Georgia on my mind

I landed this morning at the world’s busiest airport for the Southeastern MBA Schools Interview Forum held at the Emory Conference Center Hotel. I interviewed in the afternoon with the credit card division of a major financial firm. The interview went okay, the recruiter suggested and I walked out to the hotel courtyard and we talked in the warm Georgian weather. Most of the questions were about situations I have been with in the past and how I dealt with them. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the position and it probably showed.

But today’s main event was this morning when I interviewed with a major internet content provider. The job involves deploying content to handheld devices. The interviewer said he noticed my resume because it shows work experience in interactivity and telecommunications. He asked me a couple of questions about how I would proceed in planning certain projects and I wrapped most of my answers around things I have seen at America Online. I even had the chance to play the “UVA card” when he mentioned the company’s parent company and I recalled having been at a UVA game one time where it was announced that the parent company’s CEO has made a substantial donation to UVA. At the end of the interview, he said “I cant make you any promises because I haven’t interviewed everyone yet but let’s just say I extremely appreciate your understanding of our projects and the enthusiasm you bring to the table.”

After the interviews I went by Emory’s Goizueta Business School and drove through the Emory campus. I spent the remainder of my day driving my rental car through Lenox, Buckhead, and along Peachtree Street to Downtown before returning to the airport for my flight back to RDU. The most interesting thing about today was the chance to speak to students from other schools. A first year from Goizueta said that about 90% of his classmates that received summer offers in investment banking are international students. This in comparison to Kenan-Flagler where most of the offers go to domestic students.

I was reminded once again today of how small the MBA universe is. One student from Goizueta is friends with a Kenan-Flagler classmate of mine. A couple of Darden students gave me updates on some of their classmates who went to UVA with me. When I flew out of RDU this morning I ran into a classmate who was flying out to Arizona for a case competition. At the lobby of the Emory Conference Center Hotel, I saw another classmate who had just wrapped up an interview and was flying out for the same event. My last words to her as she headed out the door were “win one for Kenan-Flagler.”

Leaving on that midnight train to Georgia

No not quite, more like a morning plane. Tomorrow I will be spending the day at the Southeastern MBA Schools Interview Forum held at Emory University. The plan is to ace at least one of the two interviews I have scheduled, perhaps even make some contacts with a couple of recruiters, see parts of downtown Atlanta before heading back. 

 

Oftentimes I feel that preparing for an interview is a lot like preparing to be a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. I remember one episode where a contestant was asked a hard question and it just happened that the night before he randomly picked up a brochure in his hotel room that had the information he needed. I feel that for every interview I go into, there is a certain amount of preparation that I can and must do. This includes being able to articulate a reason why I want to work at that company, in that position, and why I am a good fit. The remainder of the interview depends on how I respond to the random topics and questions that I have no way to prepare for. A good example of this was an interview I had where a representative of the firm was talking about its strategy of attracting premium customers and I compared its endeavors to the Visa Signature card that was launched two years ago. He was impressed that I was familiar with the card. The shocking part is I knew about the Visa card not from the hours of interview preparation that I did that week, but from reading about it years ago when it first came out. 

 

In other news, I had a conversation last night with a college friend of mine, whom I will refer to henceforth as our blog’s Unofficial Boston Correspondent. I mentioned my latest fears about the summer and she said she is completely unconcerned because she knows that I will manage to find something I enjoy doing. If she is wrong, I will get to chalk this up as one of the many things she’s said over the years that she’s been wrong about.

The farmer and the lawyer

When I took my first microeconomics class at UVA, I loved the way the most popular professor at UVA used simple everyday situations to explain basic economic concepts. One of the stories which I still remember to this day was about a farmer and a lawyer. Both had to travel to Washington and wanted to do so the cheapest way possible. The difference was that where the farmer could not afford to take the plane, the lawyer could not afford to drive.

The concept being illustrated was the value of time. The lawyer’s time was valuable and therefore had to take into account the cost of his time in deciding whether to drive or take the plane. I used a very similar analysis last week. In preparation for my out of town trip on Friday to interview at a job fair, I have to decide whether to make the six hour drive (each way) or take a direct flight. Comparing the cost of gas plus that of the overnight hotel stay versus paying through the nose for booking a plane ticket at the last minute, it’s a no brainer. But when I factor in the cost of my time, the choices became much closer. I finally opted to fly. I figured I can do so many important things with the time that I save such as blogging, entertaining various nightmare scenarios of how this internship search will end, or building my portfolio of friends on Facebook.

Job search about to get ugly

One thing I can’t get over is, compared to this point (two weeks out) in Mod III, how much unhappier I am in Mod IV. I didn’t have class today and spent a good part of today doing what I do best, entertaining my worst nightmares. April is around the corner. Early May I leave for two weeks in India. I have two interviews later this week at two great companies but both are for non-finance positions. I am going to ask the thirty-three thousand dollar (the amount of tuition I paid this year) question: what happens if I don’t get a summer internship?

 

I talked to a college buddy of mine earlier today. He was trying to be encouraging and asked “things have got to turn up right?” I coldly replied “no they don’t.”  There was an awkward pause followed by an uncomfortable laugh on both ends. My answer addresses something that has been on my mind since I completed the MBA application process –there is no rule that states that every student, regardless of how intelligent, aggressive, and deserving he is, will get an internship. And unlike the search for a full time job that second years have to conduct, the search for a summer internship has a time limit.

 

If I don’t do a summer internship, it becomes substantially harder for me to find a full time job during my second year. I have been told that, as a last resort, I can work at Kenan-Flagler during the summer as a researcher or a teaching assistant during the summer workshops for the incoming students. If I take the teaching assistant route, I will become better at explaining different concepts to people. This will help me in next year’s job search as I try to explain why I was the only one in my class of 271 who did not do an internship.

