Get the grade or get the job?

The answer to the above caption seems like a no-brainer but I cannot but feel a little bad (Not really :-) ) sometimes when I think of the fact that I’ve been paying serious attention to only one of my classes (Finance) and just coasting along with the other four. The reason of course is that there are a gazillion recruiting activities to keep up with. Anyone that has ever written a cover letter for an MBA job application will understand just how painful and time consuming those can be. Don’t even think about using a template!

I’m blogging from JFK airport right now after an interesting day with a firm that insisted I come for an informational interview today. I tried to explain that I’ll be in NY for 3 days next week but they had a deadline to meet. So off I went. I think it was a very productive trip.

I thought I was the only one feeling like 24 hours is not enough until one of my classmates came to me to express how she feels right now. Let’s just say I felt much better with my situation after listening to her.

The school is giving us Monday and Tuesday off next week to travel for our informational interviews. This is very good because it allows us to really focus. There is some much information to keep track of on each bank…PE ratio, EPS, where the stock closed the previous day, marketcap etc…Now imagine that you are going for the shot gun approach and talking to every bank that claims to have an I-Banking operation. May God help you. Oh yeah, you need to flawlessly master the art of resume walking too. In case you are wondering what an Informational Interview is, it is one of the boxes you need to check with the banks and your last chance to get a feel for how well you’ll fit with the bank. This means you have to make it count by having very good questions to ask the banker. On the flip side, you should also be ready to get grilled on some fundamentals of accounting and finance.

After next week’s informational, I’m dropping everything related to recruiting and focusing on preparing for my finals. Shooot… Who am I kidding? If they call me tomorrow for a return trip, you know I’ll be racing up to Wall Street again.

I look forward to the day I’ll report here that I have my first offer.

Mock Interview

Thanksgiving is always something to look forward to. It especially means a lot to me now because I get to see my family after several weeks. To make things even better, we only have classes on Monday and Tuesday this week, so I get to have a really long break from Wednesday to Sunday. I have to manage the break very well though because there are several assignments due next week. One of the homework involves reading a book (The Goal) for my operations class and summarizing it. I skimmed through and it appears to be an easy read.

I had a mock interview with one of the second year students that already has an offer with an Investment Bank from the summer. It was an interesting one because, I was required to show up in suit just like I would for a real interview. The interview was held in one of the interview rooms used for the real deal. The only difference is that we had a camera in the room to capture everything including my interviewer’s feedback. I’ll get the chance to analyze my mannerisms and response to the questions.

Informational interviews start right after Thanksgiving and internship interviews are less than 8 weeks away. Stay tuned for blow by blow accounts as I go through this decisive phase.

So long, too long

This Mod has been absolutely brutal on my schedule. You know things are very bad when you feel too busy to even attend class! That was the signal I needed to slow things down and further reprioritize my over prioritized life. To give you an idea, I no longer shutdown my laptop the conventional way because the time is takes to boot off is a “bottleneck” to my productivity. So now I just shut down with the standby option for quicker reload.
This period is what I’ve come to understand as the busiest Mod I’ll have in business school. It better be, otherwise nothing would make sense anymore. As you can imagine, recruiting activities have picked up pace and in my list of priorities they sure come first. My postings here will not be as regular as they used to be but hopefully by January, I would have nailed the internship position of my choice and I can keep you all updated more frequently.