered anything like it in any other environment, so it seems unique to video games. Being involved in the early stages of a successful business model is very enticing, I'll admit. I also discovered that a lot of Product Managers in this space assist in the actual game design - to try and integrate monetization methods primarily - which is also just as exciting. To be able to help design a game would be very very cool and tap into that creative side of me that rarely gets any light of day under normal working conditions.
On the other hand, I was a little disappointed with the Career Expo. I was there primarily to network and get a lot of opportunities for fulltime positions. My experience last year looking for internship was tepid - very few people had opportunities for MBA interns; the majority was full-time hire. And there were a lot of companies at the Expo. This time, it seemed that there weren't very many opportunities at all because the number of companies there were fewer! Casino games have become the Next Big Thing, and I really really don't like casino games.
Overall, it was a fun but exhausting week. I reconnected with a contact I made on LinkedIn last year, who I've been in regular email discussions with, and he's taken it upon himself to be a champion of me of sorts - absolutely amazing! I met a good number of people too, of which I have to follow up on.
It was rather sad to have to come back to school and this learning environment after having been immersed in the industry. I wanted to go back to work to apply the things that I knew, not just sit on them to be later forgotten.
As an aside - I am one of the 8000 Google Glass Explorers!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Recruiting Joys
Ah, the familiar feel of empty halls, half-filled classrooms, and scheduling blackouts. National Black has arrived this weekend, and many of my classmates have made the trek to Indianapolis to interview and recruit with the big firms there. Once again, I have opted out of attending since none of the companies I'm interested in are going to be there.
In fact, I have done very little recruiting this semester, which is a heightened contrast to many of my second year classmates. These two minis are devoted to full-time recruiting, and it's not unusual to see a cluster of second years spending their time in class composing cover letters. As one friend pointed out - this is the only time that companies are going to be doing MBA graduate recruiting. After this semester, it's on an as-needed basis. My career choices fall into the as-needed bucket, as many tech firms are notorious for not holding a position open for a year (too much changing in the industry). Google, I think, is an exception.
While I am not actively looking, I am aware that other companies are reading the resume books. I've had a couple reach out to me already, to see if I'm interested. One such company was one that had piqued my interest during the internship search, and while recent news-worthy events have made me cautious about the wisdom of pursuing any opportunities with them, I scheduled a screening phone call with them.
In the first 30 seconds of the call, I was reminded of the multitude of etiquette lessons that I researched over the summer on the best practices for interviewing project. The one the stood out most prominently in this situation was don't use speakerphone if there is only one person on the line. The recruiter did not know this lesson, as she used a speakerphone. I could not hear the recruiter, as the speaker picked up every echo. Even after we hung up and redialed to see if the connection was bad, I still got the awful echo effect. I mentioned it, but she decided to keep going. I couldn't hear her when she spoke quickly, which probably caused me to incorrectly answer the questions she was asking. It was a frustrating phonecall; a call that I was eager to end because it was so bad. Adding insult to injury, I got the feeling that she was fishing for more information on the "secret project" I worked on with Blizzard. I stayed away from any detail, and I could tell that was annoying her. I can't tell if she was just trying to actually ply me for that information, or just didn't realise that I was being vague intentionally since, clearly, I'm held to an NDA.
I know at this stage, we're supposed to be eager and willing to take on any job opportunity that comes our way. And maybe I should've also been more insistent that we talk on a connection that wasn't so bad. But I've had some issues with the etiquette of this company in my internship search, and this experience just added on to that bad perception. Do I want to work for a company that doesn't consider basic etiquette and politeness as part of their recruiting function? I think my interactions with this company has been very telling of what it would be like to work there, and I don't think I would care for the place.
In fact, I have done very little recruiting this semester, which is a heightened contrast to many of my second year classmates. These two minis are devoted to full-time recruiting, and it's not unusual to see a cluster of second years spending their time in class composing cover letters. As one friend pointed out - this is the only time that companies are going to be doing MBA graduate recruiting. After this semester, it's on an as-needed basis. My career choices fall into the as-needed bucket, as many tech firms are notorious for not holding a position open for a year (too much changing in the industry). Google, I think, is an exception.
While I am not actively looking, I am aware that other companies are reading the resume books. I've had a couple reach out to me already, to see if I'm interested. One such company was one that had piqued my interest during the internship search, and while recent news-worthy events have made me cautious about the wisdom of pursuing any opportunities with them, I scheduled a screening phone call with them.
In the first 30 seconds of the call, I was reminded of the multitude of etiquette lessons that I researched over the summer on the best practices for interviewing project. The one the stood out most prominently in this situation was don't use speakerphone if there is only one person on the line. The recruiter did not know this lesson, as she used a speakerphone. I could not hear the recruiter, as the speaker picked up every echo. Even after we hung up and redialed to see if the connection was bad, I still got the awful echo effect. I mentioned it, but she decided to keep going. I couldn't hear her when she spoke quickly, which probably caused me to incorrectly answer the questions she was asking. It was a frustrating phonecall; a call that I was eager to end because it was so bad. Adding insult to injury, I got the feeling that she was fishing for more information on the "secret project" I worked on with Blizzard. I stayed away from any detail, and I could tell that was annoying her. I can't tell if she was just trying to actually ply me for that information, or just didn't realise that I was being vague intentionally since, clearly, I'm held to an NDA.
