Ahh, yet another weekend is here and I've got another ton of work to get done before Monday. It's getting harder to be productive with every day that passes, but it's even scarier that the end of my MBA experience is coming up fast. In 5 months, I'll be finished here and I'm going to be wishing that I had more of this school work to do at the GSB.
One of the course that has really surprised me this quarter has been "Interpersonal Dynamics" (also known as "Touchy Feely"). This class is supposed to be one of the legendary ones at the GSB that is supposed to be life-changing and is claimed to alter the way that one sees himself an others. When it came time to rank our class preferences for the Wintger quarter, I'd put this as my #1 choice because I'd heard so much and was on Cloud 9 when I got it. My enthusiasm faded a little when the class began and I felt like it was overhyped. The biggest learning tool in the class is a weekly three-hour meeting where teams of 12 students (called a T-group) meet to talk about anything under the sun. I'd heard stories about how T-group meetings were supposed to be filled with drama and arguments and great learnings, resulting from those conflicts, so I had certain expectations about them. At first, I wondered if I'd get the "legendary" level of learning from mine now I'm starting to see what all the hype was about. I can't go into details, but I've been pushed past the bounds of what I'd usually feel comfortable with so far and I can see it going much further over the course of the quarter. Something tells me that this won't be the last time I write about this class in a blog entry.
As you know, I've been trying to help some of the first-year students here prepare for their internship interviews and it's getting to crunch time for them because the On Campus Recruiting process (OCR) starts for them on Monday. It's sort of scary seeing how much these kids are prepping for their case interviews because I wonder if they're even able to get their school work done, but, amazingly, they're holding it all together pretty well. I'm trying to do my part to help them out, but i'm finding that many of the students I'm doing mock cases with don't need my help at all...these kids are SO on point with their case game. Despite that, repetition is a great way to get better, so I'm steadily running through cases with as many kids as possible. I did a few with people earlier this week, did some cases with two guys this morning, and have three on my schedule for tomorrow. I can't wait until these folks jump into the process and show these companies what they've got.
I know that a lot of first-year students are preparing for their internship interviews at other schools right now, so I thought I'd offer some help. For anyone interested, the presentation that I gave to the group of MBA1's here last week can be viewed at:
http://www.boomspeed.com/marquis930/MBA1CaseInterviewPrepSlides.pdf
I'm not promising that it'll help you get a consulting gig for the summer, but some of the tips in it might be useful as you get ready to throw down in your interviews. I've been told that it's serving the attendees as a pretty good guide, so, being a man of the people, I wanted to make it available to even more folks.
Onto other topics...I don't know if any of you are into the theatre, but, if you are, you HAVE to see the on-stage version of "The Lion King". I caught it last night at the Performing Arts Center in San Jose and it was an amazing show. They cut out a lot of the content from the movie version, but the actors and sets were great and the costumes and choreography were outstanding. I was never really that "cultured cat" before coming to the GSB, but, now that I'm around all these worldly folks, I'm learning that I've got to get my culture game up. Also, it's a great way to get my "grown man" on before going back into the real world. If you're not on the theatre thing yet, think about getting on it because going to a play is a better experience than just watching TV in your house :-)
Time for me to get to doing some of the studying that I should have been doing much earlier this morning. Take care and have a great weekend.
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By the way, are any of you guys on Facebook.com yet? If not, y'all need to jump on that joint. I swear it's one of the most addictive things on the Internet right now.
Also, if you didn't jump on it last time I posted about it, you've got to try out Meebo.com's instant messenger interface. That thing will allow you to use any number of IM programs (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk, etc.) simultaneously through a web browser without actually having to have the actual IM programs installed on your machine. The Meebo team has put a bunch of new features into it and I use it exclusively to access my AIM friends nowadays because the AOL Instane Messenger program is janky as hell. Don't miss the bandwagon on Meebo, y'all.
What's up, y'all. I'm writing you at the end of another long week. I could have sworn that this quarter would be a breeze compared to the previous four, but I (along with several of my classmates) are finding the Winter 2006 quarter to be tough. I'm not sure why, but, despite being finished with my GSB Senate term and the non-profit project I was doing and having fewer credit hours than in the past two quarters, I feel like I'm ripping and running to get everything done.
