MBA: What's your strategy?

Category: , By Stuart
Hi Folks!

humble apologies for being out of action lately. The 2nd teaching block came to an end today.. we do have some course work and a major Econ exam pending yet.. but most of the coursework is done. This block has been amazing!! The econ and the finance courses have been simply out of this world!

Strategic Management (the third course i had) didn't really excite me primarily because the cases were not the latest ones (All previous courses had cases from the events unfolding at that time).. but the Personal Strategic Action Plan (PSAP) that we had to develop as part of the strategy assignment was really insightful. In the PSAP we had to apply the various strategic frameworks and look inwards.. analysing ourselves on parameters like abilities , experience, ambition.. etc.. and identify what we want to do in life.. both in the long term and short term..
We then had to identify the company that best helps fulfil this ambition and make a case for a position that is mutually fulfilling. So there was a detailed introspection .. an industry analysis.. and a case for ur dream job...

In effect, this exercise helped me think clearly about where i should be heading post-MBA. (unlike what most people portray in the MBA applications.. a majority of us are not really very clear about which road to take!)

So very very insightful!
There have also been numerous company presentations and corporate events.. more about that in a later post!
cheers!
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MBA:The Path to your dream job

Category: , , , By Stuart
Hi Guys,
for all those who wanted to know the path from B-school to Business Practice ($$$$$$$$ Job)i.e getting a top dollar job with a "sexy" firm (MC/IB, et al), fellow blogger Necromonger (http://onwardtomba.blogspot.com) has written a post that demystifies the entire job application and offer process. His post applies to all leading B-schools including the FT toplist and St. Gallen (except the Indian B-schools he mentions!). For a background, Necro is an Indian who worked in the US for years and now is doing his MBA at INSEAD.

I directly quote from his blog :

This post is to summarize some principal possible differences between recruitment in the top Indian business schools like IIM/ISB vs. top International schools (typical FT top 10 or M7 + LBS/INSEAD). Keep in mind the following


Recruitment is a long cycle - The process of finding a job can takes months, sometimes 4-6 months. The process involves substantial amount of career coaching, CV polishing, schmoozing, meeting with recruiters, follow-ups, attending cocktails and networking sessions, and then finally rounds of interviews. Jobs are not a "given", the idea is you learn all the skills needed to "earn" one.

There is no "placement week" with "zero day placements" and everyone getting jobs in 2 days - There is a recruitment season which lasts 2-4 months, but nothing stops someone from looking for jobs much earlier.

A lot of graduates get jobs outside career services / campus placements - A pretty high percentage - often as high as 30% (could be more depending on the year, school etc.) get jobs outside placements. They do so for variety of reasons - but the most important one is that search for the right job in a company of interest. Getting jobs like this is again a long process that involves lot of research, networking and persistence.

Astronomical salaries are usually outliers - Yes, someone from Columbia this year got half a million. Many from INSEAD do get high salaries. But keep in mind that these are statistical "outliers." They do not represent typical salaries. When I read many reports on IIM/ISB I read about many "1 crore" salaries which translates to over 250,000$ base salary for associate or 3rd year analyst positions. I might be wrong, but such salaries from banks may be specially given to IIM / ISB students because I don't think any of the international schools get such salaries on a regular basis. I don't know. But the typical average in most of the top schools is around 110,000 USD.

You are often pitted against those from other top schools - There are many interesting jobs and positions often open only to a select set of schools. What that means is you are not competing for it with just your class mates, but also with those from the other top schools - you compete on a whole new level. Without mentioning names of companies, I can tell you there are specific roles that companies open only to the typical FT top 10. The flip side is you are competing with all of them. Most of the companies recruiting are high profile and have access to the best talent around the world, so they're not standing in a queue to recruit you.

Job placement is a whole lot about specific roles and fit - A lot of placement is for specific roles and positions. This makes fit very important. There is very little of "we'll come in a bus, pick a bunch of grads, and then put them anywhere in the organization." I can say that this is a critical difference between lot of international blue chips that come on campus vs. Indian company style recruitment (of which I can speak of with considerable experience).

Placement is truly global - jobs are offered around the world, and often in very interesting management rotations that take you to multiple countries.Does it mean that it's a hopeless case to get a job? Uh..no. Most of them get great jobs in interesting companies and with pretty good salaries. But you need to work really hard to get them. In the process, you become a whole lot polished as a person. And this is a reason why some schools don't really worry you with grades (INSEAD doesn't) so you can focus on all the other critical skills you should be polishing as an MBA, and it's not all about theory and books.

Stuart's 2 Cents:

What necro has outlined is purely factual. If you come to St. Gallen, you do get premium attention from the hordes of recruiters in German speaking europe who rate HSG as Ivy league.

For most positions in german speaking regions esp. people jobs like consulting, you need good command over the German language.