I know at this stage, we're supposed to be eager and willing to take on any job opportunity that comes our way. And maybe I should've also been more insistent that we talk on a connection that wasn't so bad. But I've had some issues with the etiquette of this company in my internship search, and this experience just added on to that bad perception. Do I want to work for a company that doesn't consider basic etiquette and politeness as part of their recruiting function? I think my interactions with this company has been very telling of what it would be like to work there, and I don't think I would care for the place.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Internship endings
Today marks three weeks left until the end of my internship. This brief respite from the rigours of academia has been pleasant (as has having a paycheck!) but school-related tasks are starting to pop-up. This also means that I will probably be more active on my blog now that I have school-related things to talk about :)
Perhaps the most important thing so far has been the submission of our resume to the Graduating Students resume book. The deadline for submission just passed (yesterday), and I was doing a frantic last-minute edit of my resume in order to get my Blizzard experiences in. (As an aside, I don't quite understand why the U.S. insists on having a 1 page resume, especially when my education takes up a third of the page! That's not enough to showcase my work experiences, but then again, it's my hope that people will transition to LinkedIn). As I was uploading the document, a comment caught my eye:
"If you plan to take advantage of Tepper resources for a full-time job search in the fall..."
It's not normally a sure thing that an intern will receive a full-time job offer at the end of the internship. Conversely, an intern may not want to continue at the company in a full-time capacity. From what I understand, internships are viewed of in one of two ways: a full-time offer is the intern's to lose (i.e. the intern has to screw up bad to not get an offer), or the full-time offer is for the intern to gain (i.e. the intern has to prove themselves to be worthy of the offer). I've been told consulting firms are the former; some of the bigger companies with formal internship programs have the latter.
But at this point in time, late July, I don't think anyone knows if they will or will not be receiving an offer. This resume requirement (so that the resume books can be issued to interested companies in mid-August, before school even starts!) does prove to be a reminder that this internship is a temporary thing, and I may have to update & brush up on my STAR interview stories.
Oh, and get used to wearing a suit again.
Perhaps the most important thing so far has been the submission of our resume to the Graduating Students resume book. The deadline for submission just passed (yesterday), and I was doing a frantic last-minute edit of my resume in order to get my Blizzard experiences in. (As an aside, I don't quite understand why the U.S. insists on having a 1 page resume, especially when my education takes up a third of the page! That's not enough to showcase my work experiences, but then again, it's my hope that people will transition to LinkedIn). As I was uploading the document, a comment caught my eye:
"If you plan to take advantage of Tepper resources for a full-time job search in the fall..."
It's not normally a sure thing that an intern will receive a full-time job offer at the end of the internship. Conversely, an intern may not want to continue at the company in a full-time capacity. From what I understand, internships are viewed of in one of two ways: a full-time offer is the intern's to lose (i.e. the intern has to screw up bad to not get an offer), or the full-time offer is for the intern to gain (i.e. the intern has to prove themselves to be worthy of the offer). I've been told consulting firms are the former; some of the bigger companies with formal internship programs have the latter.
But at this point in time, late July, I don't think anyone knows if they will or will not be receiving an offer. This resume requirement (so that the resume books can be issued to interested companies in mid-August, before school even starts!) does prove to be a reminder that this internship is a temporary thing, and I may have to update & brush up on my STAR interview stories.
Oh, and get used to wearing a suit again.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Internship stats
I feel as if I need to document my internship journey in its entirety. I know, I know, it's been the main topic of this blog for the last three months, but this is going to be it.
I first started to apply to internships in December. A.T. Kearney was the first one on the 19th, followed very quickly by the other consulting firms that perform on-campus recruiting. I also submitted a ModCloth internship application to interview in San Francisco when I would be there for the Bay Area trek.
"Wow, you have a great memory" would think I if I was reading this on another blog. The fact of the matter is I actually have a spreadsheet set up with a listing of all the companies that I applied to, for what position, at when I submitted, when I would hear back (if it was an on-campus job), interview invites, and finally the results in a colour-coded scheme of Red if rejected and Green if accepted.
Contained in this spreadsheet were tabs that had the job listing copy + pasted, for later reference. Kinda helpful with interviews later.
This spreadsheet has made a very handy reference as to what is a typical job search for an MBA.
No of applications: 27
No of interviews: 10 (includes three second rounds and one third round)
No of offers: 2 (and one ambiguously defined "waitlist")
I think I'm in the center of the bell curve here. I know classmates that did upwards of 15 interviews before getting an offer, and some that got an offer for the first company they interviewed at. This success appears to be random. One of the smartest fellows in the class - he's on a full Dean's scholarship - hasn't received an offer yet. Another one who has a 780 GMAT didn't get moved onto the second round for his dream job at Amazon. There's a woman who came into the program right out of undergrad and is working for Deutsche Bank. One classmate received an internship offer before she event started school! I believe she received it through the Consortium (if you're Hispanic or Black, you should check it out).
