and when u think of money.. no… oodles of money… the first profession that comes to one’s mind is?? No, not armed robbery!! Not Ocean’s 12/ 13…well Investment banking (well these days it is difficult to segregate the banking from the robbery .. considering that millions of investors have been robbed off billions of dollars…anyways.. that’s another story!)

Well the charm of investment banking is irresistible and it draws so many people to top B-schools… just the name of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Merill Lynch was enough to send cashregisters ringing between ur ears and light up ones eyes..

It was not long before I got fell for the dazzle of the I-Banking world and started dreaming of becoming an uber-chique wall street type deal maker. As luck would have it .. very soon, in October, St. Gallen organised the Investment banking days..

All the big names in investment banking were there.. smartly dressed young professionals flaunting expensive tailor made suits, exquisite watches.. gelled hair… with tales of the multimillion dollar deals that their banks were doing.. and handing out cool stuff… my heart throbbed .. and I felt.. this is it!!! Eureka !! I’ve found my dream job… oh how naive was i to think that it’ll take forever to know what I wanted to do in life..
Now just 4 weeks into the MBA… I know it!!! yippee!!!

… the story continues.. stay posted…

The MBA is positioned (by B-schools) and perceived (by students) as the pole vault into your dream job. MBA brochures are full of stories of highly successful alumni… and most top B-schools also publish a Career report. (I must mention that INSEAD has a pretty good one.. with exhaustive details!).

But behind all these great success stories and incredible placements is a lot of sweat and hardwork.Having studied at a European Business school I’m only aware of how the job hunting scenario works here. Also, the experiences may vary from B-school to B-school and also from person to person..

But I’d like to share my experiences from the job hunt process over the next couple of posts..

The first and foremost step of securing your dream job is to know what your dream job is?

Many people coming to the MBA are very clear about what they want to do post MBA and where they want to be 5 – 10 years after they graduate.. (Well you gotta know that else how would you write the MBA admission essays!!)

But there are also a few others like me who know that it is time for a major professional change but have absolutely no idea what I wanted to do post-MBA (except earning truck loads of money! ). Now now, don’t ask me how I wrote those admission essays 

Seriously though, I came into the MBA seeking growth, development, change and also my future path. I knew for sure that I wanted to work in Europe, in a highly international environment, and do something that built upon my previous experience ( business experience, specialised knowledge of emerging markets, project management skills, etc. etc) but was not just an extension of my last job.

But then as you can see this was really a vague criteria. But I felt that the year I spend at the MBA would (hopefully) provide me enough opportunities to taste and perhaps savor various opportunities in the job market and perhaps that way I would know what I wanna do.

Well with this a took a headlong plunge into the MBA and hoped I’d resurface with my prize catch..

Stay posted…
Stuart

And you thought he could only teach International Management or Corp. Governance?

Winfried (the vocalist with sunglasses) and other Profs (yes the drummer, guitarist etc are all professors@ St. Gallen) have a band called “No Business” (not bad for a band of B-school profs!)

btw if you thought I was kidding..you can check his pic at the faculty profile page ..
http://www.mba.unisg.ch/org/es/mba.nsf/wwwPersonDivisionEng/B899CAE631BA971BC12573DF00392EEA

Cool things happen to you when you are at St. Gallen. Even professors can’t escape the St. Gallen Mania!!
There’s a lot that happens at St. Gallen… so u’d better get here.. & soon!!

Block #1: (Sep -Oct 07)

1. International Management (Winfried Ruigrok): My key take away from the course was an understanding of the cultural differences between international organisations and the most significant tool i learnt was the Hofstede’s index. which gives u a fair idea of what to expect when going to a new international business environment. also got to know the various organisational structures and found the matrix to be quite interesting.

Winfried is a pleasing personality and tries different ways (like fun exercises) to get his points across. But the course had every possible assessment (research paper, exam, presentation blah blah..) making it too much of hardwork not all of which was useful.

2. Finance and Accounting (Fleming Ruud): My key take aways were an understanding of the balance sheet, some tricks of the trade that are used to play with balance sheet figures. What i really learnt was to look at numbers from a CEO perspective.

Fleming has the ability to make problems and discussions very simple and uses a basic table format to analyse and evaluate balance sheets. For a guy like me with no accounting background this was a big help! Fleming also has a fine sense of humour.

