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

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

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

The MBA Marketing Machine

I remember waaaaaaay back in the early 2000′s when the MBA degree was the thing to have. The MBA was supposed to be the ticket to a fantastic job in Finance/Consulting/Management that would be the first step on the road to eternal success in business, lots of money, and a network that most people would kill for. Getting into a top-20 business school was basically like winning one of Willy Wonka… Read the rest‘s golden tickets and being invited to play in his Chocolate Factory, which, in the case of the MBA, was supposed to be the Board rooms of major corporations

Advice for a medical student applying for consulting

This is going to be a really short entry with a really short video in which I answer a short email from a medical student who is interested in a career in Management Consulting. She has been looking into the industry lately and wants to pursue a position as a Consultant, but she fears that her work experience isn’t well-suited for it. She asked for my advice on the question and, because I’ve written several entries on this stopic in the past, I gave her a quick response and left it at that.

I’d like to take this opportunity to … Read the rest

Recap of TheArtOfApplying.com’s recent “B-school Despite the Odds” webinar

Back on July 5th, I told all of you about a free webinar that was being held on July 8th by TheArtOfApplying.com, my friend Kaneisha Grayson’s new B-school coaching company.

The webinar was entitled “B-school Despite the Odds” and, in it, Kaneisha gave an overview of her own background and what most people would say were shortcomings in her application followed by some general tips that she’s used to help some of her clients over the years. I was really impressed with how open she was about her own MBA application journey and her willingness to put it all … Read the rest

USNews.com: More MBA Graduates Will Get Jobs in 2010

As many of you have likely read, the job market was incredibly tough for MBAs from the Class of 2009. In fact, I know of several MBA2009 graduates who are still searching for their first post-MBA job. In some cases, those graduates are being incredibly picky and are holding out for the “dream job”. But, in other cases, kids are applying to a wide range of opportunities and are willing to take salaries in the same range as their pre-MBA compensation…and, even with that level of flexibility, many of these kids are still job-searching.

Fortunately, according to US News and … Read the rest

Job-Seekers: Grab the Middle Seat on an Airplane

When a friend of mine posted the article below on Facebook, I was about to ignore it, but the title caught my eye and I’m glad that I took the time to read it. As my longtime readers know, networking is sort of my “thing” and I spend a lot of time building and cultivating personal and professional relationships…because one never knows when a relationship can yield benefits. This article dovetails very well with the idea of networking as an important career building tool.

The writer of the article, Katherine Brooks, Ed.D, has been working in career services for the … Read the rest

Strategic approach to the job search, Part III – Interviewing

In this entry, I present the third part of my “Strategic approach to the job search” series, which with the April 4, 2010 entry. In this installment, I offer a few tips on what to think about when entering the interview process with a prospective employer.

I realize that some of the ideas presented in this video might be basic for some of you, but they certainly weren’t basic for me a couple of years ago and it made for a really stressful experience of interviewing in a totally ineffective way. Thank goodness that I was able to eventually … Read the rest

101 Tips for Becoming Your Own Career Coach

In the past few months, I’ve posted several articles about the iffy job market and, at times like these, we all owe it to ourselves to be as thoughtful as possible about managing our careers. I’ve built my career the hard way by making a lot of mistakes and learning from them to improve, but, looking back, it really wouldn’t have been so challenging if I’d had someone to coach me (which is one of the reasons that I’m so passionate about sharing good career and education insights on this site). Unfortunately, most of us don’t have access to a… Read the rest

Upcoming free webinar providing tips to MBA applicants at TheArtOfApplying.com

Hey, folk. I hope you all had a relaxing 4th of July weekend and are ready to head back into the office tomorrow. I made it back to Chicago earlier today after a long day of traveling and I have a feeling that I’ll struggle to stay awake at work tomorrow. Gotta love that first day back in the office after a three day weekend, right?

I actually didn’t post this entry to talk about the end of the holiday weekend though. Rather, I posted it to pass along word of a cool web-based event coming up later this week … Read the rest

Maintaining Health and Safety Standards: Not Just About Compliance

Hey, everyone. I hope all of you in the U.S. are enjoying the 4th of July weekend. As for me, I’m in the middle of a relaxing trip to the great state of VA to visit my family and it’s nice to be back here after several months of being away. Also, it’s been nice to sit around my mom’s house and just crash for the weekend after having spent the previous few days in the U.K. at some meetings for work. In fact, I’d planned to post this entry earlier this past week, but was pretty swamped while I… Read the rest

On becoming a responsible manager (insights from Veritas Prep)

The article linked below comes to us from the folks at Veritas Prep and is written by one of their senior MBA admissions consultants, Darren Kowitt.

In the article, Kowitt describes his view on what makes a responsible manager and then takes that further to provide some advice for people applying to business school. I found this quote from the article to be especially insightful:

“Managers must remember that they are the custodians of society’s most powerful institutions. They must therefore hold themselves to a higher standard. Managers must strive to achieve success with responsibility.”

For folks considering taking the … Read the rest

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

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

A Precarious Undertaking: The Business of Transferring Business Smarts to Public Office

What’s going on, folk. I’m doing something a little different in this entry and am using it to explore a topic that I don’t touch very often on here…politics. I won’t be the one analyzing the topic though…I’ll leave that to a special invited guest. The article below was written by a guest writer named Alvina Lopez, who approached me a few days ago about contributing an entry to the site. Her own website is focused on online education, but she’s written really strong articles on a range of topics. So, I knew that we could really have some fun… Read the rest

The Power of Networking (shout out to Jeremy Wilson and Jullien Gordon)

Hey, everyone. I know it’s weird to be seeing two entries posted from me in a 24-hour period, but I couldn’t wait to get this one put up here. I’m just getting back home after a DYNAMITE meeting with two of my good friends who are also business/MBA/career bloggers, Jeremy Wilson and Jullien Gordon… Read the rest. I won’t go into much detail about how we ended up meeting (I mention it in the video below), but I think it is worth saying that we met today because it was a testament to the power of networking. The three of us are
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