OK, so I guess that everyone in the world knows that today is the biggest day of the year for sports fans, right? Yup, that’s right…it’s Super Bowl Sunday. But guess where I’m writing this entry from…a seat on a place en route from SFO to ATL at about 30,000 feet in the air. Even worse, kickoff for the Super Bowl is only about 45 minutes away and we’ve got about an hour and a half before we land. Trust me, this is not the ideal timing for a sports fan to be in the air. My flight was originally supposed to land by 4:30pm EST, but, for some reason, it was delayed by more than 2.5 hours, which has me in this situation. Rather than focus on the fact that I will likely miss half of the game, I’ve decided to make this time in the air productive by writing an entry while crossing my fingers in hopes that we catch a tailwind and get to ATL sooner than expected. [Plus, it isn't too bad because I was able to extend my trip through the weekend to get in some quality time with my GF 
]
In the past few days, I’ve been in contact with many first year MBA students and college juniors who are in the thick of the summer internship recruiting process. Some of these students are sitting pretty with one or more offers in hand, others are on their way to second round interviews with their firms of choice, and others are facing a longer than expected recruiting process because things have not gone as smoothly as expected with their interviews so far.
To those who have already secured offers, I pass along my congratulations and advise you to spend some significant time evaluating your options when picking a summer employer…make sure you choose the company that will give you the best professional and learning experience and everything else will work out from there.
To those of you who are awaiting second round interviews, I wish you good luck and have my fingers crossed for you. Between now and your interviews, be sure to sharpen your interviewing skills by doing several mock interviews and practicing the telling of your “story”. Most of all, do all you can to shake off any fears you might have so you can go into the interviews with maximum confidence. Just think about it like Bernie Mack on his first appearance on Def Comedy Jam back in the day (“I ain’t scared of y’all mutha…”). Thinking back to my own struggles with finding an internship, the biggest thing that tripped me up was walking into the interviews afraid of the interviewers and overly concerned with convincing them that they shouldn’t diss me. Instead, you should go in knowing that you’ve got a lot to offer and concerned with doing your best to show them that they shouldn’t mess up and not give you an offer. The difference between these mindsets is subtle, but it made a HUGE difference when I compare how I fared during the summer and full-time recruiting cycles.
Then, that leaves me with the group who hasn’t had things go their way so far. I’ll start by saying that I know EXACTLY how you feel because I went through the same thing myself. Right now, the last thing you probably want is someone to say “Awwww, it’ll be alright…keep your head up…those companies don’t know what they missed out on…etc, etc, etc”. All of those statements might be true/valid things to say, but, when people came to me with them, they never made me feel any better because I still was without an internship offer. Now, if that’s what you’re looking for, then STOP READING THIS ENTRY RIGHT NOW!!! Instead, I’d much rather provide some tips that could help you find an internship that you’ll both enjoy and get something significant out of. If I could go back to Winter 2005, I would have slapped some sense into myself and passed along the following advice, which would have done wonders for me at the time:
1. Leave all of the disappointment in the past — This should go without saying, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to second-guess one’s performance after an unsuccessful set of interviews. I remember spending hour upon hour wondering what I could have done differently and why the feedback that I had been given by companies hadn’t just come naturally. It got so bad that I spent more time worrying about how bad I’d done in some interviews than I did studying for my classes. Trust me…you never want to let yourself get caught up in that sot of cycle. It becomes ten times harder to move forward and figure out a set of productive next steps if you let yourself dwell on past performance.
2. Change your “turndown feedback” into something productive — This piece of advice is related to the previous one. Instead of dwelling over the feedback that you get in a “turndown” call and wishing you’d done better, why not use that feedback as a set of guidelines on how you can improve going forward? I know, I know…that’s a ridiculously simple concept, right? In theory, yes, it is simple. But, in practice, it can be VERY difficult. Think of it this way…the company that called you didn’t come offering an internship, but they did offer you some feedback, so you might as well use it, right?
