Archive | About Marquis

Question about my experiences as an African-American in the workplace

Categories: About Marquis, Business, career

The email below came to me from a college Freshman who attended a talk that I gave a few months ago. This young lady is an African-American student and her question is about my experiences being a Black professional in the workplace. During my talk, I noticed that she was one of the few underrepresented minorities in the audience, so I wasn’t surprised that this question was going through her head.

This question is one that I’ve been asked about many times in person, but I can’t recall anyone ever emailing me about it over the past few years of … Read the rest

Advice for an MBA applicant from me…and a friend of mine

Categories: Business, Business School, career, Education, leadership, mba, my peoples, Personal branding

People who have read this blog over the years should know that I enjoy sharing advice with folks who are applying to business school. One thing that may not have been as apparent is that I have lots of friends with a similar passion for mentorship and a willingness to share their insights with the next generation of aspiring MBAs.

One of those folks is my friend Dawn, who is an absolute rockstar in the business game. She’s an undergrad alum of Cal-Berkeley, an MBA alum of Cornell, and is a fast-rising leader in the healthcare industry. Like me, she … Read the rest

Advice on building self-confidence for a college Freshman

Categories: About Marquis, Business, my motivations, Reader comments, real life stuff, Self-confidence

The email that I’ve posted below is from a college Freshman who attended a keynote presentation that I have a few months ago. I talked about many things in that speech, including the ideas of goal setting and self confidence. When I saw this email, I couldn’t help but smile because I could see that my words really sank in for this kid and encouraged him to write in search of some personal advice.

I responded to this student’s email in 2 parts because I had answered a question similar to his first point in this post. So, in … Read the rest

Question from a college Soph targeting a technology management career

Categories: About Marquis, Business, career, career path, consulting, Education, IT consulting, pre-MBA grad degrees, professional advice, Technology, Technology management, Technology-related

The email below was written by a student from the Indiana University group that I mentioned a few entries ago. I met him during a student trip to Chicago held in mid-January. He and I chatted a bit about his desire to move into IT after his college graduation and, since I used to work in the industry, he thought I’d be able to give him some good advice. Please read below for his questions and my answers to those questions and a key question that he didn’t ask but that I thought would be important.

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AK wrote:

Marquis,

… Read the rest

Most important traits for an undergrad in this economic environment

Categories: About Marquis, career, career path, Education, professional advice

The email below comes from a Freshman student at Indiana University who I met during MLK Weekend. She’s part of a program for the top students in IU’s undergrad business school and I spent some time hanging out with them on the Saturday of the weekend and organized a panel discussion with some of my Aon colleagues for them on the Monday morning. After returning to Bloomington, this student contacted me for advice on some issues that are top-of-mind for a lot of college students.

The student asked me 2 separate questions, but, as I was responding, I realized that … Read the rest

College junior wondering how to find his career niche

Categories: About Marquis, career, career path, career-life balance, consulting, professional advice

Man, I love it when college kids hit me up with questions because I’m often surprised by how insightful those questions are. During my undergrad days, I didn’t have a clue about career issues and didn’t even know to ask about things that kids contact me about now.

The email below is from a rising Junior at the University of Minnesota who has a good academic foundation, but doesn’t know what he wants to do career-wise after college. I’m sure that this is a feeling with which many people can identify. His specific questions are about how I was able … Read the rest

Conversation with Josh Savage, Global Benefits Consultant and Hip-Hop Artist

Categories: Business, career, career path, Conversations, music industry, my peoples

In this entry, you’ll be introduced to a young business professional named Josh Savage… Read the rest, a Global Benefits Consultant at a huge multinational firm in Atlanta. So far, he’s done some interesting things in his career, but, in my opinion, the most interesting thing about him is that he’s a hip-hop artist and is 100% committed to that as his future path. If you spend 5 minutes with him, you’ll realize that his personality is not like most other folks in his corporate line of work and, given his sense of style and “swag”, he’s more of a “Pharell Williams”-type

Conversation with Tanisha Drummer, Strategy Professional and Former Management Consultant

Categories: Business, Business School, career, career-life balance, consulting, Conversations, entrepreneurship, Leaving job for Bschool, mba, my peoples, professional advice, Stanford GSB, strategy, transition

In this entry, you’ll be introduced to Tanisha Drummer, a Strategy professional and former Management Consultant. Tanisha is a friend of mine from my years at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and has done some really interesting things in her career. Tanisha is a former Management Consultant in Accenture’s Strategy Practice, where she focused on Marketing strategy for 4 years before business school and 1.5 years afterward. She’s been in her current Corporate Strategy role at US Cellular for over a year now and has been having tremendous impact.

