The downside to being a “Young MBA”

I would say the biggest challenge in being a “young MBA” has to be the job search. It can be frustrating and lead to many dead ends. People want to hire you - they just get scared at the lack of experience on your resume. I have seen other young MBAs deal with the frustration, and so have I. Here are a few of my tips to deal with that little problem you will most likely encounter:

YoungMBA.net Nationally Recognized

A great article about young MBA students has been published in The Chronicle of Higher Education on Jan 25, 2008. YoungMBA.net has been featured extensively in the article. Make sure to check it out here!

Searching for my training wheels

Well I am back to contribute an impressive second post since joining YoungMBA.net. Yes, I know it seems pitiful that I have only contributed one post, but over the past two months I have been completely consumed by the pursuit of a summer internship. This quest for the coveted internship has forced me out of town many weekends and caused me to sacrifice many precious hours on the phone for “informational interviews.” In the midst of this job-hunting madness, I have been desperately trying to find time to dedicate to school, eat a full meal every now and then, and sleep enough to get me through the day. Okay, so I may be exaggerating a bit...However, one thing is for certain, the summer internship search is very stressful and takes up a large portion of a first-year MBA student’s time.

Building a Network: Baby Steps

When everyone’s talking about “building a network,” it can be very intimidating to think that you are starting from the ground up. Since most of our friends are in entry-level positions and we have never held jobs, we are relying mainly on our parents and their friends to comprise our beginning network. This can be a valuable starting point for some, but expanding from this point is challenging, regardless.

I want to walk you through some pointers that have helped me reach out to extremely helpful professionals (Owen alumni and not)! The more prepared you

MBA Internship Search

It is arguably the single most important element of one’s MBA education…that highly coveted summer internship. It is now mid-January, and the MBA internship hunt is in full force. It is indeed true: a hunt. Thousands of intelligent, determined, and highly-ambitious MBAs all over the world are hunting down for the “perfect” summer internship. The stakes are very high, since landing the right summer internship is crucial in terms of future employment for an MBA student. Why? It is simply a matter of economics: supply and demand.

If the shoe fits…

In fear of being cliche, I won’t finish the above saying. But, I really started thinking about how much b-school “fit” over the holidays. Relatives were asking me how school was going, what my stock picks were, how many offers I had, etc … and I got really tired of saying, “I love it! It’s fabulous!” Fact of the matter was, I was burned out and trying to convince myself. See, I had this conversation with some friends right before school let out. It was exam time, so we were talking about grades. Here is the gist of the convo:

Useful Tips Any YoungMBA Should Know

Know yourself. I can’t stress how important it is to know what your beliefs are, what kind of jobs you’re interested in, what kind of family you see yourself having, where you want to live, and even what kind of dog you’d consider buying. This is something I’ve begun to do every day. I never turn down an opportunity to challenge why I think the way I do or why I hold certain beliefs. Only in doing so can one really come to know who they are and who they are to become.

How to get the most out of your b-school contacts

Thanks to “rwrangler” in the YoungMBA Forum for pointing this out:

Like rwrangler, I had also contacted admissions officers from various b-schools expecting to learn more about their programs; like him I also was not expecting an impromptu interview; and also like him, I was fortunate enough to have material to talk about anyway.

Since then, I’ve realized that schools use this point of contact (either your chat or your visit) as much to evaluate you as you evaluate them. Hence, here are some tips for younger applicants on how to maximize your school contacts:

Getting the most out of b-school: Work experience not required?

This post actually began as a reply to Kyle’s comment in his own post (just before this one). However it rapidly got too long so I decided to make a whole new post instead.

Kyle said this in passing: “Unfortunately, I think b-schools weigh work experience too heavily when what they should be weighing is just experiences.” Allow me to comment.

I don’t think all b-schools actually weigh work experience over experience. When they do weigh work experience more (or for that matter, “GPA or GMAT” over “academic ability”; “age of applicant” over “demonstrated maturity” and so on) I suspect it is fully because they want to boost their position in business school rankings. Take my case for instance. In my correspondence with the admission staff of two schools, I discovered that Yale SOM considers my 2.5 years of pre-college military service as “work experience”;

Play that Card: Comfort in your lack of work experience

Do these describe you?

• no business experience.
• undergrad major was/is in the Liberal Arts (or a none business related field).
• tried to get a job in finance/marketing/consulting/anything business related, but no one will give you the time of day.
• have that ” I’m completely lost, and I’ll never be able to get into business (or business school)” feeling.