3. Think about your post-MBA career aspiration and confirm that it hasn’t changed — Often people pursue a certain type of summer internship because they “think” that’s what they want to do after graduation, but really aren’t “sure” anymore. In this case, it may be difficult to find the “right” internship because a candidate isn’t looking in the “right” industry or functional area for what they really want to do. I’d recommend taking a few minutes and really reflecting on what you want to do after school before continuing the internship search. If you decide that your career aspiration hasn’t changed, then, by all means, continue full-spead-ahead in trying to make it work. If you realize that you’re not as jazzed about your previous career aspiration anymore, then don’t be afraid to change courses and pursue another route. Your school won’t give you the boot for changing your mind about your career direction, so there’s nothing to stop you from doing something different than what you put into your admissions essays.
4. Once you’ve found your “holes”, figure out what kind of internship will help you fill them — OK, now you’ve used the feedback you’ve gotten to figure out what you need to work on and you’ve got a set of resources available to help you find summer jobs. Your next step is to use both of these to do a more informed search of opportunities that will help you meet your key developmental needs and prepare to make another run at your desired job during the full-time recruiting cycle. Some of you may be saying “Shouldn’t I play to my strengths when looking for summer gigs now?” Well, you could do that, but that won’t necessarily help you fill the “holes” that you found out about through your turndown feedback. After I was turned down by all of the consulting firms I interviewed with on campus, I briefly thought about pursuing a summer internship in the Tech industry because I probably would have had an easier time finding one. I eventually decided against that because I knew that I wanted to do Consulting after B-school and needed to work on my “Consulting skills” (strategy, team-based work, and overall business understanding) over the summer. So, I went after consulting firms that hadn’t come on campus and Corporate Strategy positions in hopes of putting myself in a good position for a McKinsey offer for full-time…and that plan worked perfectly for me.
5 Leverage all resources available to you to find opportunities — Once you’ve exhausted your on-campus recruiting options, it can seem like there’s a big question mark out there when you try to figure out what to do next. I recommend taking the time to list out all of the options for job opportunities available and then using them all concurrently. Most business schools and colleges will have some sort of “job board” maintained by their career services offices that lists late-breaking summer job openings that could turn into fantastic internship opportunities. Also, there are plenty of job sites on the Internet like Monster, Doostang, and HotJobs that list a ton of summer opportunities for Bschool and college students. In fact, one of my friends in the GSB Class of 2007 got his summer internship doing M&A at Google through a posting he found on HotJobs…don’t underestimate the effectiveness of those types of sites. Finally, don’t forget to tap into your alumni networks…that’s how I ended up getting an in with Accenture since they didn’t recruit at Stanford GSB. It always cracks me up when i hear people choose a school based on it having a strong alumni network, but then have reservations about reaching out to alums. Chances are that the alums you’d be contacting were helped out by other alums when they were in school, so why not give them a chance to pay it forward???
6. When evaluating your choices, don’t let $$$ be too big of a factor…focus on the richness of the experience — When you’re a broke student, it’s natural to want to earn as much as you can during your summer, but I’d caution you about making money too much of a priority here. For the 3-4 months of your summer, the money might seem important, but, in the grand scheme of you entire career, the money you’d make in the summer won’t be much of a factor. I didn’t really let money dictate the company that I chose, but I did let money make me rule out potential employees almost immediately. If I could go back and do it again, I would have figured out some way to have done both a US-based internship and the internship that I was offered at Infosys. I wouldn’t have gotten paid much of anything in the latter one, but the international experience would have been a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to learn.
7. Once you’ve chosen a summer employer, be settled with your choice and don’t second guess it — This last piece of advice is MAJOR because doing this will help ease your mind through the end of your school year. At most business schools, only about 30% of students find their internships in the on-campus process, so don’t dwell on the fact that you had to extend your search to find yours. Also, don’t think too much about what people might think about the choice you made. After I had made my internship choice, I couldn’t help but wonder if I somehow didn’t seem as tight as my classmates because I had to extend my search to companies that didn’t some on campus. Also, since Accenture didn’t come on campus, I was the only one from my GSB class who interned there, which had me wondering if others would question my decision. Looking back, it seems pretty dumb for me to have been so concerned by these ideas, but it’s difficult to think otherwise when you’re living the situation.