The course however is too intensive and covers 25+ chapters of the Needles accounting book in a course of just 30 hours!!! roughly 1.2 hours per chapter!!!! As a result u kill urself reading the book and dealing with the coursework the big exam and presentations. Huh! I went out of breadth trying to keep up with the pace of the course.

3. Marketing Management (Marcus Shoegel): The key takeaway from this course was STP (segmenting, targetting and positioning). We did a BMW case study (Warning: but so did our predecessors!!). I liked the two sessions by Andreas Herrmann which brought in some metrics for analysing consumer preferences.

Marcus as i have mentioned earlier is quite animated with his teaching and keeps u wide awake with his antics. He is an impressive lecturer with great showmanship. However, besides STP, I didn’t find much substance in the course which was laden with too many european examples of brand names and hence was not international enough.

While marketing might be very vague or difficult to quantify, what i did not learn (and wanted to) was how would I as a CEO devise metrics to gauge whether the marketing initiatives planned would be effective or not. Also, what factors should govern the channel and media for advertising campaigns and product retail. If I am putting in money, I need to know whether it is going to be spent well!

In my opinion the best course in block #1 was clearly Finance and accounting. Lets see what the verdict of the next and coming intakes will be.

Thanks for the numerous mails & messages ….

i have some scoop regarding the admissions of the incoming class (Class of 2009):

1. The class size is likely to be 40 participants (up from 35 of the present class).More than half of this number (> 20) have already enrolled and many are in the process of confirming their participation.
2. While there are 5 more seats available this year, there has been a 5 fold increase in applications compared to last year.
3. The average GMAT of the students admitted is around 710.
4. With an objective to ensure a diverse international participant mix, country specifuc quotas of a max 5-7 students from one nation are in place. As a result highly competitive applications (with good work experience and GMATs of 730-740+) from Americans, Indians and Germans have been turned away.
5. There is a discussion about cancelling the 4th admission round (June 1 deadline) as the target enrollment is likely to be achieved by the 3rd deadline (April 1).

(Meanwhile, Steve Riley has replaced heiko as the admissions manager.)

Hope this helps!

cheers

Stuart

p.s. : Many of you have written to me about the forum HSG. I will publish a post soon on that.

For sake of emphasis, I repeat that this talks about how to choose an MBA program so that you can get into the job of your desire.

The first and foremost step in this direction is to introspect and understand where you are coming from. By this I mean, looking back into the not so distant past to analyze the growth process that you have underwent. Growth in terms of personal and professional development; academics , exta-curriculars etc.

WARNING!: I am not guiding u on how to write ur MBA essay, However, doing this may help you with your essay as well.

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”
As quoted by David C. McCullough

The ideal way is to do a timeline analysis (write to me if u want more details) or the least you can do is write down your skills, shortcomings and aspirations. Also, write down what exactly is your expectation from the MBA. Don’t write “I want to be an I banker” .. but more in terms of what u aim to learn, which areas r u not so good at (Finance??) and what position you seek post MBA. (I Banker!! I Banker!!) ..

Ok!! Ok!!! If you indeed want to become an I Banker, lets c how you can do this analysis.

First Step: Search the web for I-Banking openings on the web. For starters, look for openings on www.efinancialcareers.com.

Second Step:Identify and outline the skillsets, professional experience etc etc mentioned in the job description.

Third Step: compare these skillsets with your current skillsets. Compare the job description with your current one + the value added by the MBA. This is what I call the Stuart MBA reality test (SMART) I.

Do you see a match? If yes, great!! if no, we will have to look at ways in which we can bridge this divide and also whether we can bridge this divide at all.

Why is this test important?

Till now all the MBA plans and aspirations of yours (& mine when i was an applicant) have been driven by your dreams without any guiding red thread or a check. As a result, sometimes some of us dream up very lofty dreams, which to be honest, are very difficult to achieve even with a top notch MBA!

Another reason why this is important is because once you start applying for jobs and internships during the MBA, the recruiters will look at these very aspects in your application. In case there is a gap between your profile and the job opening, he/she will look for ways in which you have tried to plug it. In case he is not satisfied, he will not call you for an interview.   Period!

Please do not get me wrong, shoot for the moon for sure! However, if it is “Pluto” you are aiming at…. hmmm.. we need to re-evaluate the career strategy.