I’m tempted to give you more background on her … Read the rest

GSB courses that have had the most impact on my career

Categories: About Marquis, career, mba, Stanford GSB

Hey, everyone. I know that I haven’t been responding to many visitor emails as of late and I apologize for that. I’ve been working on a couple of projects on the side, including one that I hope to announce to all of you soon, so, as a result, I’ve been slacking on addressing the emails that have been sent to me. I’ll get better with that going forward.

The email below is from one of my Platinum members who is planning to apply to business school this coming Fall. He met one of my classmates from Stanford GSB a few … Read the rest

Conversation with Jullien Gordon, Serial Entrepreneur and “Purpose Finder”

Categories: Business, Business School, career, career path, Conversations, entrepreneurship, job search resources, mba, my peoples, other sites, professional advice, Stanford GSB

In this entry, I present a discussion with Jullien Gordon… Read the rest, a serial entrepreneur and “Purpose Finder”, as a part of my “Conversations” interview series. Jullien is a good friend of mine from time at Stanford GSB (he was in the class behind me) and we’ve supported each other over the years in our various ventures. My long-time blog readers will recognize Jullien’s name because I’ve written about him a few times times in the past. I wanted to profile Jullien earlier as a part of the this interview series, but he was busy launching the Career Change Challenge and

Promotion from a career prep resource provider for registered members of this site

Categories: career, career path, job search resources, my peoples, other sites, recruiting, Stanford GSB, Uncategorized

During tough economic times like this, I’m sure that everyone could use as much information as possible about how to find the right career path. Please check out the video and text below to find out about a promotion for a really cool career prep resource that has been offered to registered members of this site.

Career change challenge promotion from Marquis Parker on Vimeo.

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Graduate school may get you a good job, but it won’t guarantee you your D.R.E.A.M. job. Do you know what it feels like to D.R.E.A.M. awake? Do know how to make meaning and … Read the rest

The Art of Hiring to Build a Team

Categories: Business, interesting articles, my peoples, organization

What’s happening, folks. I hope you’re all doing well and ready to start the weekend…I’m counting down the minutes until 5pm as I type this (T-minus 15 minutes and counting). This entry offers up an article that is all about the concept of how to bring in the right people to make up a strong team. The article talks about it in a hiring and HR context, but, given the importance of teams in business and MBA programs, I thought it would be an interesting general topic for my reader community.

The article below was written by a former coworker … Read the rest

Announcing a new GMAT prep resource via partnership with GMATPill.com

Categories: About this blog, Bschool admissions, Partnerships, Services

Regular visitors to the site may have noticed a few changes over the past two weeks. I’ve been making a few cosmetic tweaks here and there, but one of the changes was pretty big…so much so that it was worth posting an announcement about it.

My long-time readers may remember an audio interview that I did back in 2009 with Zeke Lee, the founder of the fast-growing GMAT preparation company GMATPill.com. Zeke, who is also a Stanford alum and former Management Consultant, launched this company after catching the entrepreneurial bug and deciding to leave Booz & Co. We had a … Read the rest

The Career Change Challenge – a new career search resource from Jullien Gordon

Categories: career, interview advice, job search resources, my peoples, other sites, professional advice

Hey, everyone. My long-time readers know that I’ve recently been trying to pass along job-related resources as I come across them. I’ve come across a new one that was developed my a good friend of mine that I’ve mentioned on this site before, Jullien Gordon. Jullien is one of my peoples from my time at Stanford GSB and, since earning his MBA in 2007, he has created several projects geared toward leading people to finding their life purposes and using them as guidelines for living. He recently launched a new one with a focus on the job search that is… Read the rest

What is your magic bullet? (great article from Jullien Gordon)

Categories: interesting articles, my peoples, other blogs, other sites

Remember when I mentioned my encounter with my friends Jullien Gordon and Jeremy Wilson last Sunday? Well, I wanted to post the article below from Jullien’s site right after that, but was delayed because of the “access issues” that I mentioned in my last entry. Now, I’ve finally got things stabilized enough on my end and can share this article with all of you. Trust me when I say that it is a good one.

Jullien posted this article on the ninth anniversary of when he was carjacked at gunpoint during his college years. Something like that changes people forever … Read the rest