The MBA Student Voice

Career Nightz

Last week, I attended TWO career night events in two days, which was so awesome that it warrants a ‘z’ in my title.  So what’s so special about a career night compared to, say, any of the corporate presentations we attend weekly during this Anderson MBA?  First of all, the food is generally fancier, and there is alcohol.  More importantly, several companies are visiting at the same time, and we get to meet representatives who are generally more “representative” of a position we might end up holding right after graduation.  For instance, while I enjoyed chatting with Amgen’s Treasurer (!!) after their corporate presentation, it wasn’t exactly relevant to ask her to tell me about her job.

So the first event was the corporate finance career night, where two healthcare companies were represented among others such as Mattel.  The way it works is that there are as many tables as there are companies, and we spend 20 minutes at three tables of our choosing speaking with representatives.  I was very lucky at my first table, hosted by McKesson, since I was almost the only one there.  As a result, I got to speak for 20 minutes uninterrupted with someone currently in their 2-year old finance rotational program.  I then spent the last 40 minutes at the Amgen table since their representative had experience doing finance in the R&D department – exactly the kind of stuff that I’d like to do.

The next day, I attended the healthcare career night, where I also sat at the Amgen table, but this time to talk about their marketing rotational program.  I feel that I now know enough about Amgen to have a chance at being invited to an interview.  I also spoke to a consultant from ZS Associates, a marketing consulting firm specializing in healthcare, and to a global product manager from Abbott Vascular.  I think I hit it off pretty well with Abbott since two days later she was gracious enough to tell me I had been selected to attend their day on the job event in San Francisco.  I must say that all representatives were very nice and helpful, and I think it is definitely easier to make a connection there than at a corporate presentation because you have a little more face time.

–Zimon

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

My apologies to all for yet another writing hiatus.  Those midterms took a lot out of me and the rehab from the exam related injuries took longer than expected.  First, there was some carpal tunnel as a result of using some Excel functions too much, and then I tore my ACL walking to a printer in the computer lab to collect an accounting problem set that I printed out.  All kidding aside, there's not much of an excuse except to say things have been busy.

So, what have I been busy with?  Well, as I've eluded to before, I'm trying to balance the holy trinity of academics, job search, and a social life.  Of late, I've been attempting to focus on the job search and the related requirement of networking.  Since I want to get back into the entertainment world post-MBA, albeit on the business side this time around, I joined Anderson's Entertainment Management Association.  The organization regularly puts on panels to educate its members about various portions of the industry, be it film, TV, videogames, and music.  These presentations are led, more often than not, by alumni within said fields and they've proven rather informative.  Additionally, the EMA organizes Days on Jobs (DOJ), where we have an onsite visit with a particular company and executives talk to us about their various functions.  We had one such DOJ last week at Fox. 

Long story short, classes take up your mornings and afternoons and then there's plenty more activities to gobble up the rest of your day.  The key, it seems, is to choose the right events and not spread yourself too thin, especially this first semester.  Maybe if I do that, you'll hear from me a wee bit more.  But for now, I gotta go ice my ACL. 

The MBA Advantage

Every week, Anderson welcomes several prospective students seeking to learn more about the MBA program.  During their visit, prospectives have the option to attend a lecture in one of the sections.  Last week, I was discussing with a prospective who wants to transition into the healthcare business, and I was asked the sempiternal question: should I do this MBA or what?  While I used to agonize over this question, I can answer it pretty simply now that I am two months into the program.  If you currently hold a good job and can transition on your own, forgo the MBA and save yourself some time and money.  However, here are the factors that will catalyze my career change and that may apply to you as well.

First, I have numerous venues to reach top employers.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: don’t engulf your precious savings into an MBA unless you are accepted at a top school, such as UCLA, because top employers recruit at top schools only.  As an MBA student, not only do you get to meet in person with company representatives on campus during corporate presentations, but you also have the opportunity to visit their offices during Day on the Job events, eat with them at Dinner for Eight events, and interview on campus.  If a company does not actively recruit on campus, you have access to the alumni database to determine if former students work there and tactfully ask for some guidance.  Moreover, many current students can help you connect with companies they used to work for.

The goal is to use these resources to obtain a summer internship with your favorite employer and secure a full-time position one year later.  Since these internship positions are typically only open to MBA students, I have a significant advantage over non-MBA would-be career-switchers.  What I did not anticipate before attending Anderson was the importance of what I’ll call “MBA grooming” to penetrate super-competitive fields such as consulting and finance.  These firms have a precise idea about what they are looking for in a candidate in terms of knowledge, but also behavior.  The career center and the many student associations help us train for these competitive positions and act in ways that increase our chances of being recruited.  Again, I feel that it would be very difficult for a non-MBA to switch to a super-competitive field without this kind of guidance.