Well, either which way, I'm now a part of the 61% with offers :)
I'm not going to list all the places that I applied to, but I will note this one experience with ModCloth that changed my entire job searching outlook. I received an invitation to interview at the last minute with them. As such, I had the last slot of the day. So I turn up and engage in a good conversation with the HR rep. About halfway through, he admits that he invited me because he was curious why I was applying for the internship - my background, he explained, didn't seem suited for the role or the company. But after talking with me, he could see that I was very passionate, intelligent, and would be pretty awesome.
I walked away with his words ringing in my ears, and I took it to heart. With my resume, I looked like I did finance in oil and gas; but, meeting people in person or chatting to them overcame that initial observation. Thus, the significant importance of networking kicked in and I tried really hard to put myself in a position where I would be judged on other factors outside of my resume. I also reworked my resume over and over to de-emphasise the finance piece.
As such, networking made an indelible impression. I'll probably write about this area a bit more indepth later.
I first started to apply to internships in December. A.T. Kearney was the first one on the 19th, followed very quickly by the other consulting firms that perform on-campus recruiting. I also submitted a ModCloth internship application to interview in San Francisco when I would be there for the Bay Area trek.
"Wow, you have a great memory" would think I if I was reading this on another blog. The fact of the matter is I actually have a spreadsheet set up with a listing of all the companies that I applied to, for what position, at when I submitted, when I would hear back (if it was an on-campus job), interview invites, and finally the results in a colour-coded scheme of Red if rejected and Green if accepted.
Contained in this spreadsheet were tabs that had the job listing copy + pasted, for later reference. Kinda helpful with interviews later.
This spreadsheet has made a very handy reference as to what is a typical job search for an MBA.
No of applications: 27
No of interviews: 10 (includes three second rounds and one third round)
No of offers: 2 (and one ambiguously defined "waitlist")
I think I'm in the center of the bell curve here. I know classmates that did upwards of 15 interviews before getting an offer, and some that got an offer for the first company they interviewed at. This success appears to be random. One of the smartest fellows in the class - he's on a full Dean's scholarship - hasn't received an offer yet. Another one who has a 780 GMAT didn't get moved onto the second round for his dream job at Amazon. There's a woman who came into the program right out of undergrad and is working for Deutsche Bank. One classmate received an internship offer before she event started school! I believe she received it through the Consortium (if you're Hispanic or Black, you should check it out).
Well, either which way, I'm now a part of the 61% with offers :)
I'm not going to list all the places that I applied to, but I will note this one experience with ModCloth that changed my entire job searching outlook. I received an invitation to interview at the last minute with them. As such, I had the last slot of the day. So I turn up and engage in a good conversation with the HR rep. About halfway through, he admits that he invited me because he was curious why I was applying for the internship - my background, he explained, didn't seem suited for the role or the company. But after talking with me, he could see that I was very passionate, intelligent, and would be pretty awesome.
I walked away with his words ringing in my ears, and I took it to heart. With my resume, I looked like I did finance in oil and gas; but, meeting people in person or chatting to them overcame that initial observation. Thus, the significant importance of networking kicked in and I tried really hard to put myself in a position where I would be judged on other factors outside of my resume. I also reworked my resume over and over to de-emphasise the finance piece.
As such, networking made an indelible impression. I'll probably write about this area a bit more indepth later.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Internship News
I have some excellent news to report. Today I officially accepted an internship with Blizzard Entertainment in their Strategic Initiatives group. Unfortunately, I had to turn down another offer, a situation people say is good to be in - but I really hate doing it.
I will be the first Tepper student to work at Blizzard. I think I will also be the first intern in that group. How did I get it? other students asked me. I'd like to say it was magic, but it seemed like luck.
I applied on their website. On the deadline, actually.
Then, out of the blue right before I left for GDC, I received an email asking if I was available for an interview the next week. That next week was Spring Break, so I said "sure". While at GDC, however, I stopped by the Blizzard booth and chatted at length with one of the recruiters there; actually, it turned out she was the one coordinating the entire internship program. (I scored a shirt while I was there too, but I gave it to my boyfriend)
A week or so later, I get asked to perform a four-hour case study - I believe it was to be used as a tie-breaker. I did the case study, and later emailed the production assistant what the next step would be. She replies asking when I'm available for a phone call. That phone call, two days later, was my offer :) At the time, I was also interviewing with another gaming company that I met at GDC, so I put off accepting until I had received an official offer from them (I received a pseudo offer; I got told that they like me, there's just some formalities that they needed to go through). I got that offer last night.
This was a really difficult decision because I really loved both companies, but I think I will have a more meaningful experience at Blizzard and thus accepted their offer today.
Now I just have to figure out housing and transportation...
I will be the first Tepper student to work at Blizzard. I think I will also be the first intern in that group. How did I get it? other students asked me. I'd like to say it was magic, but it seemed like luck.
I applied on their website. On the deadline, actually.
Then, out of the blue right before I left for GDC, I received an email asking if I was available for an interview the next week. That next week was Spring Break, so I said "sure". While at GDC, however, I stopped by the Blizzard booth and chatted at length with one of the recruiters there; actually, it turned out she was the one coordinating the entire internship program. (I scored a shirt while I was there too, but I gave it to my boyfriend)
A week or so later, I get asked to perform a four-hour case study - I believe it was to be used as a tie-breaker. I did the case study, and later emailed the production assistant what the next step would be. She replies asking when I'm available for a phone call. That phone call, two days later, was my offer :) At the time, I was also interviewing with another gaming company that I met at GDC, so I put off accepting until I had received an official offer from them (I received a pseudo offer; I got told that they like me, there's just some formalities that they needed to go through). I got that offer last night.