One reason may be that I'm actually trying to do all of the assigned readings in my classes as opposed to simply skimming them to find the most important parts. Another reason may be that I'm finally taking one of the GSB's most famous classes, "Interpersonal Dynamics" (also known as "Touchy Feely"). This course is supposed to help student work on their communications styles and give them a sense of how they are perceived by others around them. The jury is still out on how effective the class will be, but one thing I do know about it is that there is a TON of reading and writing assigned in that joint. Finally, I've made it a mission of mine to spend more time socializing with my classmates since I've only got 6 more months until graduation. I think everyone else has the same plan in mind because there have been a lot of lunches, dinners, and parties happening among the MBA2's. I guess the idea that we're almost done with this MBA journey is finally setting in.
Another big thing going on right now at the GSB is the start of the summer internship recruiting process. Thinking back to last year, I keep having terrible flashbacks at how most of the consulting companies destroyed me in interviews...the disses after second rounds were especially tough to handle. My biggest mistake as I went through the process was not being prepared enough in how to do the case interviews early on, which often caused me to stumble my way through them. I eventually got good at them by the start of March 2005, but, by then, I'd already been knocked out by all of the consulting companies that came on campus. Thank goodness for the alum at Accenture who put my resume into their pipeline. With all of the MBA1's walking around stressed about the internship process, I want to help them avoid all the disappointments I had last year, so I'm holding a case interview prep session tomorrow in hopes of getting their case skills as tight as possible. I did one of these things for a few of them back in December and those folks thought it was valuable, so i hope that the kids who attend tomorrow find it useful, as well. I'm planning on spending some time tonight developing a Powerpoint presentation that can serve as a cheat sheet for the MBA1's as they prepare to compete for the Consulting internships. Hopefully, they'll pay the gesture forward to the first-years who'll enter the GSB next year and start a tradition of prep sessions like these.
What's up, y'all. Surprisingly, I ended up with some free time before my 3pm class because I came to the GSB 2 hours early for a scheduled mock interview with a first-year student through our Career Mgmt Center. When i got here, i found out that they didn't even need me, but hadn't gotten as much as an email to let me know not to come in. The funniest part is I was asked to participate in these joints (after I'd informed the organizer that I was already doing mocks through our Consulting club) because they needed as many MBA2's as possible...I guess that'll be the last official mock interview that I sign up for.
Anyways, while I'm killing time here in the library, i might as well tell y'all about the case interview prep session i did on Saturday. In preparation for the session, i spent a couple of hours doing a braindump into Powerpoint of all the things I wish I'd known going into the consulting internship process last year. I was really worried going into that presentation because I thought the information I was covering would be too elementary for the MBA1's who would be in attendance. I know that my case game is pretty good now, but, at this time last year, I was horrible and I thought the kids at the session would all be bored with the stuff I was giving them. Judging from their interest and questions, I'd say that I was dead wrong about that. The 14 or 15 folks there were engaged the entire time and, although many of them had already been practicing the cases thoroughly, they still found the information useful. In the words of Hannibal from "The A-Team", "I love it when a plan comes together." I was dead tired when i was doing the session and I probably should have been at home studying, but it felt good to be able to help those first years (and the other ones who received my materials over email) with their case prepping. Hopefully, they won't have as much trouble as I did last year when i was King of the Second Round Knockout.
Aight y'all, time for class...
***
By the way, did y'all see the highlights from Kobe's game last night?!?!?!? 81 points!?!?!?!?! I've been hating on Kobe's ball-hoggin' self for his entire career, but I can't argue with results. He's certainly a ball hog, but I'll be damned if that kid isn't The Truth in the NBA now. Good lawd!
One of my friends who is a first-year at Darden just hit me up asking for advice on things to look out for as he prepares for his McKinsey interviews next week. In response, I sent him this email and thought that some others might benefit from the advice, as well.
-----------------------------
Wow man, I remember what it was like to be in your shoes last
year and McKinsey had me terrified. I'd come to Bschool to end up
with them and I was shocked to make it to the second round...even
if they ended up dissing me for the internship opportunity. Thank
goodness for second chances :-)
In terms of advice, here are some things to look out for when
interviewing with McK:
- The most important thing is to go in there with an air of
confidence, but not to the point of seeming cocky. Companies like
McKinsey want to see candidates that appear to be confident in
their skills, but they don't want those candidates to give the
impression that they believe they've got the job as soon as they
walk in the door.
