Career Stuff – Page 42 – My Fisher Grad Life

A busy week

It is really a busy week. I had two interviews and one project presentation. I got a full score in my first quiz in United States and I applied SSNON Friday.Frankly, the interviews went well while the presentation is bad.

My first interview is Pearl Interactive Network (PIN) in Merry`s house on Monday. Merry is the owner of it and it is a company help the people with challenge. I like that company, not only because it helps the people with challenge get the job, but also Diane and her team modified sort of high-tech tools to assist those people who need assistance. For instance, people who is sight challenged are able to operate Microsoft office software by PIN`s high-tech voice system. We talked something about my family and my study in China. I was not nervous to share my information with them. Even I would like to talk more to them, since they are very very nice! However, I can`t get an intern there, since I have only been in United for 1 month and I am not able to have an effective communication with people with challenged . What`s more, PIN is a virtual home-base company and it will take a long time for me to realize my development. But Merry told me to keep in touch and Diane said I would be hired if they have an office. I look forward to helping them in the future.

My second interview is with Erin from Roll-Royce. I did well since my awesome roommate Jessica helped me prepared it; Tanvi, who had internship this summer there, shared some information with me; Professor Hills taught me strategy of interview. And thank myself who did a good research in the company. I was excited to share my excellent experience in the Student Union with Erin and she definitely was attracted by my colorful experience. She also smiled when I analyzed the business of Rolls-Royce. By the way, she is really interested in my position as a student blogger.

I didn’t give the class a good presentation yesterday. I felt ashamed. Sorry, team members. I should re-schedule my time and try to quickly adapt to my new and exciting life!

It’s kind of like…

Hello again everyone. As I sit here writing this at 8:23 PM on Friday evening, I have a sense of urgency; not because I am preparing for a night out on the town, but because I have a yellow legal pad to-do list for the evening. For this reason, I am going to use bullet points:

Finance Boot Camp – Kara Albert of Career Management ran a terrific program today that covered a lot of information concerning career options for Finance majors. Presentations included two representatives from Barclays (who gave a fantastic presentation on the nuances of interviews), Dean Wruck who, among other things, encouraged us to be more aggressive than perhaps our mid-western sensibilities would allow, several representatives from Nationwide who covered case interviews, and Senior Lecturer Daniel Oglevee. Despite his unapproachable, arrogant first impression (“You only get one chance to make a first impression”), he is a wealth of knowledge who wants to see all of us succeed (Professor Oglevee – if you are reading this – please don’t hurt me). His presentation covered I-Banking; his stories are fantastic.
Innovation – I had a moment of brilliance today which I am going to share. People come in all shapes and sizes – desk chairs mostly do not. I constantly find myself sitting in desk chairs leaned all the way back (reclined) since it’s the most comfortable position for me. Some people tell me this isn’t always a good thing as it shows that I am not interested in what’s going on. This makes sense to me. However, I also realized another reason I likely end up reclined. All the chairs have that spring-reclining-apparatus-knob adjusted to “normal” sized people – a group in which I do not fit. Then it occurred to me (listen up Herman-Miller) – why not make the chairs weight-sensitive. When heavier people sit down, make it harder to recline. Sounds easy enough. Over-sized people like me will forever love you.
THIS JUST IN – The Fisher College of Business Class of 2011 has selected the following 5 members as their Fisher Graduate Student Association representatives: Sam Adams, Emily Bae, Joe Fahrendorf, Nick Fischer (not a typo – that’s me!), and Michael Thompson. I am humbled by my selection and look forward to representing our class!
Riding your Bike – This is my best analogy so far for business school. In the beginning, you need training wheels (Fisher Advantage). After you take the wheels off, you are shaky at first but you’ve largely got things under control (first week or so). Then you try going off road and crash into a tree (approx. 10.15.2009). At this point, you slow down and take it easy (fall asleep on the couch at 7:30 PM on a Thursday because you haven’t slept more than 4 hours a night in several days). Finally, your parents trust you to ride down the street and explore the vast world around you (graduation – not sure what this feels like!).

Finis.

I need to know.

Today I submitted another request for an interview through FisherConnect, and filled out a more comprehensive application on the company’s website. Interestingly enough, the latter part of the process involved what I consider to have been an IQ test. The first time I took one of these wasn’t a particularly fun experience, partially because the test was super official, and mostly because it was administered in a language I hadn’t quite learned. The second time I took one, I did it for fun, online, and with the help of a very smart classmate. We pretended to be an eight year old boy. Not surprisingly, the results for the second attempt were much better than for the first.

So, where am I headed with this? Well, I like to see my results, that’s how I get over my mistakes. But in this case, I might never, ever know…ever! So tonight, instead of waking up at 4:30am thinking about EPS ratios and bond amortization, I will probably wake up with images of incomplete geometric shape sequences, trying to figure out what the missing piece looks like. I am pretty sure this can’t be considered an improvement.