Else u will have to seek London/US/Asia openings for which usually the Zurich Office of the Consulting firms conduct the initial screening (first round of interview) and u have a subsequent round of interview at your target office (UK, etc)

For Investment Banks, the situation is slightly different, but with the Sub Prime (or Sub Crime!!) crisis most major banks are taking a big hit, so this year may not be the best time to get into them. When they're losing CEOs, they're looking for CEOs too and in the short term, fresh hirings may witness a downward trend.
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HSG MBA: Strategic Focus?

Category: , , By Stuart
Hi guys!

Many of you might know that University of st. Gallen has been offerring business education, economics and law courses since 1898. yes that's right, University of St. Gallen (HSG) has been offerring bachelors, masters and phD courses in these fields for nearly 110 years! (No wonder it is the most sought after university here!)

However, its MBA program was started only in 2005. My friend recently asked me thatin view of so many concurrent courses, how does the HSG view its MBA program and does the MBA have a differential identity of its own. Also, whether having bachelors and masters students is a disadvantage in any manner.

Well i'll try to address these issues one by one:

First and foremost, the MBA program was started by HSG in a bid to spread its wings globally. HSG has earned an unparalleled reputation in the German speaking region. however, it realised that it needed a global identity. So the MBA is a strategic decision and is of utmost priority for St. Gallen.

In view of this priority, HSG has undergone several structural changes in order to facilitate the creation of the right quality of mba program. First and foremost, in a clear departure from tradition, HSG has made this program self funded and declined state support. This was essential because swiss rules restrict the ratio of foreign students in each class for programs that the swiss government (or for that matter , any Kanton funds)

Secondly, a separate Executive School http://www.es.unisg.ch/ was set-up under the leadership of Prof Peter Gomez (the current SWX chairman) which is primarily responsible for executive education. The MBA program falls under the executive school which is responsible for making it a success.

To serve the interests of MBA students, the career services centre (http://csc.unisg.ch) has been detached from the university and is now under the folds of the executive school and the MBA program has its own career services coordinators. As a result, the company events for MBAs has risen and in addition for each corporate event that takes place in the main university, we usually have a separate Apero for MBA students.

We are a small batch of MBA students. While this is an advantage for us as students, it can be a turn off for most recruiters as we don't have the large numbers to offer for recruitments. In this sense, having a large pool of students in the University (over 5000) and HSG's reputation in the business world has helped ensure that year after year companies flock to the campus in herds.. the number of corporate events listed on the CSC website are very large and keep growing and we as MBA students find several opportunities to participate in ones that interest us. We arenot the odd ones out in these events as typically Masters and PhD students challenge us in these workshops, however, the clear edge we have as MBAs help us gain recruiters attention and provide us a premium positioning.

On other fronts, u have access to huge academic resources , diverse student body (read: pretty girls!!) and also initiatives like the buddy system, AIESEC, freshers parties and so much more.. so it is a lot of fun...

So doing your MBA in St. Gallen, is a very sensible thing to do!!
cheers!!
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Finance II : Paul rocks!!

Category: , , By Stuart
Hi again folks...
this 2nd teaching block has been absolutely fantastic so far!
yesterday i told you about the great stuff we're doing in Managerial economics with Simon..
today's post is about another genius!!
Paul Soderlind, our finance -II prof is like a sage.. soft spoken, humble and down to earth.. but beneath his cool demeanour lies a couldron of exceptional talent...

The first thing you notice about him that he is so organised.. the entire course structure is so well thought of and the step by step learning gradually opens new doors into the world of finance..

I came from a non-financial backround and was shit scared of the Finance -II course when i saw the contents.. but after seeing paul's handouts and attending his lectures.. i feel so stimulated and empowered .. i feel like a new light has switched on within me..
i now know why financial wizards earn so much money.. it is amazing how a set of numbers and what you can do with money can simply transform your life and the world with it.

All credit to Paul, he's made this financial expedition so rich and interesting..
well i have some batchmates who feel he is a genius too .. but not really able to trasfer the knowledge very effectively (read: teaching skills), however, being fair.. it is really important that u pay close attention to what Paul says (and not skype in lectures!!) and also that u do ur essential readings before u come to class...

What i really find very interesting about Paul is that he doesn't blindly give u concepts from the book, rather while explaining the models, approaches and theory, he also gives u his very valuable 2 cents. i.e. he will tell u why u should be sceptical of the model that the author propses .. and he'll dig into all the scientific and historical data he can find and come up with data sets clearly showing the contrary view points..
so it is really enriching for me as a student to get this first rate stimulus.

Some more details about Paul http://home.datacomm.ch/paulsoderlind/

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4RNWN_enCH241CH242&q=paul+soderlind

Paul did his PhD at Princeton under Bernanke (sounds familiar? he's the current US Fed Chief) and prior to HSG , Paul taught at the Stockholm School of Economics... He's also the economic advisor to the Swiss Central bank (equivalent of the US Federal Reserve) and woks there every Friday.

The Ideas database (http://ideas.repec.org ) of the University of Connecticut ranks him amongst the top 5% of authors according to research work in the field of economics http://ideas.repec.org/e/pso16.html


I can't stop myself from mentioning that Finance is also one of the very big strengths of HSG. The finance faculty is very established, influential and does some amazing work... It was no surprise that all leading Investment banks come here each year to hire interns...