- Be ready to do some quick data interpretations at some point in
your cases. Thinking back, I believe that, in over half of my
mcKinsey cases, the interviewer handed me a table at some point
and simply asked "So what do you see here?" or "what does this
table tell you?" Questions like this blew me out of the water
last year because I was totally unprepared for them, but, this
time around, I learned the art of stalling in those situations to
give myself more time to think about it. Just be ready for those
sorts of questions and don't be caught off-guard.
- Make sure you have a good set of stories to tell for the "fit"
portion of the interview. The interviewers will all get in a
room after the interviews and go through the candidates one by
one. Many candidates ill have one or two good stories, but,
after those, they're pretty much tapped out. The McKinsey
interviewers will likely specifically ask you to give them
stories that you haven't used in your other interviews that day
because they want to get as many instances of how you work as
possible. Some types of stories you should be thinking about are
ones where you led an intiative or team toward a common goal, you
failed despite your best efforts, you had to deal with a
contentious situation in a team or leadership setting, you had to
overcome some large obstacle to reach your goal, etc.
- Be on the lookout for subtle clues from your interviewer about
where they want you to go. In interviews with most companies, the
interviewer wants to see you do well (unless they are a total
prick), so, unless you really don't get along with him/her, you
may end up getting some small hints about the direction you
should take. For example, in a profitability problem, you may
start off talking about the revenue side of the issue and the
interviewer may stop you part way through and say "it's great
that you're looking at the revenues, but what about the costs?
what issues do you see there?" It may not be as blatant as that,
but I think you get the idea of what I'm talking about. Just be
willing to change directions if you feel like you're being asked
to do so.
- I know this one may sound basic, but use graph paper when
you're doing your cases and use two separate pieces of paper: one
for your structured analysis and information gathering and one
for your math. This will allow you to make your notes as clean
and organized as possible. McKinsey always takes your notes from
you after an interview and I have a feeling that they look at
them during the reviews to see how well you structured your
thoughts, so make it as easy as possible for them by making your
notes as clean and readable as you can.
- Wherever possible, make use of tables, graphs, and charts when
you're giving your solutions to the problem. They don't have to
be professional looking by any means, but they go a long way
toward showing that you know how to present information in a
structured fashion, which is of utmost importance in Consulting.
- Here are some topic areas that you should ramp up on before
your interviews:
1. Profitability (revenues, costs)
2. Industry attractiveness/Market issues (total size of the
market in $, # of competitors - minimum efficient scale is useful
here, whether the market is growing/shrinking/stagnant)
3. Mergers and Acquisitions (financials --> will it be
profitable; produtc line synergies; market reaction to the
merger/acquisition; culture/morale issues)
4. Product introduction (potential market for product, cost to
introduce product, expected revenues/profits, competitor
reaction, does the new product fit your company's product line)
5. Marketing (pricing, placement/distribution channels, product,
promotion)
6. Topics that show deeper business insights, such as unions,
long-term contracts, costs (fixed vs. variable, direct vs.
indirect), supply/demand issues (and their effects on pricing),
culture/morale issues and their effects, and operations
- The most important thing to remember is to be as structured as
possible with your thinking...you don't necessarily have to crack
the case, but you do have to show that you know how to break down
a problem into pieces that you can attack one-by-one to get to a
solution.
Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to
hit me up when you get back to the US.
-Marquis
-----------------------------
Wow man, I remember what it was like to be in your shoes last
year and McKinsey had me terrified. I'd come to Bschool to end up
with them and I was shocked to make it to the second round...even
if they ended up dissing me for the internship opportunity. Thank
goodness for second chances :-)
In terms of advice, here are some things to look out for when
interviewing with McK:
- The most important thing is to go in there with an air of
confidence, but not to the point of seeming cocky. Companies like
McKinsey want to see candidates that appear to be confident in
their skills, but they don't want those candidates to give the
impression that they believe they've got the job as soon as they
walk in the door.
- Be ready to do some quick data interpretations at some point in
your cases. Thinking back, I believe that, in over half of my
mcKinsey cases, the interviewer handed me a table at some point
and simply asked "So what do you see here?" or "what does this
table tell you?" Questions like this blew me out of the water
last year because I was totally unprepared for them, but, this
time around, I learned the art of stalling in those situations to
give myself more time to think about it. Just be ready for those
sorts of questions and don't be caught off-guard.