Interview Woes

I have had a couple of interviews in the past weeks and I have to come to the realization that I might not be very good at interviews. Having fun and leaving the interview with a smile on my face does not necessarily mean that I wowed them with my professionalism and intelligence. It probably just means I enjoyed talking to the person and that I am a spaz!

I do not get nervous for interviews. I think this is mostly because I know I have a lot of great experience and I tend to feel if I am too uptight that it will make the interviewer uncomfortable. I was in charge of recruiting at the company that I used to work for and we usually hired the people who we had the most fun with and who weren’t afraid to show their personality. It worked out well for that particular company, but that was a small, family owned business. We used these measures to judge if the person would fit in with our culture. I think culture fit is so important, but I think it is almost more important in a small business because if you have one person who has a bad attitude or doesn’t quite fit in with everyone, the entire organization feels it and it becomes apparent very quickly!

Oh goodness, what am I to do? It looks like it is time for me to call the Career Management office to set up my mock interview. I have heard many good things about this process and I hope it will help me learn how to portray all of the positive attributes I have to offer a business. It would also be nice if they could give me some tips on how to be less bubbly. I just can’t control my excitement sometimes!

Go Team!

With week 5 right around the corner and the deadline of my three group projects looming overhead, I find it appropriate to dedicate this post to group projects.

So far in MGT 863 we’ve had 4 presentations on Current Issues in Business. They’ve all been pretty good, but one last night added some unintentional entertainment. On a presentation about companies going green, the entire class was given pencils which were made out of recycled newspaper. Pretty awesome, huh? All of the pencils had Chinese characters on them, so one of my group members, Lindsay (pictured below) and I asked our other group member Elle what it said. I won’t repeat what mine said, because it’s not very appropriate, but Lindsay’s said “blessed”. It was kind of cool. A really neat thing about group projects is that you have study buddies. My group has set aside 2 hours every Thursday before class where we can work on our group project or work on class work. I work almost 40 hours each week so it’s nice to have time devoted to nothing but studying because it’s hard for me to find the time otherwise.

Shameless plug: go out and vote! It’s your patriotic duty. I voted this week. What did you do for your country?

I’ve been researching internships. I’m limited in what I can do for an internship next summer. I have to stay in Columbus, so my options are a little more limited. I’ve found a few companies that have corporate headquarters in or near Columbus that I’m looking into, but if anyone has any brilliant suggestions, let me know. But OH!!! I got an interview for the Initiative for Managing Services (IMS) next week and I’m REALLY excited. I’ve recently had a eureka moment where I’ve planned out my entire life. I find intrinsic motivation fascinating. I want to discover the best ways – through training and compensation – to better motivate people to do a better job in the workforce and determine what employers can do to keep people motivated, but it’s more-so I want to find out how people are intrinsically motivated and incorporate that into training programs. IMS is a research center through Fisher and researches training programs, etc, so I think it would be a perfect fit. Excited/nervous about the interview.

That’s all for today! Happy Weekend! Go Bucks beat the Boilermakers!

Getting Productive

The quarter is definitely in full swing, and it is taking a full effort from me to keep up with everything. Just this past week (Wednesday really) I got fully into school mode, and I am now seemingly going from 9am to 9pm. I find I am most productive when I wake up early, get over to campus, and start taking care of things.

Whether that is reading, working on a group project, or filling out yet another candidate profile on a company website, there are plenty of things to do!

I am still waiting to hear back from the three companies I interviewed with this morning, hopefully it will be soon!

Some of the projects I am currently working on are pretty awesome though. My finance project includes taking Ford and analyzing the results of what would have happened had they implemented different dividend plans back in 2000 when Ford was sitting on ~10billion in cash. Pretty interesting stuff!

Nothing else matters, except……

Last week we had the Marketing Boot Camp. It was an inspiring experience. There were many wonderful speakers and alumni.

I will like to share with you one of the fascinating experiences from the camp.

Mr Brad Davis,Vice-President, Nationwide Financial Individuals was giving us an inspiring talk as to how we can make a headstart in a good marketing career.He asked us “What are the companies looking for in a prospective employee”

We said “Leadership, Teamwork, Creativity, Analytical abilities, Passion,etc…..

The answer was “Leadership”

Then he asked us “What is the second thing that matters?”

We tried – Teamwork, Creativity, Analytics, Passion,etc…..

The answer was “Leadership” again.

Then he asked us “What is the third thing that matters?”

We tried – Teamwork, Creativity, Analytics, Passion,etc…..

The answer was “Leadership” again.

Then he asked us “What is the next thing that matters?”

This time we all said “Leadership” but the answer was “Teamwork” [:(]

Jajaja!