This was a really difficult decision because I really loved both companies, but I think I will have a more meaningful experience at Blizzard and thus accepted their offer today.
Now I just have to figure out housing and transportation...
Sunday, March 11, 2012
GDC Experience
I returned from San Francisco yesterday with a happy cheer in my heart.
This was my experience with GDC:
- I arrived mid-Thursday. After getting to my hotel and paying $10 for 24 hours of internet, I sent off a bunch of emails to various ETC students who had reached out to me earlier to meet up, then promptly went for a nap - I was under the presumption that I would be partying all night and since I had been up since 3:30am EST, I was in need of sleep. After said nap, I met up with Justin, a friend of mine whom I had worked with in my Entrepreneurship class who is an ETC student, and then we later met up with his buddies, a couple of whom I had emailed with back and forth. The rest of the night was just spent moving from one location to another trying to find where the parties were. The Minecraft party had a line literally around the block. All in all, I went to bed about 11pm - the nap I had was not very effective.
- Friday! This was the only day in which I could go to the conference on a $75 student pass. I turn up at the conference center pretty early, but then decided to go get my resume printed at the local InterContinental. $1.50 a page! I must remember to do this ahead of time before going to downtown San Francisco. Back again to the career expo with resumes in hand and a smile on my face.
Coming into the conference, I had two objectives: network (either establish or build), and aim at internship opportunities. I had this expectation that the big companies, the Activision, EA, Warner Brothers, etc of the world would have a defined internship program that values MBAs - a lot of places I read say that the game industry doesn't think highly of MBAs. My experience, however, was completely different. There were a couple of large businesses that seemed interested in me - one, specifically, was probably because I already had an interview invite that I received just the day before - but there was one company in particular that stands out. I walked up to the bored-looking recruiter, gave her my spiel, she proceeded to direct me to the website, took my resume and literally dropped it behind her podium. I heard it hit the ground.
On the contrary, the smaller, lesser-known companies were excited to find out I was an MBA student. One place in particular stated that they didn't traditionally have an internship program but they would be willing to take me on as an intern.
As lunchtime rolled around, I went and spent it with the contact I had made through LinkedIn, which was great, and then I looked around the main expo afterwards. Unfortunately for me, it closed at 3pm, and I got back from lunch near to 2pm. I did, however, sign up for the Game of Thrones beta, talked to the MBA grad working at that company, almost pick up a Blackberry Playbook, won a Darkness II statue of a darkling, and made friends with the booth guys at Rackspace, a company based in San Antonio (where I lived for 5 years before coming here).
I think next year, I'm going to try to make it for the entire session. Now I need to catch up on everything I left behind :)
This was my experience with GDC:
- I arrived mid-Thursday. After getting to my hotel and paying $10 for 24 hours of internet, I sent off a bunch of emails to various ETC students who had reached out to me earlier to meet up, then promptly went for a nap - I was under the presumption that I would be partying all night and since I had been up since 3:30am EST, I was in need of sleep. After said nap, I met up with Justin, a friend of mine whom I had worked with in my Entrepreneurship class who is an ETC student, and then we later met up with his buddies, a couple of whom I had emailed with back and forth. The rest of the night was just spent moving from one location to another trying to find where the parties were. The Minecraft party had a line literally around the block. All in all, I went to bed about 11pm - the nap I had was not very effective.
- Friday! This was the only day in which I could go to the conference on a $75 student pass. I turn up at the conference center pretty early, but then decided to go get my resume printed at the local InterContinental. $1.50 a page! I must remember to do this ahead of time before going to downtown San Francisco. Back again to the career expo with resumes in hand and a smile on my face.
Coming into the conference, I had two objectives: network (either establish or build), and aim at internship opportunities. I had this expectation that the big companies, the Activision, EA, Warner Brothers, etc of the world would have a defined internship program that values MBAs - a lot of places I read say that the game industry doesn't think highly of MBAs. My experience, however, was completely different. There were a couple of large businesses that seemed interested in me - one, specifically, was probably because I already had an interview invite that I received just the day before - but there was one company in particular that stands out. I walked up to the bored-looking recruiter, gave her my spiel, she proceeded to direct me to the website, took my resume and literally dropped it behind her podium. I heard it hit the ground.
On the contrary, the smaller, lesser-known companies were excited to find out I was an MBA student. One place in particular stated that they didn't traditionally have an internship program but they would be willing to take me on as an intern.
As lunchtime rolled around, I went and spent it with the contact I had made through LinkedIn, which was great, and then I looked around the main expo afterwards. Unfortunately for me, it closed at 3pm, and I got back from lunch near to 2pm. I did, however, sign up for the Game of Thrones beta, talked to the MBA grad working at that company, almost pick up a Blackberry Playbook, won a Darkness II statue of a darkling, and made friends with the booth guys at Rackspace, a company based in San Antonio (where I lived for 5 years before coming here).