- Make sure you have a good set of stories to tell for the "fit"
portion of the interview. The interviewers will all get in a
room after the interviews and go through the candidates one by
one. Many candidates ill have one or two good stories, but,
after those, they're pretty much tapped out. The McKinsey
interviewers will likely specifically ask you to give them
stories that you haven't used in your other interviews that day
because they want to get as many instances of how you work as
possible. Some types of stories you should be thinking about are
ones where you led an intiative or team toward a common goal, you
failed despite your best efforts, you had to deal with a
contentious situation in a team or leadership setting, you had to
overcome some large obstacle to reach your goal, etc.
- Be on the lookout for subtle clues from your interviewer about
where they want you to go. In interviews with most companies, the
interviewer wants to see you do well (unless they are a total
prick), so, unless you really don't get along with him/her, you
may end up getting some small hints about the direction you
should take. For example, in a profitability problem, you may
start off talking about the revenue side of the issue and the
interviewer may stop you part way through and say "it's great
that you're looking at the revenues, but what about the costs?
what issues do you see there?" It may not be as blatant as that,
but I think you get the idea of what I'm talking about. Just be
willing to change directions if you feel like you're being asked
to do so.
- I know this one may sound basic, but use graph paper when
you're doing your cases and use two separate pieces of paper: one
for your structured analysis and information gathering and one
for your math. This will allow you to make your notes as clean
and organized as possible. McKinsey always takes your notes from
you after an interview and I have a feeling that they look at
them during the reviews to see how well you structured your
thoughts, so make it as easy as possible for them by making your
notes as clean and readable as you can.
- Wherever possible, make use of tables, graphs, and charts when
you're giving your solutions to the problem. They don't have to
be professional looking by any means, but they go a long way
toward showing that you know how to present information in a
structured fashion, which is of utmost importance in Consulting.
- Here are some topic areas that you should ramp up on before
your interviews:
1. Profitability (revenues, costs)
2. Industry attractiveness/Market issues (total size of the
market in $, # of competitors - minimum efficient scale is useful
here, whether the market is growing/shrinking/stagnant)
3. Mergers and Acquisitions (financials --> will it be
profitable; produtc line synergies; market reaction to the
merger/acquisition; culture/morale issues)
4. Product introduction (potential market for product, cost to
introduce product, expected revenues/profits, competitor
reaction, does the new product fit your company's product line)
5. Marketing (pricing, placement/distribution channels, product,
promotion)
6. Topics that show deeper business insights, such as unions,
long-term contracts, costs (fixed vs. variable, direct vs.
indirect), supply/demand issues (and their effects on pricing),
culture/morale issues and their effects, and operations
- The most important thing to remember is to be as structured as
possible with your thinking...you don't necessarily have to crack
the case, but you do have to show that you know how to break down
a problem into pieces that you can attack one-by-one to get to a
solution.
Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to
hit me up when you get back to the US.
-Marquis
Happy New Year, y’all. I hope that you had fun bringing in 2006 and are ready for a productive year. I ended up just hanging out at my mom’s house watching the ball drop on Dick Clark’s show and talking to my GF on the phone. I know that sounds boring but it was much better than the alternative of driving 90+ minutes into DC and paying $100+ to get into a club to bring in the new year with hundreds of strangers. I guess one’s priorities for celebrations can change a lot over the years.
At long last, I’ve reached the start of Winter quarter with today being the first day of classes. My plan was to arrive last Wednesday night, get my course readers on Thursday, and spend all weekend studying them to get ahead, but things didn’t go as planned. Once I got back here, I realized that I was more tired than I thought and just chilled for most of the weekend. I did get a good amount of cramming done between yesterday and this morning, but I’ve still got to grind some more tonight to get fully prepared for my classes tomorrow.
I’m trying to make sure I get off on the right foot this quarter because I’ve found myself falling behind quickly in each of my four quarters here. One of my big problems has been that I got too involved with activities and helping others with things and, as a consequence, I found that I didn’t make enough time to do all of my work in advance or even to relax. My goal is to change that this quarter and, now that my term as a Senator has ended and some of my other activities have died down, I should be able to do it well. From now on, I just need to do a good job of efficiently using my free time to address my studies along with socializing with my peoples around here and getting back in the gym ( I NEED to get my swole right again after letting myself slack off during interviews last quarter). It should be a pretty interesting quarter of making these things happen, but I hope that I can accomplish everything as planned.