Wow, I haven’t written an entry this long in ages…I hope I didn’t bore you guys too much with it. Plus, this is great timing because we just got word that we’ve got to cut off our electronic devices. Good luck to everyone out there who is on the summer employment grind. Take care.
P.S. Does anyone know how to control the posting of spam comments on a blog. I swear my blog has been getting lit up by spammers in the past couple of weeks…
]In the past few days, I’ve been in contact with many first year MBA students and college juniors who are in the thick of the summer internship recruiting process. Some of these students are sitting pretty with one or more offers in hand, others are on their way to second round interviews with their firms of choice, and others are facing a longer than expected recruiting process because things have not gone as smoothly as expected with their interviews so far.
To those who have already secured offers, I pass along my congratulations and advise you to spend some significant time evaluating your options when picking a summer employer…make sure you choose the company that will give you the best professional and learning experience and everything else will work out from there.
To those of you who are awaiting second round interviews, I wish you good luck and have my fingers crossed for you. Between now and your interviews, be sure to sharpen your interviewing skills by doing several mock interviews and practicing the telling of your “story”. Most of all, do all you can to shake off any fears you might have so you can go into the interviews with maximum confidence. Just think about it like Bernie Mack on his first appearance on Def Comedy Jam back in the day (“I ain’t scared of y’all mutha…”). Thinking back to my own struggles with finding an internship, the biggest thing that tripped me up was walking into the interviews afraid of the interviewers and overly concerned with convincing them that they shouldn’t diss me. Instead, you should go in knowing that you’ve got a lot to offer and concerned with doing your best to show them that they shouldn’t mess up and not give you an offer. The difference between these mindsets is subtle, but it made a HUGE difference when I compare how I fared during the summer and full-time recruiting cycles.
Then, that leaves me with the group who hasn’t had things go their way so far. I’ll start by saying that I know EXACTLY how you feel because I went through the same thing myself. Right now, the last thing you probably want is someone to say “Awwww, it’ll be alright…keep your head up…those companies don’t know what they missed out on…etc, etc, etc”. All of those statements might be true/valid things to say, but, when people came to me with them, they never made me feel any better because I still was without an internship offer. Now, if that’s what you’re looking for, then STOP READING THIS ENTRY RIGHT NOW!!! Instead, I’d much rather provide some tips that could help you find an internship that you’ll both enjoy and get something significant out of. If I could go back to Winter 2005, I would have slapped some sense into myself and passed along the following advice, which would have done wonders for me at the time:
1. Leave all of the disappointment in the past — This should go without saying, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to second-guess one’s performance after an unsuccessful set of interviews. I remember spending hour upon hour wondering what I could have done differently and why the feedback that I had been given by companies hadn’t just come naturally. It got so bad that I spent more time worrying about how bad I’d done in some interviews than I did studying for my classes. Trust me…you never want to let yourself get caught up in that sot of cycle. It becomes ten times harder to move forward and figure out a set of productive next steps if you let yourself dwell on past performance.
2. Change your “turndown feedback” into something productive — This piece of advice is related to the previous one. Instead of dwelling over the feedback that you get in a “turndown” call and wishing you’d done better, why not use that feedback as a set of guidelines on how you can improve going forward? I know, I know…that’s a ridiculously simple concept, right? In theory, yes, it is simple. But, in practice, it can be VERY difficult. Think of it this way…the company that called you didn’t come offering an internship, but they did offer you some feedback, so you might as well use it, right?
3. Think about your post-MBA career aspiration and confirm that it hasn’t changed — Often people pursue a certain type of summer internship because they “think” that’s what they want to do after graduation, but really aren’t “sure” anymore. In this case, it may be difficult to find the “right” internship because a candidate isn’t looking in the “right” industry or functional area for what they really want to do. I’d recommend taking a few minutes and really reflecting on what you want to do after school before continuing the internship search. If you decide that your career aspiration hasn’t changed, then, by all means, continue full-spead-ahead in trying to make it work. If you realize that you’re not as jazzed about your previous career aspiration anymore, then don’t be afraid to change courses and pursue another route. Your school won’t give you the boot for changing your mind about your career direction, so there’s nothing to stop you from doing something different than what you put into your admissions essays.