This weekend I attended the NSHMBA Conference in Minneapolis, MN. I went with a group of nine great Fisher students also in the Fisher Latino Graduate Association. We had an extremely productive, fun-filled weekend. I don’t know how many total attendees there were, but I’d guesstimate around 1000-1500. The company list was impressive as well. Most of the top MBA employers were represented, along with most of the top 25 MBA programs. The highlights of the weekend were:

Interviewing with three of the top companies on my short list.
Making solid contacts at several other companies.
Networking with MBA students from other top schools.
Going to the corporate-sponsored parties. The Target party was amazing!
Watching Ohio State receive the Brillante Award for Educational Excellence.
Seeing some of my friends in the MBA program from last year on the other side of the table, recruiting for their companies.
Spending some quality time with the incoming first-year MBA students.
Hearing from several different recruiters how highly regarded the Fisher College brand is.

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Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Hispanic culture and people. It was great to be back in that warm, loving environment after a year in Columbus (not that I don’t love the Midwest, it’s just a different kind of nice here). My cheeks hurt a little bit from laughing so much the entire weekend. As my buddy Jorge would say, there was much jajaja’ing the entire trip ( how some of my Hispanic friends say “hahaha” in a text message or Facebook post). I know one thing for sure, no matter where I’m at next year, I’m going to the 2010 NSHMBA Conference in Chicago.

On a similar note, I just decided that I’m spending my Spring Break in Brazil. Fisher College has a program called Emerging Market Field Studies where students take a class in the Winter to learn about and become experts in one particular emerging market. Upon finishing the course, they spend their Spring Break in that country. Upon return from the country, students are required to write field study case reports. I had friends go to Bolivia, Vietnam and Ethiopia last year and they all had a great time. I can’t wait!

In not so good news, I’m getting to the point now where sleep is a thing of the past (currently it is 2:31am Sunday night/Monday morning). I usually work from 8am-10pm most days and catch up on emails and manage my career search from 10pm-2am. I feel bad for my friends with iPhones and Blackberrys, but it’s the only time I have right now to go through my 100 emails a day. So sorry if your email notification goes off in the middle of the night.

Well, I’m off. I have a dozen or so emails to finish and a couple cases to read before I call it a night. Make it a great week!

Mike ^_^

Finding Your Passion

When I was younger, I came to school one day excited to do my first ever writing sample. Our teacher told us the day before to get some rest because the next day we were going to do a writing assignment that was to be sent in and graded by other teachers who would assess our writing against our peers. Her advice was to stick to the topic, be original, and to write naturally.

I don’t remember exactly what the topic was, but I remembered how excited I was when I decided to write about my mom- one of the people I love most. I went through the outline/web development, a rough draft, and was proud to put my first sample in the manila envelope to be sent out to the graders. The top score was a 4, and the worst was a 1. The teacher then explained that if we did not follow the topic, or if it did not follow the directions, they could not grade your paper and you received an x. The dreaded X.

Needless to say, a few weeks later, we were told our papers were sent back. I was so excited, because I was so proud of my work. When the teacher called me to her desk, she pulled me outside of the class to give me my paper which had received a double X. I was devastated. I came home in tears, shocked that I did not even receive a grade, let alone two 4’s. Then, I was afraid to tell my mom, because I was even more embarrassed that my piece that could not be graded was about her.

While I was only in the third grade when this happened, it obviously had big effects on my writing career. (I have never pursued a career in writing) But it did teach me one thing. That sometimes your passions have to align with your opportunities.

This is a mature view for a third grader, but I have had a few years to reflect on this. This lesson is something that I am currently being reminded of now at Fisher. Between recruiters and career counselors, I am constantly told to follow my passion. But finding this connection between our passion and what are opportunities are is the hardest part of the internship right now. My goal over the next few months, is to find an internship that will foster my passions through the opportunities that I have.

PS If you are reading my blog, please don’t grade it with an X!

Careers in Marketing Boot Camp

I spent the day yesterday in the “Careers in Marketing Boot Camp” at The Fisher College of Business. The Career Management Office organizes several boot camps throughout the fall covering the various careers that MBAs typically seek including: consulting, operations and logistics, marketing, finance, sustainability and real estate. The Marketing Boot Camp, which was generously sponsored by Nationwide Insurance, was a day-long seminar focused on career paths in marketing, networking strategies and interviewing techniques. Several alumni and marketers from local firms came to Fisher to share their experiences and take questions on their careers and firms.

The keynote speaker, Mr. Brad Davis, Vice President Nationwide Financial Individual Investments, gave an engaging (and sometimes humorous) but certainly informative presentation covering his experience in branding in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry and how that brought him to his position at Nationwide. The topics he covered were too numerous to summarize completely, but some of the highlights included:

The balance between the science and art of marketing
The concepts of “misattribution” and “consideration sets”
The marketing cycle
Marketing is Business and Business is Marketing: everyone owns a piece of establishing and nurturing a relationship with the customer

Once again thanks to Brad Davis, Nationwide, Jenny Heckscher, the Fisher Office of Career Management and everyone else that took the time to attend and answer questions: The Scotts Miracle-Grow Company, dunnhumbyUSA, Nestlé, Cardinal Health, Resource Interactive, Greif, Sterling Commerce, The Columbus Chapter of the American Marketing Association, The Fisher College of Business Marketing Faculty and second-year MBA students.

Reposted from aaron360.com.