I think next year, I'm going to try to make it for the entire session. Now I need to catch up on everything I left behind :)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Internship postings
According to the COC, about 40% of the first years have been offered an internship; only 15% have accepted. My friends and I debated these numbers as they didn't seem right. The problem here is that is self-reporting - if a student gets a job offer, the details are required to be entered into the database. We don't think that students have been doing so; or at least, haven't been saying they've accepted. There is a policy at the school whereas if you have accepted an offer, you cannot UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES continue to interview or perform internship recruiting activities. A friend of mine thinks that is the primary reason why there are so few accepted offers - people are wanting to play the field. I disagree and think it's the former - i.e lazy classmates.
But for those of us without an internship offer, it's hard not to feel down. I'm very calm and confident about the whole search; it was mentioned to me today that most people by now are panicking since there have been very few postings on our job board and not as many people now are flying out for interviews. I just shrugged - I know this is that lull before March rears its ugly head for post-spring break recruiting. I can't say the same attitude is prevalent with my classmates :)
On a side note, I'm still being somewhat amused by internship postings and how recruiters are selling the internships. One line I've seen a couple of times is along the thread of "you'll be doing real work and not running for coffee and making copies!"
This amuses (if I wasn't amused, I'd be rather irritated) me for a couple of reasons:
1) If there is an internship out there that pays an MBA to run copies and make coffee, damn, that is one company that is overpaying their intern.
2) It's quite juvenile. The vast majority of MBA students already have years of experience under their belt. It's pretty much expected that we're not going to make copies. The fact that a recruiter is putting this in a job posting says that they're really out of touch with the type of people they're trying to recruit, or it's a form posting for undergrads.
Either which way, I know of classmates who have refused to apply to jobs that state this sort of line because of the two reasons. Similar to how career counselors warn us to not send stock cover letters and resumes; this is the recruiter-equivalent. I won't apply to any internship postings that don't have "MBA" specifically requested; to me, if it's not there, then the value of our experience and degree is being wasted.
But for those of us without an internship offer, it's hard not to feel down. I'm very calm and confident about the whole search; it was mentioned to me today that most people by now are panicking since there have been very few postings on our job board and not as many people now are flying out for interviews. I just shrugged - I know this is that lull before March rears its ugly head for post-spring break recruiting. I can't say the same attitude is prevalent with my classmates :)
On a side note, I'm still being somewhat amused by internship postings and how recruiters are selling the internships. One line I've seen a couple of times is along the thread of "you'll be doing real work and not running for coffee and making copies!"
This amuses (if I wasn't amused, I'd be rather irritated) me for a couple of reasons:
1) If there is an internship out there that pays an MBA to run copies and make coffee, damn, that is one company that is overpaying their intern.
2) It's quite juvenile. The vast majority of MBA students already have years of experience under their belt. It's pretty much expected that we're not going to make copies. The fact that a recruiter is putting this in a job posting says that they're really out of touch with the type of people they're trying to recruit, or it's a form posting for undergrads.
Either which way, I know of classmates who have refused to apply to jobs that state this sort of line because of the two reasons. Similar to how career counselors warn us to not send stock cover letters and resumes; this is the recruiter-equivalent. I won't apply to any internship postings that don't have "MBA" specifically requested; to me, if it's not there, then the value of our experience and degree is being wasted.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
GDC
I have a confession to make. I'm a major geek. I play video games, I paint miniatures, I run tabletop D&D games. When we visited EA Games over the break on our B&T trek, I nerdgasmed everywhere. I only recently came to the realization that I could now, upon graduation of MBA, transition into a career that I never contemplated before - working in the video game industry.
I really loved the culture and work/life balance that the tech firms all had. Work/life is very important to me for reasons I'll explain in another post. However, it was an interview I had with a tech company that revealed my weakness in trying to get into a tech job, let alone a gaming job: on paper, I don't look like I would fit in with tech. My resume detailed my life experiences and accomplishments and while I highlighted the skills that a job posting would ask for, it read like I came from finance in oil and gas (which I did). So think of all the adjectives that come into mind when thinking finance oil & gas - yeah, doesn't fit with tech, right? The interviewer pointed this out to me when he admitted that he called me in to interview merely because he was curious as to why I was applying and wanted to get to meet me - and then I blew him away with my knowledge of the company and my general enthusiasm. Although I didn't have marketing experience at all, everything else was in my favor.
So I had big weaknesses to overcome. I knew I could shine well in an interview; it was getting an interview that was the problem. Therefore... network! (oh, and re-do resume, but networking was much better option)
Thorough LinkedIn, I managed to connect with a (former) producer at Bioware. We had a great conversation - I could tell at first, from reading my LinkedIn profile, that he had his doubts, but the first thing I rolled off was essentially the sentence at the beginning of this post and therefore my geek cred was established. At the finale of the conversation, he mentioned the Game Developers Conference and asked if I was going. I hadn't heard of it, so I mumbled something. He then suggested I go and if I do, let him know.