I'm really glad i came to St. Gallen!!!
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Simon-nomics!

Category: , , By Stuart
Hi folks!
today i'm inspired to write this post because of the awesome course that i have this block : Managerial Economics!

The course is simply fantastic... for those of you like me , who like logic will find this course very very interesting...then u have concepts like supply-demand curves, government interventions and its effects... and so many other issues...

wow it really gives u a bird's eye view of the entire global business and political scenario and after each class i get the "Aha" feeling ... (something like what Archimedes felt when he said Eureka" ...

Oh boy! each new concept opens a new world for me... it is like looking at the same events that happen and have happenned around us and find compelling rationale behind their occurrence.. this course would sure rank as one of the best i had all my life...
I'd heard HSG is an awesome place for economics .. and now i know it!!!

and all credit goes to Simon, Simon Evenett (Bond! James Bond! ;-) ).. the guy is simply amazing... never seen such a guy.. he's a brit .. and a jolly good one!! :-)...

he always takes each concept and explains it in three forms... first in words.. then in equations and finally graphically..so if u r a words guy or a maths geek or the very graphical person.. u have something in there for u.. (as he says i give u three bites of the cherry and hope u are able to chew atleast once!)

Man... if economics is religion .. Simon surely is god... he has a solid background .. cambridge graduate.. Yale Doctorate.. taught at oxford business school, Ross (Michigan) ... stints with world bank.. does work with WTO and stuff (no wonder he's in switzerland!) ...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4RNWN_enCH241CH242&q=simon+evenett

like maestro he effortlessly makes complex topics so intriguing... and i always thought economics was for old boring guys!!!...

these days we're getting into game theory.. and it is amazing... i'll keep u guys posted on what simon is upto...
till then ...
cheers!!
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Blog Widgets!

Category: , By Stuart
Hi folks !

I've changed the blog template and have also added a host of widgets (tools that u c in the right panel) that enable you to:
1. add my RSS feeds to your feed reader,
2. see the stats of people visiting me
3. see most poular tags
4. Translate and read this blog in more languages
5. Most Importantly, you can now add my blog as a widget to yours!!

All these measures are to enable you to keep a track of my blog in an effortless manner. I hope this helps.
I invite you to leave your suggestions and feedback about this so that i can make this blog better.
Cheers!
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The Indian Connection

Category: , , By Stuart

Last evening the MBA building was transformed by fascinating candles and lamps. Yesterday was the Indian festival of lights called Diwali and our Indian friends organized a rocking evening for all of us..


Diwali apparently, one of the most popular of all Indian festivals, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali) is celebrated by lighting up candles or lamps , prayers to gods and a lot of fireworks.. My Indian friends told me that traditionally poker is an integral part of the celebrations too!

All of our Indian friends cooked amazing meals .. spicy curry.. delicious deserts! .. we all had a great taste of the traditional Indian cuisine..
Our indian friends were dressed in traditional attires with guys wearing a long collared shirt with lots of embroidery… which was called kurta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurta) and girls wearing sarees…

The girls colored rice grains and used them to decorate the entire room.. it was very interesting.. how colour, candles and grains of rice can transform a swiss bar into a traditional indian festive room!!




To top it all there were some rocking dances on bollywood and indian folk music .. which were high energy foot stomping numbers…


We all had amazing fun.. !!! What makes a truly international MBA like St. Gallen is that u meet people with so diverse cultures and in one year you get to experience a part of their culture, traditions , beliefs...and especially since ours is a small batch the personal interaction and bonding gets enhanced with each of these festivals make it is a very rewarding experience..


Happy Diwali!!

Can't Wait for the next party !!!!

Cheers!
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Getting Inside the class!

Category: By Stuart
Hi folks!

I've received queries about the class and the MBA program as such and in this post i'll like to focus on the class composition.

First, the class. We are a class of 35 interesting personalities. Interesting because in such a small batch we have a great deal of variety


Professional Background: we have an italian lawyer, a german entrepreneur , Indian engineers (they're everywhere these days), economists, bankers, marketing guys, scientists, a horticulturist..

Geographies Represented: some of the countries represented are France, Italy, Korea, China, Switzerland, Germany,India, Singapore, USA, Russia, Austria, Greece, etc.. predominantly Europe , Asia and US. The previous batch had representations from Africa and Australia as well but not this year.

Age: the average age is in the late 20s and the average work experience is about 5 years.. The range being 22 - 40+

So there's also good news for younger applicants..we have a handful of young applicants some of who have about 1-2 years experience...


Career Aspirations: While Finance and consulting are top choices here too.. but there's a fair amount of interest in areas like energy, sustainability, luxury goods, Entrepreneurship, VC/PE and also exotic things like art investments...


So it is a balanced class with a blend of youth and experience.. so we have interesting discussions and very animated group assignments...which at times are very insightful ... but at others, help u cope up with cross cultural differences.. :)


Write to me if you want any more details..and if u need any help/ advice on ur application .. drop me a line...

cheers!

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