At this moment I stop. In case you find this approach outlined by me relevant, please leave me comments and /or emails. I would then write more posts that bring in perspectives from the post-MBA world to the applicants.

cheers!
Stuart

Meanwhile lot of things have been happening at the career end..

we had three one to one sessions with experts in various fields.. we had one expert each for industry, consulting and finance.

Each of them had served in leading firms of their field (Mckinsey, bank of America) and were now to talk to us one on one about our individual aspirations in these respective fields.
The benefits of this exercise were manifold:

1. We got a practitioner’s view about our prospects in these fields and also how we can enhance our profile for openings. We also had a resume check to see whether it matched the standards of the said industry.

Some of us also got a very honest view that we weren’t cut out for a particular field. This may have disappointed some but for others it provided adequate reason to break through the herd mentality of applying to all Ibanks/ consulting and instead focus on areas where we are more likely to succeed.

2. We got access to the great networks of these people who have interviewed us and can provide potential links.

3. We got a fair overview of the market trends.

Besides this, one of us signed a contract with P&G! The first contract of the season!! Three others have an interview in BCG next week and six have been invited to interview for the Novartis Finance Leadership Development Program. Then there also have been a few interviews with other consulting firms but on an individual basis.

We also are going to a career fair in Berlin on April 13-14. this fair held jointly with 4 other German B-schools is now in its fourth year. The idea is to tap into the niche and captive German market where St. Gallen has immense brand value. Well what adds spice to the curry is the fact that it is an all expenses paid trip sponsored by the MBA Office. yes u heard it right.. air tickets, accomodation, food.. u name it !!
Wolfgang!!! Wolfgang!!! President !! President!!

The Forum HSG is now less than two weeks away and we eagerly await the start of the fair.
till next time!
Stuart

http://www.find-mba.com/blog/1/21/top-5-mba-blogs-of-the-week-february-3-2008

This was for my blog post titled “European Invasion, Asian Crusade” which examines the latest FT B-school rankings threadbare and spots trends for prospective MBAs.
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2008/01/european-invasion-asian-crusade.html

and what makes it better is that for the previous week it debuted at No. 3 at the same list!
http://www.find-mba.com/blog/1/20/top-5-mba-blogs-of-the-week-january-27-2008

which rewarded my description of the Mongolian BBQ
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2008/01/mongolian-barbecue.html

www.find-mba.com u made my day!! oops !! fortnight!!

Stuart

The forum is a 3 week (yes 3 week!!!) long event where over a 100 companies converge to recruit St. Gallen students.

The forumHSG 2008 is scheuled from last week of Feb to mid-March and while the site will be completely up in a few days, the companies who’ve confirmed their participation so far are:

http://forumhsg.ch/index.php?id=49&L=2

Did u spot a company u like in this list?.. well the top consultants are here, and the industry leaders like ABB, ALSTOM, SIEMENS (including the siemens management consulting), General motors, Holcim……so are the banks (but we already had an investment banking days event in Oct and the banking recruitment cycle is almost over so not as many would again show up)
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/10/investment-banking-days.html

so tons of opportunities!

disclosure: These companies are not coming exclusively for a batch of only 35 MBAs with very diverse interests. However, a sizable number have already confirmed their particular interest in MBAs and most probably we’ll have an apero and a few exclusive events with them.

Last year’s class mentioned it to be an important event for generating contacts and getting offers.

To accomodate the Forum, the mba will not have any coursework during these three weeks so that we can attend the company workshops and interviews and meet representatives without bothering about skipped classes and missed assignments.

Well that’s reasonable ain’t it? After all getting a good job is a valuable ingredient of getting an MBA and in fact is a major yardstick to measure the success of the program

Stuart

http://www.find-mba.com/blog/1/21/top-5-mba-blogs-of-the-week-february-3-2008

This was for my blog post titled “European Invasion, Asian Crusade” which examines the latest FT B-school rankings threadbare and spots trends for prospective MBAs.
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2008/01/european-invasion-asian-crusade.html

and what makes it better is that for the previous week it debuted at No. 3 at the same list!
http://www.find-mba.com/blog/1/20/top-5-mba-blogs-of-the-week-january-27-2008

which rewarded my description of the Mongolian BBQ
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2008/01/mongolian-barbecue.html

www.find-mba.com u made my day!! oops !! fortnight!!

Stuart