When I hung up, I immediately looked up the conference (and thus remembered what it was), noted that the dates were during the week of finals except for Thursday and Friday, and checked airfares. For me, "suggested" means "you should". I did it with Deloitte at the case competition (our judge "suggested" we stay to watch the finals, so I did and I'm sure that was partly what got me an interview). After that, I reached out to one of the ETC's main professor's Jesse Schell, whom I contacted late last year, to see if any ETC students are attending. He sent out an email to the entire student body of ETC and I've had three people so far contact me to say hi and that they're going. Talk about awesome networking opportunities! Also found out on Friday that one of the second years who did his internship with Ubisoft is also attending.
I tell prospective students that I'm probably one of the only students in the class that has truly taken advantage of the cross-campus opportunities that are there. I believe it's partly because I seek them out - I didn't know of the ETC until it happened to be that one of my Entrepreneurship classmates, and later teammate, was a student there. It was through him that I connected with Jesse. I'm in the Technology Leadership track partly because I would have to do a CS class. Lastly, I'm planning on taking an Advanced Negotiations class in the Heinz school because the author of one of the books I read at the beginning of each year is teaching it - Linda Babcock of "Women Don't Ask" fame.
It's just exciting that these opportunities exist.
I really loved the culture and work/life balance that the tech firms all had. Work/life is very important to me for reasons I'll explain in another post. However, it was an interview I had with a tech company that revealed my weakness in trying to get into a tech job, let alone a gaming job: on paper, I don't look like I would fit in with tech. My resume detailed my life experiences and accomplishments and while I highlighted the skills that a job posting would ask for, it read like I came from finance in oil and gas (which I did). So think of all the adjectives that come into mind when thinking finance oil & gas - yeah, doesn't fit with tech, right? The interviewer pointed this out to me when he admitted that he called me in to interview merely because he was curious as to why I was applying and wanted to get to meet me - and then I blew him away with my knowledge of the company and my general enthusiasm. Although I didn't have marketing experience at all, everything else was in my favor.
So I had big weaknesses to overcome. I knew I could shine well in an interview; it was getting an interview that was the problem. Therefore... network! (oh, and re-do resume, but networking was much better option)
Thorough LinkedIn, I managed to connect with a (former) producer at Bioware. We had a great conversation - I could tell at first, from reading my LinkedIn profile, that he had his doubts, but the first thing I rolled off was essentially the sentence at the beginning of this post and therefore my geek cred was established. At the finale of the conversation, he mentioned the Game Developers Conference and asked if I was going. I hadn't heard of it, so I mumbled something. He then suggested I go and if I do, let him know.
When I hung up, I immediately looked up the conference (and thus remembered what it was), noted that the dates were during the week of finals except for Thursday and Friday, and checked airfares. For me, "suggested" means "you should". I did it with Deloitte at the case competition (our judge "suggested" we stay to watch the finals, so I did and I'm sure that was partly what got me an interview). After that, I reached out to one of the ETC's main professor's Jesse Schell, whom I contacted late last year, to see if any ETC students are attending. He sent out an email to the entire student body of ETC and I've had three people so far contact me to say hi and that they're going. Talk about awesome networking opportunities! Also found out on Friday that one of the second years who did his internship with Ubisoft is also attending.
I tell prospective students that I'm probably one of the only students in the class that has truly taken advantage of the cross-campus opportunities that are there. I believe it's partly because I seek them out - I didn't know of the ETC until it happened to be that one of my Entrepreneurship classmates, and later teammate, was a student there. It was through him that I connected with Jesse. I'm in the Technology Leadership track partly because I would have to do a CS class. Lastly, I'm planning on taking an Advanced Negotiations class in the Heinz school because the author of one of the books I read at the beginning of each year is teaching it - Linda Babcock of "Women Don't Ask" fame.
It's just exciting that these opportunities exist.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Internship Season
I've been bad and not keeping up with my one-post-a-week lately. The reason? Internship recruiting.
If I was to say what the hardest thing about business school in general would be, it would be this. Internships are scarce and therefore very competitive. There are about three ways that people approach internship recruiting:
1) Shotgun approach, or the "I don't know what I want so I'm getting out there as much as possible." While on the surface this may seem like it won't work too well, but it's the really intelligent, super duper uber background people that do this - because there's a plethora of opportunity out there, I guess. What this means is, there are people in the class who collect offers. Not satisfied with one or two, they go all out there and grab as much as they can. Since they're the most desirable applicants, it's not actually hard for them to do. The flipside is, however, that since they have the offers, the people who really wanted to work at their dream company miss out. I'm in that situation right now.
2) Only apply to Plan A: I saw this with the consulting folks. A bunch of people didn't get first rounds. A number didn't make it to second rounds. And a few of those (not many) didn't get offers. But they put all the efforts into the top-tier consulting and therefore didn't plan for what might happen if they didn't get it. So there are some people out there aimless; others are madly scrambling for something.
3) Thoughtful application, or what you would probably expect a reasonable person to do: only apply for the jobs that they want or wouldn't mind having for the summer. This is me.
The problem here as to why I think it's the most difficult thing about school: seeing your classmates get offers. Either multiple offers, or offers for firms you interviewed with and wanted but didn't get through. Facebook is littered with people saying "congrats". It really does put your self-esteem on the line. Sucks even more when you're in competition with one of those hugely-desirable candidates who is engaging in approach 1. above.
