Fall Recruiting Moves into Summer

With an eye on the softening job market, some B-schools are staging career events earlier in the calendar.

Business school students used to marvel that internship recruiting—a rite of passage for first-years—began as soon as school started in the fall. But the hiring is slowly starting to creep into the summer months. And with the softening of the job market, career services officers are urging students, especially first-years, to start thinking about their internship and job hunts earlier than ever before. To help them, business schools are ramping up their offerings. Career services officers are planning summer career panels, opening up alumni databases to first-years and incorporating career activities into orientation programs.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2008/bs2008068_414314.htm

Financing MBA

One thing I want to emphasize here is that, never back off from pursuing an MBA due to financial fears. Generally, it falls in place.

Well, there are three main sources of funding your MBA.

1. Merit scholarships: This is offered by the schools themselves after evaluating your merit based on various aspects. The amount in a merit scholarship can be anywhere between a few thousands to full fee waiver. Almost all schools have merit scholarship deadlines before which you would be considered eligible for the same. There are lot of funds out there. Be sure you don't miss this chance.

2. Assistantships: Assistantships help you meet your living expenses, typically partly and sometimes fully. When offered an assistantship, you are expected to assist a professor in his/her teaching or research work or assist an admin person in his/her work. You need to spend a certain number of hours per week and make your earning. Assistantships and merit scholarships are mostly independent of each other and one may be lucky to earn both.

3.Student Loans: The third and the most sought out option for MBA financing is student loans. Broadly speaking, when you apply for a loan in your country of study; a foreign country, the banker needs you to have a co-signer. Some colleges would co-sign for you. But in the other case, you need to arrange it yourself. Each banker, of course, would have his one policies. However, a student is allowed to borrow for fee and living expenses too and pay back after he/she graduates. There exists a grace period too as repaying few months after graduation.

So, don't panic! Move ahead!

Handling Recommendations

There are three important steps to be followed to emerge with a successful recommendation:

Selecting the recommender: The best recommender is a supervisor of yours who has interacted with you closely. Recommendations from CEOs or CFOs are absolutely of no use unless you have closely moved with them. A supervisor who can talk of your strengths, weaknesses and the material you are made of, is one of the best choices. A peer review is sometimes sought by schools. But when the recommender selection is left as a open choice, I would say a supervisor weighs far more than a peer.

Coaching the recommender: This is an essential and crucial step. Make sure you coach your recommender about your goals and aspirations. Tell him/her why you are looking for an MBA. The recommender may very well be mindful of your work culture, team spirit, attitude etc. But it is also important that he is aware of your professional goals. Its your duty to make an appointment and enable him to know your goals in detail. The next step is to tell him/her about the time lines and don't hesitate to send across a gentle reminder if need be.

The recommender's say: In short, the recommender must fortify what ever you said in your essays. In fact, the recommender gets a chance to narrate instances and elaborate on many of your attributes. You can make sure that your application bundle is tied together if your recommender reinforces your ideas and elucidates your qualities. All this will lubricate and smoothen the recommendation letter handling and also the application process.

Selecting schools

Selecting the right school is one of the important things in the application process. I consider the following aspects important in the selection process.

Curriculum and Electives: Check what a school has got to offer as a part of the curriculum. Do the electives offered meet your career goal and aspirations?

Placements: How good is the recruitment in the field of your interest. If you are an international student make sure to know the companies that are willing to sponsor work permits. Not all companies are inclined to recruiting international students.

Teaching style: Teaching methodology is typically a mix of cases and lectures although some schools only practice the lecture based method. Personally, I think cases give a real time experience and schools that promote it are a better choice.

Networking: Know how good are the school's ties with its alumni and the kind of events and fairs arranged. Networking is very important for intern and post-MBA jobs as well. One of your main line professional networks will be through the school you graduate from.

Location: Location can be of concern to many because of family ties, weather or other interests.

Student body: What is the student body composed of? What is the extent of diversity in terms of work-ex, age, nationality etc. How enthusiastic and participating are the students?