4. Once you’ve found your “holes”, figure out what kind of internship will help you fill them — OK, now you’ve used the feedback you’ve gotten to figure out what you need to work on and you’ve got a set of resources available to help you find summer jobs. Your next step is to use both of these to do a more informed search of opportunities that will help you meet your key developmental needs and prepare to make another run at your desired job during the full-time recruiting cycle. Some of you may be saying “Shouldn’t I play to my strengths when looking for summer gigs now?” Well, you could do that, but that won’t necessarily help you fill the “holes” that you found out about through your turndown feedback. After I was turned down by all of the consulting firms I interviewed with on campus, I briefly thought about pursuing a summer internship in the Tech industry because I probably would have had an easier time finding one. I eventually decided against that because I knew that I wanted to do Consulting after B-school and needed to work on my “Consulting skills” (strategy, team-based work, and overall business understanding) over the summer. So, I went after consulting firms that hadn’t come on campus and Corporate Strategy positions in hopes of putting myself in a good position for a McKinsey offer for full-time…and that plan worked perfectly for me.
5 Leverage all resources available to you to find opportunities — Once you’ve exhausted your on-campus recruiting options, it can seem like there’s a big question mark out there when you try to figure out what to do next. I recommend taking the time to list out all of the options for job opportunities available and then using them all concurrently. Most business schools and colleges will have some sort of “job board” maintained by their career services offices that lists late-breaking summer job openings that could turn into fantastic internship opportunities. Also, there are plenty of job sites on the Internet like Monster, Doostang, and HotJobs that list a ton of summer opportunities for Bschool and college students. In fact, one of my friends in the GSB Class of 2007 got his summer internship doing M&A at Google through a posting he found on HotJobs…don’t underestimate the effectiveness of those types of sites. Finally, don’t forget to tap into your alumni networks…that’s how I ended up getting an in with Accenture since they didn’t recruit at Stanford GSB. It always cracks me up when i hear people choose a school based on it having a strong alumni network, but then have reservations about reaching out to alums. Chances are that the alums you’d be contacting were helped out by other alums when they were in school, so why not give them a chance to pay it forward???
6. When evaluating your choices, don’t let $$$ be too big of a factor…focus on the richness of the experience — When you’re a broke student, it’s natural to want to earn as much as you can during your summer, but I’d caution you about making money too much of a priority here. For the 3-4 months of your summer, the money might seem important, but, in the grand scheme of you entire career, the money you’d make in the summer won’t be much of a factor. I didn’t really let money dictate the company that I chose, but I did let money make me rule out potential employees almost immediately. If I could go back and do it again, I would have figured out some way to have done both a US-based internship and the internship that I was offered at Infosys. I wouldn’t have gotten paid much of anything in the latter one, but the international experience would have been a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to learn.
7. Once you’ve chosen a summer employer, be settled with your choice and don’t second guess it — This last piece of advice is MAJOR because doing this will help ease your mind through the end of your school year. At most business schools, only about 30% of students find their internships in the on-campus process, so don’t dwell on the fact that you had to extend your search to find yours. Also, don’t think too much about what people might think about the choice you made. After I had made my internship choice, I couldn’t help but wonder if I somehow didn’t seem as tight as my classmates because I had to extend my search to companies that didn’t some on campus. Also, since Accenture didn’t come on campus, I was the only one from my GSB class who interned there, which had me wondering if others would question my decision. Looking back, it seems pretty dumb for me to have been so concerned by these ideas, but it’s difficult to think otherwise when you’re living the situation.
Wow, I haven’t written an entry this long in ages…I hope I didn’t bore you guys too much with it. Plus, this is great timing because we just got word that we’ve got to cut off our electronic devices. Good luck to everyone out there who is on the summer employment grind. Take care.
P.S. Does anyone know how to control the posting of spam comments on a blog. I swear my blog has been getting lit up by spammers in the past couple of weeks…
Great Piece Marquis