Google

Google and Amazon are arguably the most popular companies to come recruiting on campus. While Amazon already made it's presence known to us earlier in the Mini in the form of the case competition, Google put itself out there yesterday, dragging about half the class from their desks and intense study sessions to both the corporate presentation and then later to a reception at their Pittsburgh campus.

I went to both; high tech is one of my industries I really want to get in on. But as I talked to Google employees and toured the offices with an excellent bloke called Dean, the wise words of an alum came to me.

Consider this two by two matrix: Industry experience along the top and functional experience on the side. If you want to stay in the same industry and change functions, or stay in the same function but change industries, it's quite easy to do. Changing functions and industries - rather difficult.

I'm in the "change industry and change function" box. I should probably re-evaluate that desire if I want to get into High Tech - unless one has a computer science background (which I don't), then it would be very difficult to get anything in the "fun" areas that I want to be in, such as operations.

But I think the thing about high tech is that you just need to get into the company. Moving between functions then is a lot easier if people know that you know what you're doing. That was the impression I got, anyway.