Receiving honest feedback

One thing I have noticed about American society today is that very rarely do people offer valuable and honest feedback. There are several reasons for this. One is we live in a society where we value not offending someone. Another is that we place a high value on making people feel good or better about themselves. A third reason is fear of retribution. will give you a good example of how I have seen this in my MBA experience. When a recruiter comes to Kenan-Flagler to interview students, the recruiter is given the opportunity to provide the Career Management Center with feedback on how specific interviewees have done during the interview. Even though the recruiters know that students will not be penalized by the Career Management Center for any negative (or positive) feedback and such feedback can only be used to help the students become better interviewees, I have been told that very rarely do recruiters given such feedback.

 

Yesterday morning I was still getting over the euphoria of the interview the day before in Long Island City when I received an email from one of my interviewers. This was a reply to the “thank you” email I sent out an hour ago. The email reads (paraphrasing) as follows:

 

“Hello (my first name), it was very nice meeting you too. I hope this helps you with your interview but in an interview, it helps to hear the actual question that is asked and phrase your answer in response to that question. Best of luck on your job search.”

 

While I have never had any delusions of grandeur about my interviewing skills, I never expected an interviewer to be so blunt with me. Even though a friend who read the email commented that it was rude, I have no doubt her intentions were good because I got the impression during the interview that she liked me personally. She was probably disappointed at how poorly I phrased my answers.

 

Obviously this has significantly deflated the excitement that I felt coming out of the interview. It’s the political equivalent (there I go again with my political analogies) of the exit polls showing that the constituents in polling districts that are friendly to you are not turning out with as much enthusiasm as you had expected and your pollster changed the race from “tossup” to “leaning (political party you don’t like).” I am really curious as to whether she wrote that email before or after meeting with my other interviewers. If before, it could be that she just didn’t like my answers and maybe I did better with the other two. In addition, this interviewer was half an hour late to a one hour interview. If she wrote the email after having met with them, it’s likely that one other interviewer commented on the same thing and I am dead in the water.

 

After I have had the chance to further digest the information, it dawned on me that her email was shocking because it was the type feedback recruiters don’t give anymore. It’s the type of honesty that is rooted in good intentions and yet our society and its legal system today no longer allow. Where some recruiters resort to not sending out rejection letters in an attempt to avoid lawsuits (the logic being that if a candidate has not yet been rejected, he cannot sue for discrimination), this interviewer took risk to help me become a better interviewee and I appreciate the gesture.

 

I just wish it didn’t come at such expense.

Long Island City wrap up

My deepest apologies for keeping all of you in suspense about yesterday’s second round interview at the credit card division of a major financial firm. I usually try to update this blog as soon as possible while the information is still fresh in my head but oftentimes this proves difficult and I have to resort to blogging about it the next day which is not nearly as exciting as blogging about it while I am still “in the moment.”

 

I landed at LaGuardia Airport two hours early, met up with a classmate who was on the same flight and we took a cab together to the tallest building Queens. We got there at noon and met up with two other classmates and one student from Kellogg who were all interviewing on the same day. The afternoon’s program began with lunch being served in a conference room. This lunch was really a warm up for the three hours of behavioral interviews ahead. As the five of us chowed down on sandwiches and cookies, one of the three people from the management associate program began firing away by asking “so what do you folks do for fun?” As the five of us began to go around the table to give our answers, the question quickly became "how do you get people aboard a project you are working on?" When it got to my turn I tried my best to be suave and answer the question while holding a ham sandwich on my right hand. This reminded me of the dinner at the Sienna Hotel the night before the first round interview where the representatives from the company were totally trying to use the informal event as yet another opportunity to try to feel us out.

 

The three interviews went pretty well. Each interviewer was given sheets of paper, each sheet representing a different skill set the interviewer was to ask us about with two to three possible questions to use. The one surprise was that noneof the interviewers were either current or former participants of the management associate program for which we were applying for. One interviewer was a manager responsible for the web offerings and another worked in risk management responsible for mitigating the bank’s risk on the portfolio of outstanding balances held by its cards’ customers.

 

Me and my three classmates left shortly after 4 and took a quick subway ride across the East River into Manhattan where we proceeded to dine on fillet mignon before hopping into a cab back to LaGuardia. 

Hot date

I got a big day tomorrow. The credit card division of a major financial firm is flying me to New York for an interview in its Long Island City office. I am suppose to get there at noon for lunch followed by three one hour behavioral interviews. When I made my arrangements last week, the company was willing to fly me up the day before and pay for one night’s stay at a fine Manhattan hotel. But I turned it down because I had classes today until 8pm. Besides, there is no point in getting there the night before if I don’t have to get there until noon.