Finally, I’ll add that, for people with minimal business experience, doing an MBA is an even better deal.  I have learned tremendously during the past weeks, and I am impressed to see how all courses – Economics, Accounting, Statistics, Marketing, and Finance – are interrelated.

–Simon

Straight From Freshman to Senior

It's funny -- I thought it was going to get easier second year.

It definitely hasn't, but there is a big difference this go-round. I'm doing a lot more things that I've chosen to do, as opposed to things that are mandatory parts of the program. That's not say the mandatory stuff last year was anything less than fantastic (see any of the posts from the 1st-years this fall), but it's definitely a different mentality going into Year 2. 

In this sense, Anderson definitely has a Senior / Freshman culture, and it's actually a great way to have this b-school experience since there is such a strong sense of camaraderie among all the students here. The "Seniors" really take care of the "Freshmen" here -- I got the benefit of it last year, and am proud to have the opportunity to give back now that it's my turn.

Second-year provides a ton of opportunities for leadership at Anderson, and I'm trying to take advantage of a few of them. First, I am co-Partner of the Anderson Strategy Group, which is the student consulting firm. Anuradha Kumar, the other partner, and I have hired 10 first-years to join the group, and have them staffed on seven different strategy projects this fall.

Second is that I am a TA for the core Economics class. This is a great way to get to know the first-years, since I spent 3 hours a week in class with them, give review sessions, and hold office hours. I also get to make a good connection with a professor -- in this case, Victor Tabbush, who is an accomplished and gifted professor here and specializes in Economics and Health Care Management. (I'll write about my awesome AMR project in a future post). 

Third, I am the Coordinator of the Management Communications TA program, which provides communications consulting services to students preparing for presentations.

These are just a few of the many leadership opportunities that exist here. You can also be on the board for a club (such as the Marketing Association, the Public Speaking Club, or the Investment Finance Association, just to name a few). You can be an ACT coach and help first-years prep for recruiting. You can help with Orientation. You can be on the student government. The list goes on ...

Of Beer, Human Food, and Zombie Fodder

One of the first courses you’ll take during Anderson’s MBA program is a statistics class during which, O joy, you’ll learn all the intricacies of confidence intervals.  While this topic is more of a conversation killer than anything else, it does have pretty useful applications in real-life.  For example, imagine that you want to market a new product, but you are unsure whether it will be well-received by consumers.  How many people should you poll until you can be confident that their opinion about your product is representative of, say, the country as a whole?  What we learned in class is that solutions to such problems lie in the Student’s distribution, developed by a statistics enthusiast who worked for the Guiness brewery, which of course prompted a "beer: is there anything it can’t do?"

On a completely unrelated topic, I was fortunate enough to participate in a Dinner for Eight event hosted by McKesson last Thursday.  Eight students, mostly first-years, had the privilege of being wined and dined by McKesson and, more importantly, asking questions about the company straight to recruiters.  McKesson is an enormous healthcare company that specializes, well, in many things actually, such as pharmaceutical distribution and IT solutions for hospital administration.  I cannot overemphasize how helpful it is to talk to a recruiter for more than five minutes at the end of a corporate presentation.  It is obviously great for networking, but even more invaluable is the insider perspective and the better understanding of the company that I gained.

Speaking of dinner, I was also served at a Dinner for One at Universal Studios last Saturday (see picture below).  Every Halloween, Universal Studios throws a horror night, during which the park is taken over by a multitude of ghoulish monsters.  Simply put, the goal is to have a good scare, and I must say Universal did a very good job.  Of course, many theme parks do the same thing, but what’s great about this one is that many of its monsters are based on its movies, such as Halloween, Child’s Play, and Saw – although shame on Universal for daring to come up with a fifth sequel to Saw!  If you’ve never tried this kind of event before, consider going next year.

According to this zombie, I don’t taste that great, so he let me go after a few munches.  That’ll teach me for not obeying signs…

–Simon

Anderson is in the House - Get Going on Your Career

Hey Everyone,

Hope all of you out there in cyberspace are doing well. It is getting harder to come up with a catchy article title - hopefully I didn't disappoint. I have been getting emails from some of you (you really like me, you really really like me! .......sorry, I just had to pull a Sally Field). Okay, what was my point? Ah yes....I have been getting emails about my blog and general questions about the application and MBA environment; I am glad some of you got some use out of this. Feel free to contact about me about anything like the application process or why the heck you should even care about an MBA or whatever else is on your mind.

