Showing posts with label careers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label careers. Show all posts

Block II: Opportunities Galore

Category: , , By Stuart
Hey guys!
i have been very busy (lazy!) ... the mba is (almost!) driving me nuts! :-)
Meanwhile, the number of visitors to my blog are on an upswing .. and the admission applications to St. Gallen are too... we've had nearly half a dozen prospective students visit us from across the globe... and attend classes with us during the past few weeks...
You can come and join a class with us too .. in case u r interested .. write to the admissions manager : Heiko .. he'll arrange it...
Also, been receiving emails from people from the Asia-pac, US, across the EU etc... MBA applicants with rather interesting profiles.... i think the coming batch (class of '09) is gonna be one hell of a group! just like us :)

Alrite... getting back to business.. i'd promised to summarize the various company events of block II.. and here they are.. to begin with we had a BCG workshop... and a senior exec from their India office made a presentation to us.. these guys were keen to show that they are very international and that they don't want very good business level german at the outset.. (unlike Roland Berger.. who said German or else!!) ..

I agree that in case one wants to be effective as a consultant in switzerland/ Germany/Austria, one needs to be fluent in German so that you could talk to the guy on the shop-floor with equal ease as you did with the CEO… however, most progressive companies to invest in their employees and train them in skills (language skills included) .. however some firms don't seem to get it!! They brag about international teams and blah blah and multi-country assignments … however, while recruiting they say try to emphasize too much on the language skills!!! damn who would make a better consultant ..a guy/gal fluent in german and no brains or a smart MBA who can get numbers and tons of data to spell out the true story? Skills like language, IT, et al can be acquired.. but people and personality traits.. hey that's a scarce resource…

My discussions with the principals and senior consultants at all the top consultancy firms have led me to believe that language should not be the deciding factor.. but somehow the HR folk seem to be singing a different tune..

Anyway BCG is of the progressive kinds …and it was their HR manager who took pains to emphasize that they value people and subscribe to this philosophy…they'll come back to the campus to engage us for recruitment in Jan/Feb'08..

Then we had a talk by the Managing Partner of Wegelin & Co. a boutique mid-size European investment firm based out of St. Gallen into an assortment of index funds based investment strategy. Something which sounds very banal.. but was very interesting!


Then we had a hedge fund presentation by a Goldman Sachs executive.. with rather interesting insights into the recent "happenings" (hurricanes!) in the hedge fund space.. (Bear Stearns anyone!)



Besides rather interesting presentation by ADIDAS about their new global management program : sports, high decibel music, soccer stars.. et al.. first company reps to come in casual attire.. most are dressed to kill (Will the I-Bankers in the house pls stand up!)..

Julius Baer's CEO was here too.. with an interesting workshop about alternative investments... and so was the CEO of Grisons Peak another medium size boutique investment advisory fund set up by a top honcho at ABN AMRO


then we had two Mckinsey workshops : one on presentation skills and another on storylining and story telling..

there was a talk by Capital international about their graduate programs too... and the last event of the block was a workshop about interviewing with PWC..


a couple of the workshops listed above were not exclusive to MBA students.. but included, at times, PhD or masters students also.. but the smart MBA folk do get themselves noticed in the pack! and the difference is for people to see.. it gives u that great shot in the arm!! :)
so u see if u were interested in any of these companies.. u have some opportunities to network and know about these firms first hand..what say?

For those from outside the German speaking region: if u told somebody in this region u are a student at St. Gallen, u will see their eyes widen with awe .. this place is the Harvard of the region... I've seen people turn around and stare at out HSG jerseys.. Man this is the place to be!!

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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