The MBA Student Voice

McKesson: Mission Accomplished

I finally had proof that this Anderson MBA blog is useful for a few people, so I have decided to make the effort to keep on going on with my posts.  If you are reading this, I encourage you to leave us bloggers a message every now and then because it keeps us, writers, motivated.  I imagine that, to do so, you actually have to register with TypePad, which is undoubtedly a major pain you know where, but your feedback does make a difference.  Looking at my old posts, I realize that I never announced that I spent the summer in San Francisco working for McKesson, a drug distribution company that you probably don’t know because you and I buy our drugs straight from pharmacies. Yet, McKesson is a giant: it supplies over 40,000 pharmacy locations, employs over 30,000 people, and is actually a Fortune 15 company.

I must say I was very lucky to get this internship.  The person who was supposed to interview me during the first round couldn’t make it, and was replaced by, of all people, a vice-president.  I hit it off really well with her and advanced to the second round.  The second round didn’t go so well, however, but the next day I got a phone call from the VP telling me that she wanted me in her group for the summer.  I guess miracles do happen.  And so I spent the summer in a corner office on the 31st floor of a San Francisco skyscraper doing work in Corporate Financial Reporting.  I had the best supervisor ever.  She provided the support that I needed while giving me the leeway to do things how I thought they should be – a welcomed contrast with the control freaks who used to rule my professional life so far.  I am glad to report that I even got an offer for McKesson’s rotational program.  Mission accomplished, indeed!

In all honesty, this internship experience was beyond my expectations.  All of us interns (including Marketing, Strategy, Operations, etc.) were treated to many happy hours and social events.  We got to meet the CFO and many senior executives.  Anytime I wanted to know more about a unit in McKesson, all I had to do was to shoot an e-mail, and everyone always replied and never refused to meet, usually over lunch.  McKesson is a company that understands that it needs to keep growing to provide challenges to its employees and keep them happy. If I accept the offer, the corporate finance program will expose me to the many units within the company for the next two years through 6-month rotations.  I find myself very fortunate, although I did work pretty hard during the summer…

–Simon

The Softest Skill

Looking at the core course requirements for the Anderson MBA program, there is one course that I used to dread above all else: Human Resources.  Of course, it’s not actually called HR, but the name “Organizational Behavior” does not fool anyone here either.  Now, you might wonder what HR ever did to me.  Simply put, I am a quantitative man, and I figured HR is the kind of course where you sit in a circle around a campfire and empty your heart.  It’s not because I don’t have soft skills, but rather because I imagined HR required the softest skill: the ability to answer life-changing questions such as “and how does that make you feel?”  Moreover, I don’t think I ever met a single HR department that did a good job wherever I worked, so needless to say my prejudices against HR ran strong.  I am glad to say that I was wrong.

So far, the course is deep-rooted in psychology, and thus human behavior, which is a nice change of tune because most courses so far, especially economics and finance, keep looking at the world as if people made rational decisions, which I find rather baffling.  HR is finally making me aware (and providing me with names) of behaviors that I have been observing for a long time now, such as the insensitivity to sample size bias.  Of course, this would be of limited use if it did not also prescribe ways to solve problematic behaviors.  While I still have my doubts about some of these solutions, which would sometime require a drastic culture change within a company, I can tell some of this stuff will be helpful in dealing with others.  For instance, if you ever need to convince a group to adopt your idea rather than that of somebody else, speak first and also ask for the opinion of those who agree with you first; you will build a momentum and put the pressure on people who disagree with you to be heard.  Pretty useful stuff…

Of course, there is still stuff that I don’t like.  For instance, greed remains greed, and whatever reasons psychologists invoke to explain its existence does not change it being here.  And you’ll have a hard time convincing me that human nature can be changed significantly either, which is why we have laws in the first place.  But that’s like everything else:  you keep some, you throw some out, and you make the best of what you have.