My week has been has been a little less hectic, although I am still writing this blog at 10pm, so not sure what that means. I'm a night owl I guess. I have been spending a lot of time working on my resume these days. The Parker CMC and my lovely ACTgroup have given me some good tips and pretty much inundated me with comments and revisions - but it's all good. It's amazing how much you improve with a little constructive feedback. My resume has gone through three revisions and will be seen another two times before I submit my final version to the career management center. Company recruiting has been picking up lately too. It's getting near that time when we will be applying for upcoming summer internships - oooh scary! I have also been practicing my 30-second pitch in the shower - hey! practice makes perfect - don't judge. FYI:  a 30-second pitch is a succinct and memorable way of describing yourself (in 30 seconds) to recruiters at company events. Now comes the next hard thing - coming up with a list of companies I am interested in working for. Yikes. Again, my ACT teamcomes to the rescue. They gave me some templates for how to evaluate companies and how best to pitch to to them. For those of you who haven't been reading my previous posts (I shudder at the thought), the ACT group is led by two second year students who have been there and done that when it comes to first year recruiting. They lead a session every week or every two weeks and basically keep you on track. With all the fun college times to be had, we definitely need people to keep us in check. The ACT coaches, which are the 2nd year students, guide you through all the elements of recruiting from learning to handle yourself at company presentations, preparing a rockin' resume, marketing yourself, to grabbing an interview, among so many other delicious things. I am part of the Strategic Ops and Management ACT team. There are also a gazillion databases available to Anderson students (including our large and helpful alumni database). These databases contain every company known to man (or woman) based on industry or location or whatever other manner of search criteria you choose.

Okay, some of you may be wondering what this poor blogger does for fun. Is she all about resumes and internships? I must dispel that opinion at once! Aside from getting some exercise on the weekends and checking out the town, I joined Riordan Scholars on campus where I will be mentoring high school students. I've also attended so many fantastic workshops offered through many campus clubs. One in particular that I just attended yesterday was titled "Launching an Internet Business in One Hour." How awesome is that? The speaker had launched several of his own companies and basically gave us an insiders look at some of the most common pitfalls to avoid and some of the great resources to take advantage of.

I am also itching to try the indoor rock wall at the John Wooden campus gym. It looks awesome. I just need to carve out some time and go.

Alright folks. It's been a pleasure as usual. Until next time!

Am I A Fool?

Please hear me out before answering…  In my first post, I explained that my main motivation for attending Anderson’s MBA program is corporate finance in healthcare.  While I am still interested in corporate finance, I must say that attending business school has been a real eye-opening experience so far.  The reason is very simple: mostly everything I am studying is new to me.  For example, one of my epiphanies occurred during Accounting, when I finally made the connection between the last line on the income statement and the (until-then) mysterious “bottom line” expression I’ve heard so many times before.  I also enjoy the theoretical aspects of Economics, although I question how feasible it is to collect data to test these theories.  But my greatest surprise so far has been Marketing.

Like most people, my marketing experience until now has been limited to ads, so I thought that marketing was just another word for advertising.  I now realize that there is a significant strategic component behind marketing, and I’ve discovered that functions like brand or product management for a biotech company are also an excellent way to leverage my scientific background.  How?  The obvious example is sales: you must understand your product in order to sell it, and I have an edge in that area because understanding the science behind the product will come easily to me.  The less obvious example has to do with interacting with the research and development team; it helps to understand the language of scientists and engineers, and to already think the way they think.

Last week, Abbott came to Anderson to talk about their marketing MBA summer internship program, and it was an excellent presentation.  Abbott is a large, global healthcare company with pharmaceutical, nutritional, and medical products.  Now that I understand accounting a little better, it is very impressive to see how its sales and operating income have been increasing since 2004 to reach $30 billion and $6 billion respectively in 2008.  According to Abbott, its marketing interns are directly linked to a domestic or international business unit. Interns work on projects that impact the business, and provide them with a broad perspective of the healthcare industry.  And so I’m left considering marketing as well as corporate finance, which really doesn’t help since I am widening my options.  But then, only fools never change their minds, right?

–Simon

Anderson Guide to MBA

Hi Everybody!

I'm back again for yet another delightful post - okay, I'm a little bit chipper today even though it's 11:37pm and I am catching up on some homework and also writing this blog. Now for those of you who are freaking out as to why I am up so late, let me tell you now that this is not unusual - well not for me. You see, as most of you might have read in my previous posts, I am a little unsure of what my career focus should be. Therefore, I ended up joining a ton of clubs to learn a little bit more about various industries and job functions. So, instead of having some nice quiet afternoons with my books, I've been in one company presentation after another. Don't get me wrong - I have enjoyed each and every meeting and only wish it were humanly possible to attend all of them. But the art to being successful in anything is having a good balance. So today, I decided to forgoe my club events and company meetings in order to catch up on homework.