I know it's early in the game, but that realisation still doesn't make bitter pills easier to swallow.
If I was to say what the hardest thing about business school in general would be, it would be this. Internships are scarce and therefore very competitive. There are about three ways that people approach internship recruiting:
1) Shotgun approach, or the "I don't know what I want so I'm getting out there as much as possible." While on the surface this may seem like it won't work too well, but it's the really intelligent, super duper uber background people that do this - because there's a plethora of opportunity out there, I guess. What this means is, there are people in the class who collect offers. Not satisfied with one or two, they go all out there and grab as much as they can. Since they're the most desirable applicants, it's not actually hard for them to do. The flipside is, however, that since they have the offers, the people who really wanted to work at their dream company miss out. I'm in that situation right now.
2) Only apply to Plan A: I saw this with the consulting folks. A bunch of people didn't get first rounds. A number didn't make it to second rounds. And a few of those (not many) didn't get offers. But they put all the efforts into the top-tier consulting and therefore didn't plan for what might happen if they didn't get it. So there are some people out there aimless; others are madly scrambling for something.
3) Thoughtful application, or what you would probably expect a reasonable person to do: only apply for the jobs that they want or wouldn't mind having for the summer. This is me.
The problem here as to why I think it's the most difficult thing about school: seeing your classmates get offers. Either multiple offers, or offers for firms you interviewed with and wanted but didn't get through. Facebook is littered with people saying "congrats". It really does put your self-esteem on the line. Sucks even more when you're in competition with one of those hugely-desirable candidates who is engaging in approach 1. above.
I know it's early in the game, but that realisation still doesn't make bitter pills easier to swallow.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Corporate Presentations
I'm in the middle of writing a cover letter for an internship. I've spent about 3 minutes looking for the brochure that the company provided at the corporate presentation, so I can use some of the information. Their 2011 presentation wasn't videotaped, but luckily the 2010 presentation was so I'm trying to glean insights there as to why I like the company without sounding desperate or that it's a rote response.
Corporate presentations started the second day of class in Mini 1. At the time, most were for full-time positions, however a couple mentioned internships. I will note, one director of a company was very impressed that I attended a full-time presentation after I admitted I was looking for internship opportunities. I think that got me brownie points, and something I will advise incoming 1st years to do.
However, the shift gradually changed to internship presentations. I made the mistake of just sitting and listening - enjoying the ride. I should've taken notes. I should've jotted down what was impressive about the company, even if, at the time, I wasn't interested. I shouldn't've assumed that the presentation was being recorded, or the slide deck would be available.
Probably should've kept the brochures in a better place.
All that information would've been gold right now for the cover letter. Oh well. Lesson learned for next mini.... and for fulltime recruiting.
Corporate presentations started the second day of class in Mini 1. At the time, most were for full-time positions, however a couple mentioned internships. I will note, one director of a company was very impressed that I attended a full-time presentation after I admitted I was looking for internship opportunities. I think that got me brownie points, and something I will advise incoming 1st years to do.
However, the shift gradually changed to internship presentations. I made the mistake of just sitting and listening - enjoying the ride. I should've taken notes. I should've jotted down what was impressive about the company, even if, at the time, I wasn't interested. I shouldn't've assumed that the presentation was being recorded, or the slide deck would be available.
Probably should've kept the brochures in a better place.
All that information would've been gold right now for the cover letter. Oh well. Lesson learned for next mini.... and for fulltime recruiting.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Post-Turkey Career Preparation
I had set aside this weekend to dedicate completely to my internship search. Because of the GBA campaign over the last couple of weeks, I had really only focused on that and my schoolwork. Now that mid-terms are over, and I have 5 (!) days of no school with no significant assignments due next week, I felt this would be a great time to get back on board with career prep.
Tepper has a number of tools provided for us with our career assistance. When I first got accepted, I was provided a Vault.com CareerInsider membership. This gives me access to company rankings, industry guides, reviews, etc. I'm using this currently to build a pretty comprehensive list of Consulting firms, starting with the Top 50. Right now, it's based purely on research - what industries are they in, where are they located, what are people saying is a defining aspect of the firm, etc.
The second step is delve through COMPASS, our alumni database. I'm going to look up alums who are currently working at these companies and see if there are any other consulting firms that we have alums at, and add to the list. I'm also going to do the same for my plan B - high tech product/project management.
THEN I go through and eliminate the ones in which I a) have no chance at and b) are not all that interested in, like healthcare consulting.
This will give me a list of alumns I can now reach out to for informational interviews. I've already got a list of the second years who did internships at companies that I am interested in. I also have to compose those emails to mass-send out on Tuesday. Why Tuesday? I'm considerate of people's vacation time and think that sending it out on Tuesday would mean that my request isn't buried with all the other emails that got sent out during the long break that the person has to plow through first thing Monday morning.
Another thing I need to start working on are my cover letters for the various internships I have starred. I have access to a) Symplicity, the Tepper job board, b) Ivy Exec, a selective recruiting website of which I received free membership to join via my Tepper Women in Business Club membership, c) Forte Foundation, by being a Forte Fellow, d) Net Impact by being a member of the Tepper chapter and the global organization, and e) MBAFocus, a job board that I have membership through the school (I haven't found it very useful). I have email notifications set up for new postings at each site, and have cultivated a folder of job postings I wish to apply to.