-Simon

Back from the dead (and Miami Beach)

When I started this Anderson MBA blog, I remember being such a naïve little trooper, making self-made promises such as “yes, I will blog regularly” and “no, I will never skip posting a single week (except maybe for finals and breaks)”.  It has been nearly two months since my last post, so I’ll be the first one to call this what it is: an epic “FAIL”.  Thus, my apologies to my readers.  I am going to be a naïve little trooper, yet again, and swear that I will post weekly during the Spring quarter.  Let me first backtrack and give a summary of last quarter.

Ah, this last Winter quarter will be one that I remember fondly when reminiscing about the horrors of internship-hunting.  What last quarter lacked in courses (I chose to limit myself to three classes), it overcompensated in recruiting madness.  Note that I am not complaining since I finally found myself an internship, but it was just an incredibly competitive process.  Of course, this was not the case for everyone.  Those of us who have been doing, say, marketing for 3-5 years and seek to keep doing marketing had, I believe, a much easier time and access to prime opportunities during on-campus recruiting.  This is perfectly normal and alright.  Others who, as I do, have a less obvious background, had to work even harder and are often still searching.  Now, I find it rather strange that recruiters create so many hurdles just to hire interns.  After all, is this not the perfect opportunity to take a risk on atypical candidates since an internship is a 10-12 weeks affair?

What truly rocked about last quarter was the Faculty assigned to my section.  Whether it was Pr. Bernardo (for whom I now profess my enduring love) in corporate finance, Pr. Bodapati in marketing, or Pr. Roels in operations, all classes were taught by professors who really cared about the material and the students.  Moreover, I managed to get myself a position on the Healthcare Business Association, VP of marketing, which means that I have an occasion to help foster more healthcare opportunities at Anderson.  I am currently trying to convince Anderson to develop a medical marketing course for full- and part-time MBAs, and I also intend to promote more recruiting in the San Diego area, a region rich in biotech companies.  Cross your fingers for me.

–Simon

Don’t Give Up!

If you have followed my Anderson MBA blog for the past few months, you know that I have expressed a strong partiality for DaVita.  What can I say?  That company has a truly charismatic leader and actually seems to care about its values.  As it turns out, I have failed to convince DaVita to invite me to an interview.  Indeed, the irony of the situation has not escaped me, but c’est la vie!  Of course, that outcome is disheartening.  I did, after all, attend all of DaVita’s presentations, visited the headquarters, and networked (obviously not very successfully).  In other words, I invested a great deal of time and effort for naught in the end.  But let’s talk about would-be investment bankers, shall we?

For the past months, many of my classmates have been working day and night – and I’m not exaggerating – for a shot at investment banking.  I wish you had seen them practicing, over and over again, all their quantitative and interviewing skills, networking ‘til they drop, while working hard to get a high GPA.  Now, many of them have been invited to at least ten interviews, and for the past two weeks the hallways of Anderson have been invaded by students in pretty nice – if awfully conservative – business attire.  So far, none of those I asked were invited to a second round interview.  Hence, for my classmates, too, it ought to be very disheartening, especially considering how good the Investment Finance Association is at training us.  I imagine aspiring consultants will be facing the same reality soon enough.

I don’t have the arrogance to believe that not interviewing me is DaVita’s loss, and I hope that you feel the same way if you are in a comparable situation.  But I’ve seen a few long faces on campus this week (including mine), so I’ll tell you this much: don’t give up.  Whether you are currently competing for business school, an internship, or a job, it is awfully competitive out there, so keep trying as long as it makes sense.  Consider that there are probably 50-200 people competing for each position you are targeting, and that 10% of these applicants are likely strong candidates, so you will have to try harder.  Actually, under these conditions, making it to an interview is an exploit in itself.  But do have a plan B, for all of us can’t become the next President of the United States.

