Alumni Mock Interviews

Recruiting season here at the Johnson School is in full swing right now, with corporate briefings lined almost every weeknight for the rest of the semester. While there is a mad rush to polish our resumes and perfect our cover letters, it's easy to lose sight of step 2 in the job finding process: acing the interview.

To serve as a little reminder, the CMC, along with some incredibly gracious alums, worked to put together a mock interview event in New York City this past weekend. The way it worked was this: Alumni from all over the city and from a myriad of different industries sent the CMC a list of their times and availabilities. Interested students would then sign up at the CMC for available slots and be responsible for arriving at these offices, well prepared with their pitches and PARs.

While this experience not only provided us all with great practice for interviews, the earliest of which should be upon us in less than a month, I thought the most helpful part of the experience was being given the chance to reach out to Johnson alums and gather their advice on resumes, interviews, and surviving business school in general.

Personally, I ended up getting a ton of great advice and a lot to think about in terms of how I plan on positioning myself in this rather daunting market. This sort of advice is invaluable, and often difficult to come up with ourselves since most of lack the experience and insight of people who have a bit more experience working in industry than we do.

Lesson learned this past weekend? I have a lot to learn!

Above: I am pretty sure this is the only picture in existence of me in a suit!

Dinner with the Dean!

View from the Thomas' Porch

Dean Joe Thomas and his wife, Marney, have kindly hosted a number of dinners this semester for MBA students in the class of 2010, offering a fantastic opportunity for students to ask questions about the program, and offer suggestions for the future of the Johnson School.

Among some of the topics posed during the feedback session with the Dean were:

• Introducing a mandatory international experience as part of the curriculum
• Greater emphasis on the role of corporate sales in business courses
• Integration of AMBA students with the traditional two-year class
• The bearing of the current economy on job searches

The discourse between the Dean and current students was of course very interesting, but this leads me to ask what YOU, as a prospective student at the Johnson School, would like to see become part of the program?

Summer Recap (in the Fall)

I feel bad blogging about the new school year without having really gone into what the summer AMBA experience is like.

The AMBA summer can be summed up in one word: challenging. As a student who had never taken even an introductory econ class let alone accounting, econ, finance, strategy, marketing, statistics, and a consulting course crammed into one 3 month long summer session, I can’t say it was easy. Making it through the summer requires commitment. Students can expect to sit through classes from 9 to 5, 5 days a week, but then continue working late into the night. When five hours of sleep begins to feel like a luxury... you're a genuine Cornell AMBA.

That is not to say it is all doom and gloom. Besides the fact that we are all obviously superheroes disguised in business casual, the program and my classmates ensured that fun was to be had this summer. Three points:

Firstly, the CMC tried their best to get us all prepped and ready for recruiting season with trips to Merck HQ in New Jersey and Accenture in Manhattan to meet with alums and get a lot of advice on how to improve our resumes, our interviewing techniques, and generally get pumped up about the job hunt. Let’s be honest, without a lot of motivation and LOT of optimism, it’s going to be hard to keep focus this year. While the economy is showing some signs of improvement, job prospects for MBAs are still looking far from cheerful. The school definitely has gone beyond in helping us all remain realistic and on the offensive in our repsective job hunts.

Secondly, there is the wonderful AMBA class. If you’re out there reading this and are curious about the program at all, you should not hesitate to let myself or Alex know. The diversity within our class in terms of experience, background, interests and pursuits is as diverse as all of as charming and helpful (read that as extremely so). I’ve learned so much about things I really didn’t understand too much about before coming to Johnson like hedge funds or BRIC economies. To sum it up, I learned probably as much from my classmates as I did from my classes if not more, and that’s a huge part of what I wanted from my MBA experience. I’m glad I’ve gotten it here.

Thirdly, I have to be honest: the best part of the summer was getting it over with. An entire year of business school condensed into three months was intense-- but how awesome is that? [A: Pretty awesome.]
If you were curious, I spent my vacation HOME in Seattle. And it was sunny and warm every single day. If that's not a fantastic end to the summer, I really don't know what is.