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CFN hosted its annual webinar to launch interview season Most MBA students today, including Consortium students across the country, will argue there is no one segmented part of the calendar for "recruiting season."  Every aspect and experience of business school is "recruiting season," from the time students declare their intentions to attend a certain school until graduation. Every day, not just a few weeks in the fall, MBA students contemplate where they want to be and what they should do to secure the right job. Students today, and their career-advisory specialists on campus, say there is seldom a time when an MBA student is not absorbed in thought about information interviews, mentors, alumni connections, career choices, or a specific post that awaits after graduation. Nonetheless, late fall usually signals the formal start of interviews:  information interviews,  first rounds, lottery interviews, interviews earned from being selected by companies, second rounds...

Cornell's Johnson School: Ready, set, network, interview When recruiting season rolls around, MBA students in finance (including Consortium students in finance around the country) toss the books on the shelves and roll out the details of a game plan to secure a job for the summer or for full-time employment after graduation. Student sentiments always seem the same year after year.  They never realize how much time, energy, effort, focus, and discipline the process entails.  Often recruiting season is launched right in the middle of midterms and just before first-semester exam season. MBA students rejoice in the chance to dream of the opportunities presented to them and the chance to drift smoothly into a wonderful job in an ideal industry, making substantial impact, having meaningful experiences, and accumulating their fair share of sums of money.  That's summer-time luxury.  When recruiting season starts, the real world smacks right in the face.  There is time,...

Now is the time to prepare for interviews Most MBA students know that to secure the right job in financial services, you can't stroll out of the classroom, jump into an interview suit, and glide into a round of interviews.  Preparation is critical. You don't secure the dream job with a few practice sessions of the elevator speech. One of the best ways to gear up and prepare for the rigors of recruiting season is to have a useful framework, one that you can use to formulate a strategy, demonstrate expertise, and express a self-brand. The goal is to get from campus to a significant summer internship in finance in investment or corporate banking, investment management, private equity, asset management or corporate finance.  Indeed in the post-crisis environment of 2013, the world of finance has emerged from the abyss, but opportunities continue to be fleeting, segmented and scarce.  Approaching interviewing season with strategy, framework, optimism and unbridled confidence c...

Over 85 Consortium first-year MBAs this year indicated an interest in finance or financial services. That is within the range of what CFN has observed over the past four years--typically a range from 80-90, about a quarter of the total number of Consortium first-year MBA students in 2012. In the aftermath of the financial crisis and amidst the occasional turbulence since then, many would swear the numbers of those expressing interest in finance would have declined over the years. MBA students, we are finding out, continue to have varying levels of interest in financial services. But most of them are less eager to rush to Wall Street to become associates in mergers & acquisitions at a big bank. The opportunities they dreamed of while applying are not always evident when recruiting season starts. And some, after they learn the process and procedures to secure Wall Street jobs, are reluctant to play the hard ball it sometimes takes to get there:  lotteries, informational interview...

On campus, the hiring process is not quite over. For some MBA students, including those in Consortium schools, whether in their first year or about to graduate, February's arrival could cause panic:  Do I have significant job offers on the table?  Will I spend the summer at my first choice--proving myself in a formal internship program that will lead to a full-time offer in August?  Or must I resort to the only choice I have? Must I return to an old job I wanted to leave in the first place?  If graduation looms, do I settle for the first offer available, or do I wait for my dream post? When February comes, some students beam and boast of offers from top-tier financial institutions, consulting firms, or big corporations. Some have already accepted offers. Others, without the offers or opportunities they covet, grow worried and try to figure out what to do with composure and a new strategy in mind.  There's no need to panic just yet.  Buckle down. This is the...

What are current sentiments, trends, and outlook, as MBA students prepare for a tough job market in 2012-13? What are the best tools, advice, and guidelines to get ready? The Consortium Finance Network hosted a webinar Nov. 22 for first-year Consortium MBAs in finance to discuss strategies for recruiting and securing internships for the summer, 2012. Panelists included Consortium graduates Eddie Galvan, Denzil Vaughn , and Enoch Kariuki . CFN founding members Tracy Williams and Camilo Sandoval (also a Consortium alumnus) and the Consortium's D-Lori Newsome-Pitts organized the webinar. Fortunately for students, the hiring environment for 2012 is not as discouraging as it was in 2008-09, when financial institutions worried more about survival than bringing aboard new MBAs.  Yet with announcements every other day from banks about rounds of lay-offs, finance students know the task of winning an offer for a meaningful internship will be tricky. Market volatility in recent months, fre...

Does investment banking still have the same attraction? Do MBA students  still swarm toward investment-banking roles? Do many have dreams of joining a top firm, hitting the ground running doing deals and anticipating big year-end bonuses? After the industry turmoil and a series of setbacks and embarrassments, is investment banking still a hot area? There have been upheaval, backlash and calls for reform since Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns disappeared from the scene. Yet since 2008, trends suggest (a) i-banking is still attractive to many MBA students in finance at top schools and (b) the industry has evolved, but not yet gone through the major overhaul and transformation many predicted or hoped for. Despite public pleas for changes in how banks conduct business and pay bankers and despite sluggish economic recovery and stomach-churning markets, deals are getting done. Companies are going public, issuing long-term debt, or acquiring other companies. Not necessa...