–Simon

Deloitte Case Competition

Yes, I admit it: I have neglected this wonderful Anderson MBA blog for the past few weeks.  Simply put, I was too busy studying during finals week, and didn’t feel like writing during the break because I was busy writing cover letters and doing company research.  Also, Modern Warfare 2 might have something to do with it, but you can’t prove that!  I always take responsibility for my actions, so I’ll blame Activision…

Here is a quick summary of my recent past and near future here at Anderson’s MBA program, for the work did not stop when the break started – and I’m not just referring to video games.  First of all, finals week was pretty intense, which is usually the case in quarter-system schools, such as UCLA.  We had four finals in four days, and only three days between the last class and the first exam, so the studying had to start much, much earlier.  I am glad this is over, and even happier that I am only enrolled in three courses this session.  It might not seem like enough work, but there are very important recruiting events this quarter, and I also have an academic internship with DCF Ventures, so my plate might be very full after all.  Actually, I have managed to get myself an interview with Abbott for a summer internship position.  Ye-yeah!

I am also straight in the middle of the Deloitte case competition.  The problem is that I can’t talk about it very much for confidentiality reasons.  The bottom line is that my team (see below) was given 24 hours to solve a business problem, a bit like what consultants would do.  Since my team is made entirely of international students, we named it Accents, and changed the spelling to Axants to make it more “kool” for consulting.  I was expecting this project to be hard… and it was much harder!  It was terribly difficult to find data to analyze the problem, and none of my teammates have any consulting experience, so we learned the hard way.  Fortunately, our team has an awesome spirit, so we made it fun.  And, of course, we didn’t win.

Hard at work… or hardly working? In the fog of the competition, from left to right, Kentaro, me, Ankur, Yoshi, and the picture was taken by Felipe.

–Simon

A Guest Star on Learning Teams

The goal of this blog is to expose readers to the breadth of the Anderson MBA experience, but of course I can only write about what is happening to me.  Thus, I try to encourage other students to share their perspective on the program and post it here.  Alex Thibault was kind enough to talk about his learning team, which is a group of five students to which we are assigned each quarter to do homework, study, etc.  Study groups typically have varied personal and professional background, as will become apparent in Alex’s text below.

A quick word about Alex.  Just like me, he comes from Montreal, Canada, but I must admit that unlike me he is a true hockey fan (since I only watch it if the Canadians are in the playoffs).  Actually, he is at Anderson to transition into sports management, preferably in the NHL, I would imagine.  Like many of us here, his background doesn’t have much to do with where he wants to go since he is a lawyer, but this is all about leveraging our “past” in a way, and I’m confident he’ll be successful since he made it that far after all.  Here are his two cents below.

–Simon

“Hey guys, I don't have my own blog, but I still wanted to share my learning team experience with prospective students.  I used to be an attorney and, basically, hadn't done math in the past decade before coming to Anderson.  I landed in a learning team with 2 engineers, an accountant and an ex-consultant, so needless to say I have to work extra hard in a bunch of quant classes.  I can't stress enough how great all of those guys have been to help me get as much out of this program as possible and, like most teams in our section, we've all become great friends in the process (see picture below)!  Hope to see you all at Anderson sometime soon!”

–Alex

Alex’s learning team at a recent group dinner (from left to right are Markus, Hannah, Alex, Elaine and Jason)

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

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

The Ander-flu Strikes Again!

It's going around again. 

The Ander-flu, the nasty virus that isn't really the flu but still makes us Andersonians sick, is making a second pass around campus and decided to stick on me.  For a change, I've decided to fight back early: I took the day off from school (ok, so there's no classes because of Veterans Day, but I'm still taking credit), doused myself in Theraflu and Gatorade already.  And I slept very soundly for 10 hours.  

Poor Mrs. V. was up half the night, however.  Funny how that works. 

* * * * *

As I mentioned in my last post, entertainment industry titan David Geffen came to speak to us here on campus last week.  It was a massive opportunity for us to hear from someone so accomplished in music, film, television, and theatre.  The Dean of the Anderson school moderated the session.  

What I found most impressive was that Mr. Geffen took opportunities as they came, rather than having a clear goal in mind.  He started in the mail room of a talent agency, getting that job only because he lied on his resume about having graduated from UCLA.  (The Dean was quick to point out that (a) it was never too late to do his degree, and (b) that lying about graduating was not a path that she would advocate.)  He got into theatre because a friend of his recommended an opportunity.  