 

Hmm … come to think of it, the next time a potential suitor is offering to lavish hospitality upon me, I should not be so hesitant and just accept its offer. After all, I got a reputation to keep around here and I wouldn’t want the other fellas to think of me as a cheap date.

Giving thanks

This past Sunday, my church’s young adults group hosted a Thanksgiving dinner and each place setting had four kernels of corn, three white and one black. Our instructions were to use the kernels to discuss three things we are grateful for in our lives and one thing we are not so grateful for but will agree to trust God with.

 

The exercise reminded me of the post I wrote last Thanksgiving about the things in my life that I am grateful for. If I were to put together another list for this year, it would include items like the much easier pace of life during my second year in the program, the happy ending to the internship search last year, the Christian professors that I have become friends with, and the active job market that my mergers and acquisitions professor said is the best she’s seen in five years. But the one thing that I find most satisfying of all is that for the first time in my life, I now have male Christian friends that I can discuss certain issues with. and what a difference this has made in my life. I was talking to a friend two weeks ago - a friend who would kill me if he ever finds out I am blogging about our conversation but as he said to me many times “I stopped reading your blog ages ago because it sucks, you should delete the darn thing” - and he said “I have noticed you don’t talk about your women situation now as much as you did during your first year, why is that?” I didn’t know what to tell him, except that somehow the Lord has give me a sense of peace in the matter.

 

By the end of the dinner Sunday night, I had used the three white kernels and had to come up with something to use the black kernel. We went around the table sharing things about our lives that we wish weren’t the case and when it was my turn I said “I wish I didn’t have to leave Chapel Hill after I graduate in May” as I tossed the black kernel of corn into the dish.

Tags: Chapel Hill Bible Church

Return to Scott Stadium

What a fabulous weekend. I went up to UVA and attended the Miami game on Saturday. It’s been about three years since I have been to a home game and throughout the game, I saw several reminders of how the atmosphere at Scott Stadium has changed and yet still remained the same. The pep band is gone now, replaced by the new marching band. The team does not play as well as it did before, and this was reflected in the lower turnout than the one I was used to.

One thing I like about going to these games is that the athletic department always tries to keep things entertaining. Ever since 2000, the games would begin with an video intro showing an animated Cav Man mascot destroying the opposing team’s mascot before cutting away to a live shot of an actual rider (dressed in the Cav Man full body costume) riding out of the tunnel and into the field. This time around the athletic department outdone itself by having the Cav Man entered the field in a way that’s quite unexpected and dramatic (hint, watch the video).

The game ended as incredibly as it began with UVA beating Miami 17-7.

Milton Friedman, dead at 94

This came out just a few minutes ago. I was doing some reading just now for marketing class when I looked up at the refreshed WSJ.com front page and saw the news. I am going to write something quick before my carpool partner shows up.

Updated 4:14pm: To those familiar with his work, Milton Friedman espoused the classic free market idea, which is that in a free market, people (and companies) are free to choose. He wrote a book with the same name. What I like about the concept of freedom of choice is that it applies to every area of life, not just economics. For example, we are all free to choose when it comes to choices over our careers, friends, God, politics, right down to the companies and products we support with our consumer spending.

I find a striking parallel between this concept of free choice to the Christian concept of free will. Before I became a Christian, I once asked someone about God’s admonition to Adam and Eve at the Garden of Eden. I could not understand why He told them to not eat the apple when He had to know full well that they were going to do it anyway. The answer that came back was that He did it because He wanted them to exercise their free will; that instead of assuming they were going to eat the apple, He gave them not only the choice but also the information on that choice. Just yesterday I read Steve Forbes’ column in Forbes Magazine in which he recommended a book on how Christianity is responsible in no small part for the capitalistic societies we have in most of the Western world.

The last article Friedman wrote for the WSJ in October sums up his views on people and government very nicely:

“It had to happen. Hong Kong's policy of "positive noninterventionism" was too good to last. It went against all the instincts of government officials, paid to spend other people's money and meddle in other people's affairs. That's why it was sadly unsurprising to see Hong Kong's current leader, Donald Tsang, last month declare the death of the policy on which the territory's prosperity was built.”

Thanks Milton, for showing millions around the world that we are all free to choose.

A new countdown begins

With James Bond returning to the big screen on Friday and Jack Bauer (I suggest it is not a coincidence that both characters have the same initials) returning to once again save our country in January, the next two months will be almost too much to bear.

I just viewed the trailer to 24’s sixth season. The identity of the new President is revealed and you get to see which of your favorite (and one not so favorite) government employees from the Counter Terrorist Unit will return.