Outside classroom: Student organisations and cultural clubs enable you to pursue your interests and develop extra-curricular activities. Learning about the various clubs will help you understand what you get to do outside class.

Hands-on experience: Many schools encourage their students to work for companies even during their course work. That helps you hit the ground running.

The various sources to know about schools would be their students, staff, alumni, websites, MBA fairs and class visits. Class visits are more advisable after an initial shortlisting. They will help you to zero down on your choices.

Recession and MBA

Why an MBA can prove good news in bad times

GIVEN the economic gloom and the good times not expected to return in the immediate future, is it a good or a bad time to study for an MBA?

The trite answer is that it is always a good time to take an MBA. The reality is more complicated. Much depends on how long and how deep the economic trough is likely to be. A full-blown recession in America and possibly in the UK must be bad news for job markets.

More at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/mba/article3446752.ece

Bad times can be good for B-schools.

As concern about a possible recession grows, graduate school typically offers a safe haven—but only up to a point

It may sound counterintuitive, but with the R word—recession—increasingly being bandied about by economic forecasters, business schools could soon be seeing the highest application volume they've seen since the burst of the dot-com bubble. If that happens, it would fit into the counter-cyclical trend of business-school applications, where students initially flock to business schools when the economy shows signs of faltering.

More at:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2007/bs20070918_413371.htm

Facing the interview beast :)

Typical MBA interview Qs can be found in accepted and mbapodcaster

From my experience I would suggest the following:

• A complete and thorough retrospection of WHY an MBA would help with essays and interviews too. Know very well what you stated in your essays and ensure you reinforce them in the interviews.
  


• WHY MBA, WHY MBA NOW, CAREER GOALS, ABOUT YOURSELF (show a career progression and also showcase outside work activities), WHY XYZ SCHOOL (bring out the match between your goals and what the school has to offer. Also what you can contribute and how you can continue to pursue your other interests) are typical and must be handled VERY VERY well.
  

• These apart, MOST important thing is: Have instances in your professional and personal front illustrating leadership, failures, hurdles, accomplishments, contributions to organisation, team work. You would cover quite a few in the essays. But you would need more for the interview. Have an experience to quote in each of these areas. ALSO if you say abc is your strength, have an example ready wherein you demonstrated that strength. Generally you are asked for 2/ 3 strengths...so as many examples.
  

• Same is the case with weakness. Have an instance and also show how you are working to overcome the same. It is important to mention this.
  

• In your recos ensure that the recommender actually backs whatever you stated in the essays and which you would possibly say in interviews. CONSISTENCY is very important.
  

• In regard to career goals, you are expected to be very focussed and clear. The POSITION you would like to take up post-MBA, 5yrs, 10yrs and 15yrs down the line. The industry and function must be very clearly stated and you must be in a position to say which company you are looking at post-MBA. Even if your essay doesn't require you to cover these, in interviews the adcom (the business lingo for admissions committee ;) ) will delve into depths. They are interested to know if they can help you with your career aspirations.
  

• Due to the heavy global level competition, schools tend to incline towards students who put in efforts to know about the school. Attending MBA events, getting in touch with Alumni, current students and staff and class visits are a plus. There may be a questions in the interview as to how you got to know about that particular school.
  

• Do have questions for the adcom as well. Don't just ask something whose answer can be found right on their school's website.
  All this done, you are all set!
  

Extra curricular activities

Wondering what schools expect when they talk of extra-curricular activities? Well, be it any domain that the school is concerned about, they look for one key trait; leadership! In fact, one need not have held any lead roles in terms of designations in one's work experience. The initiatives you took and your leadership instances count. Anyway, we are deviating. Hm...yeah, extra-curricular activities. So, as said, the admissions committee looks for your commitment and leadership yet again in these activities. It is often misinterpreted that community service alone qualifies for this section. Definitely, not. Do something you are passionate about. That would help you enjoy whatever you do and be sure to bring out instances where you could showcase your leadership. Tell them how you would pursue this interest at school. Your activity could be music, some sports club...just anything. Anything, but you are expected to do something outside work...some for fun and some out of passion and interest. No one out there wants a nerdy bookworm. Try to be the right mix!