He donated $200 million to the UCLA Medical Center because he was tired of going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for his constant back problems.  (You know, for $200 million, I think the Dean can let some or even all of the credits slide and just give him the degree.  Although if he was in my section, I would definitely vote for him for social chair.)  

Most interesting for me, though, was his response to the question I got the opportunity to ask him: what is one thing that you would change in the entertainment industry today?  His response: "I wish there was no digital."  

That really surprised me.  I appreciate that digital content has been and will continue to be a massive driver for change in the entertainment industry, but I would have thought that Mr. Geffen would be in the camp of promoting the opportunities that come with it.  To be fair, I had the last question of the session before the Dean took back the reigns and asked more of her own questions, so maybe he didn't get a chance to elaborate.  But I definitely didn't expect that answer. 

But then that's the point with these events -- we get the first-hand experience and insights of some of the most respected captains of industry, across many different sectors, and in my experience, these insights have been genuine and unfiltered.  It's these insights that are such a big part of the MBA experience, especially at Anderson.  

* * * * *

If you ever surf onto this board and don't see any updates from me, you should definitely check out what my fellow blogeteers are up to.  I thought my buddy Simon Jaud's post on video games and brand management was insightful (especially as, for a change, he didn't mention DaVita!).  

My interest in video games is on the brand management of sports titles.  John Madden may have retired from broadcasting, but his video game sponsor, Electronic Arts, still hosts "Sundays with John" where EA clients can watch football with Madden in his office, which EA has kitted out with multiple HD LCD big screens.  Tony Hawk became legendary after his video games -- now an Activision property -- took off outside of X-games enthusiasts.  I found the Activision presentation equally as exciting as Simon did for that reason. 

Simon failed to mention a crucial detail though: he mentioned that at their corporate presentation on campus, Activision gave us free video games, including their massive hit "Band Hero".  But Simon didn't tell you about the raffle: they held a raffle whereby a few lucky winners won various prizes.  The big prize was a free Band Hero set.  And, for the first time that I can remember, my ticket was drawn!  So I got to walk away from the presentation with such a big video game hit.  It was very thrilling and exciting.  I can't wait to crack it open out of the box!  

* * * * *

Capitals update: 10-3-4.  Am very happy with the win over Florida on Saturday especially because the goals we scored were the grinding, banging in front of the net type goals that we will need in the playoffs.  And to score seven goals with Ovechkin hurt and Semin a non-factor is a HUGE plus.  Check out the highlights here!

Till next time! 

-- Sreesha

Video Games!!!

Ok.  Full disclosure: I am a video game addict.  So much so that I have never dared to play World of Warcraft because I know it would fully engulf my life.  I suppose this makes me a lucid addict.  Regardless, I haven’t played anything since I started my MBA at UCLA Anderson because I have just been way too busy.  I’ll dare say I am even too busy for these painful withdrawal symptoms!  Ironically, I discovered that Anderson is relatively well connected to the world of video gaming.  Thus, I figured that, since I am such a fan, I owe it to myself to at least explore the possibility of transitioning into that sector.

I am just out of a presentation by Jeremy Miller, a video game consultant… yes, there is such a thing.  According to Mr. Miller, the video game industry is relatively resistant-proof to recessions, although the hardware market seems to have already lost some steam.  Video game publishers are likely to keep consolidating, but from my perspective they are still recruiting.  Last week, I attended a corporate presentation from Activision, which announced that it hired all four of its marketing summer interns this year full-time.  I will grant you that four is by no mean a large number, but then I never said getting a job in the video game industry was easy.  By the way, both Mr. Miller and Activision gave us free games – including a "Band Hero" set – just for attending their presentations.  How cool is that?

Here are a few practical facts about the industry I have gathered over the past few weeks.  So far, I have seen more internship and job opportunities in brand management than in any other function.  Video gaming is a very popular sector, and as such salaries can be 10-15% lower than in other industries.  I was also told not to go into it just because I like video games – although it is important – but also because I have a special talent or interest in marketing, finance, etc.  Although one could argue that this last piece advice applies to pretty much any line of work.  I have spoken to a few video game brand managers, and it looks like fun, hard work, so I will definitely give it a shot.

–Simon