There are still more events to come so I don't think I missed out too much. So, I'm feeling good because I have a better handle on my classes and ALSO because I just finished my ACT group meeting. ACT stands for Anderson Career Teams and is a small group that every student is assigned to based on their interests. I picked the strategic operations ACT group because I have an interest in operations and figure that this group paired with all my other clubs will nicely round out my plethora of informational sources. We just practiced our 30-second elevator pitches for potential recruiters. It was a really great session in that we discussed the pros and cons of different approaches and I received some valuable takeaways.

So back to the main goal. I laughed when I read my earlier posts because I sounded utterly lost. But surprisingly, due to the lack of time, I have quickly narrowed down my focus. There is simply no time to manage classes and eight different professional clubs. So, I've had to pick and choose which club sponsored events were more important to attend. It's amazing what you learn about yourself when you don't have a lot of time to waste making a decision. So here it is - the career options I am interested in: Strategic operations, finance, and business development (entrepreneurship). The industry I am most excited about is renewable energy - simply because it is cool to be part of the future (I got inspired during a recent club event). But I am also happy with high tech, manufacturing, or bio tech. Pretty much any industry will do.

My next task is to reach out to 2nd years and alumni for their take on the internship experience as well as any advice they might have. The great thing about Anderson is that the student body and alumni have been extremely helpful. I have not come across this degree of helpfulness in any other place - it really feels like family out here. Alright.....I'm getting a littly mushy. That means it's time to go to bed.

Until next time!

The DaVita Way

At this point, astute readers might suspect that I am on DaVita’s payroll since this is my THIRD post about this company.  Let me assure you that this Anderson MBA student is every bit as penniless as he was last week.  But since I am just back from a “day on the job” event at DaVita’s corporate headquarters where I was well-fed, which is the primary need of any graduate student, DaVita shall be today’s topic – yet again!  Note that students from USC – our archrival – also participated in the event, but no brawl ensued…

So a group of about 30 students showed up midmorning at Casa DaVita, the corporate headquarters, located in El Segundo, CA.  There, VPs explained opportunities at DaVita through their leadership development program and told DaVita’s remarkable recovery story.  We toured the headquarters and, since DaVita is a dialysis services provider, we also visited a dialysis clinic.  Overall, it was a very interesting and enlightening day, and I finally found the best way to articulate why this company is so different: DaVita strives to humanize work and the work place.  Let me explain how it became apparent.

On the inside, the Casa is a relatively large, airy building.  Since HQ employees rarely meet patients, enormous tapestries featuring pictures of actual patients hang from the high ceiling to remind employees of the purpose of their work.  Actually, there are no employees at DaVita’s, only teammates, and each division has been renamed to sound more fun.  For example, the legal division is called the Justice League.  Doing so makes sense since “fun” is one of DaVita’s core values.  Moreover, many walls at the Casa are ornamented with murals that were designed by teammates at clinics to represent the company culture.  You would be amazed to see the amount of work and the level of artistry that some of them represent.  DaVita is also very involved in the community, here and abroad, and I encourage you to read their community care book if you care about corporate responsibility.

I’ll now do something I never do in any of my posts: write a fourth paragraph!  If you are “too cool for school” and think DaVita sounds cheesy, or tacky even, you are completely missing the point.  I have visited the headquarters and I have met with the staff and what I am telling you is that, as a result, I believe that this company is true to its mission to be the provider, partner and employer of choice.  Did I drink the DaVita Kool Aid?  Maybe a little.  But if, like me, you are on the skeptical, cynical side of things, you know how exciting it is to finally find something for which you could stand.

–Simon

Knock! Knock!

They say you better be ready when opportunity finally comes knocking on your door, but it doesn’t seem to apply to Anderson’s MBA program.  Here, you see, opportunity is a 300-pound sumo wrestler who will knock down your door and throw you in the street in your underwear.  At least that is the way it has felt to me so far.  The following is a list of professional opportunities that were made available to me during the last week only.  Granted, they might not all lead to something, but my point is that finding them was exceedingly easy; I either sent an e-mail or received an e-mail.  Keep in mind that I just started the program.

The first thing I did was to write to a few second year students to discuss their summer internship.  Next thing I know, I was speaking to the president of DCF Ventures, a consulting company that seeks to help researchers on campus commercialize their inventions.  I did not come to Anderson with that kind of career in mind, but considering my experience as a mad scientist I would find it very interesting.  I have applied for an academic internship with DCF, and we will see if I am selected.  In addition, second year students have allowed me to start making contacts at Amgen.

As you might remember, the CEO of DaVita made a strong impression on me, and I am hoping to visit Davita’s facility as early as next Friday.  If I am selected for DaVita’s Day on the Job event, I will get to visit the local facility, lunch with people who work there, and have my questions answered directly by the company.  Finally, I just participated in an All-Anderson networking event, where I met a fully employed MBA student with interesting ties to a growing tutoring company.  It’s just that easy!

–Simon