Finally, I have to keep practicing case interviews and write my STAR stories. I had my mock interview last week and there were a couple of curveball questions I wasn't expecting. So I need to polish that up a lot.
Plus, it would also be nice to be ahead of the curve with classwork, but we'll see on that one :)
Tepper has a number of tools provided for us with our career assistance. When I first got accepted, I was provided a Vault.com CareerInsider membership. This gives me access to company rankings, industry guides, reviews, etc. I'm using this currently to build a pretty comprehensive list of Consulting firms, starting with the Top 50. Right now, it's based purely on research - what industries are they in, where are they located, what are people saying is a defining aspect of the firm, etc.
The second step is delve through COMPASS, our alumni database. I'm going to look up alums who are currently working at these companies and see if there are any other consulting firms that we have alums at, and add to the list. I'm also going to do the same for my plan B - high tech product/project management.
THEN I go through and eliminate the ones in which I a) have no chance at and b) are not all that interested in, like healthcare consulting.
This will give me a list of alumns I can now reach out to for informational interviews. I've already got a list of the second years who did internships at companies that I am interested in. I also have to compose those emails to mass-send out on Tuesday. Why Tuesday? I'm considerate of people's vacation time and think that sending it out on Tuesday would mean that my request isn't buried with all the other emails that got sent out during the long break that the person has to plow through first thing Monday morning.
Another thing I need to start working on are my cover letters for the various internships I have starred. I have access to a) Symplicity, the Tepper job board, b) Ivy Exec, a selective recruiting website of which I received free membership to join via my Tepper Women in Business Club membership, c) Forte Foundation, by being a Forte Fellow, d) Net Impact by being a member of the Tepper chapter and the global organization, and e) MBAFocus, a job board that I have membership through the school (I haven't found it very useful). I have email notifications set up for new postings at each site, and have cultivated a folder of job postings I wish to apply to.
Finally, I have to keep practicing case interviews and write my STAR stories. I had my mock interview last week and there were a couple of curveball questions I wasn't expecting. So I need to polish that up a lot.
Plus, it would also be nice to be ahead of the curve with classwork, but we'll see on that one :)
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
National Black
It's 3pm on a Wednesday and the Master's Lounge is nearly empty. While one could claim it's because class is still in session, it's actually because a vast amount of my fellow 1st years have departed to head to the airport to go to Atlanta for the next couple of days.
What's in Atlanta? National Black MBA Association annual conference. Or, more specifically, the career fair is on over the next two days. NBMBAA has a gigantic career fair with over hundreds of employers manning booths, eager to entice smart MBA students to their opportunities, and thousands of said eager MBAs willing to sell their mothers for a chance to talk to a recruiter for five minutes of the day.
Way back before even BaseCamp started, we were told that there are two main career fairs that we should attend: NBMBAA and NSHMBA (National Society of Hispanic MBAs). It was advised that one out of the two should be attended, preferably Black because NSHMBA was held over the same time as our finals. The Early Bird registration cut-off was August 1st, so August 1st, without even questioning the validity of this decision, I signed up for the career fair.
As time went on, BaseCamp happened, career options were slowly being eliminated or focused on, I began to wonder if Black was a good idea. I also had signed up for the Net Impact conference that is to be held at the end of October, for a good deal more money admittedly, and I was facing the prospect of spending too much money on something that may not hold much value.
I spoke to my career counselor during my mandatory resume review session and she confirmed my suspicions - since I am interested in consulting and operations, there isn't as strong a representation of companies for those areas at Black than for companies looking for Marketing, Finance, or specific industries that don't usually come by Tepper, such as biopharma.
So I sold my ticket to a fellow student who hadn't booked her trip yet. A couple of others had done the same thing, so it's going to be a very quiet couple of days in class!
What's in Atlanta? National Black MBA Association annual conference. Or, more specifically, the career fair is on over the next two days. NBMBAA has a gigantic career fair with over hundreds of employers manning booths, eager to entice smart MBA students to their opportunities, and thousands of said eager MBAs willing to sell their mothers for a chance to talk to a recruiter for five minutes of the day.
Way back before even BaseCamp started, we were told that there are two main career fairs that we should attend: NBMBAA and NSHMBA (National Society of Hispanic MBAs). It was advised that one out of the two should be attended, preferably Black because NSHMBA was held over the same time as our finals. The Early Bird registration cut-off was August 1st, so August 1st, without even questioning the validity of this decision, I signed up for the career fair.
As time went on, BaseCamp happened, career options were slowly being eliminated or focused on, I began to wonder if Black was a good idea. I also had signed up for the Net Impact conference that is to be held at the end of October, for a good deal more money admittedly, and I was facing the prospect of spending too much money on something that may not hold much value.
I spoke to my career counselor during my mandatory resume review session and she confirmed my suspicions - since I am interested in consulting and operations, there isn't as strong a representation of companies for those areas at Black than for companies looking for Marketing, Finance, or specific industries that don't usually come by Tepper, such as biopharma.
So I sold my ticket to a fellow student who hadn't booked her trip yet. A couple of others had done the same thing, so it's going to be a very quiet couple of days in class!
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