 

I went out to the gym late in the afternoon and felt much better afterwards. To be completely objective, I have to tell you that I am not the only one who has not found an internship. In addition, my classmates who are not U.S. citizens have a much tougher time than I do because many companies do not sponsor …. I don’t even know what the title is for the legal document that is needed for a foreigner to work in this country but you know what I mean …. and in many situations these students (especially the ones from India) are much brighter than the ones with a U.S. passport.

Most awful way to die

I saw this in an article about a new helicopter service offered from Lower Manhattan to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. This sounds like something about of the movie Final Destination:

"Helicopter service to JFK was offered in the mid-1960s and in 1977 from the roof of the then-Pan Am Building. The service was shut down after a freak accident in which a helicopter tipped over with its blades spinning. Four people on the roof were killed, and one person on the ground was hit and killed by a broken blade. Other heliport service continued through the mid-1980s."  USA Today

Paying the rent in accounting

One of my biggest fears is being cold called by a professor and looking like a complete idiot because I don’t know the answer to the question. To mitigate the risk of this happening, I began perfecting a technique I call “paying the rent.”  This technique involves me volunteering to answer some of the easier questions during class discussion in the hopes that when we get to the harder questions, the professor will call on other students instead.

 

This technique worked well during Mod II when I had two classes that involved cold calling but I was beginning to have some concerns about this Mod because of my accounting professor’s reputation for being an aggressive cold caller. I did my best to “pay the rent” in accounting but this morning my accounting professor called on me to answer a question I wasn’t quite prepared to answer. We were discussing a case involving a liquor distributor that my professor wrote in 1995. I read the case last night but did not understand it completely. When my professor asked for someone to give a three sentence synopsis of the case, I must have had one of those “deer in the headlights look” because the minute we made eye contact he called on me. He said “explain the case to me in three sentences, make it real simple.” I decided to do what most people do when they failed to pay the rent, I stalled for time.

 

I said “I can’t make it simple, it’s quite complicated.” His response was “how would you explain it to your grandmother.” A grin immediately began forming on the corners of my face and without missing a beat, I said “in Chinese.”

 

The entire class erupted into laughter, some classmates even began applauding. The laughter must have lasted at least 20 seconds because it gave me enough time to flip through my notes and read over my highlights. In the end, I managed to give an answer that was satisfactory enough for the professor to call on someone else to fill in what I had missed.

Getting into the swing of things

We are one and a half weeks into Mod IV. I ended up dropping that taxes and finance class so I now have Tuesdays and Thursdays free, not counting the doing business in India class that meets every other Thursday night. Theoretically for every minute I save by dropping that class, I should be able to allocate one more minute into my job search. Yet that’s not been happening. I feel as though I am not as mentally focused on sending out my resumes and drafting cover letters as I should be.

 

I am beginning to wonder if it may be time for me to hit the “panic” button regarding my internship search. When we were at this time during Mod III, I was concerned about the internship search and not having gotten as many on-campus interviews as I had wanted. In the time since, I have gotten much better at interviewing, researching companies, asking questions, and picking companies that I am a good fit for. Yet I am more concerned than ever that this internship search may not have a happy ending. Next week I have two out of town first round interviews; one is with a cable television network and another is with a well known financial services firm. Both are terrific brand names to have on a resume but both are for non-finance (or, more accurately, not as finance-focused) positions. I worry that such an internship may actually work against me next year if I look for a full time position industry finance.

"Previously, on 24"

I have wanted to blog about this for the past month but never got around to it. The current season of 24 has been incredible. From the assassination of a former President to the attack on the Russian President’s motorcade, I have spent most of the 9 o’clock hour on Monday nights glued to the edge of my couch. The last two episodes ended with surprises that had my jaw dropped.

 

But that chick from last night’s episode, the information broker, Colleen Stenger. Is she incredibly hot or what? I don’t know what’s hotter, her or her red Lexus SC 420.

 

I noticed something on the show that does not make sense. When David Palmer was President, his assistant was Mike Novic. It was never blatantly stated but heavily implied (ie meetings with unions, and various left wing groups) that Palmer was a Democrat. In the next election, Palmer ran against John Keeler. Keeler therefore must be a Republican. Palmer withdrew from the race and Keeler was elected. When Air Force One was shot down over the deserts, Keeler died and Charles Logan assumed the presidency. Since Logan is a Republican, why is Mike Novic, a Democrat, his chief of staff?

So close, yet so far away

In November I attended a dinner at the Kenan Center hosted by an investment bank that hires a ton of Kenan-Flagler students.  Sitting at my table were a recruiter and several second years who interned there this past summer.  Someone asked about a fellow intern from another school. The recruiter said he received a full time offer, held out as long as he could before finally accepting that previous week. She added “good thing too because I was beginning to contact other applicants to interview for his position.” I don’t know what she did with the other applicants but I remember feeling so bad for them for having had their hopes raised unrealistically.

 

I found myself in that position this past week. I had blogged about an upcoming phone interview with a company I was extremely interested in. To put this in the proper perspective, I have to be delicate and tell you what company this is, without identifying it by name. This company is the leader in the technology field. It has spent millions over the past 16 years to unsuccessfully either purchase, make a significant investment in, or take significant market share away from my former employer. If you are reading this blog, chances are your web browser is running on code written by this company. Given my professional background, my personal interest, and what I want to do in the future, I cannot think of a better outcome for my MBA experience than to have an internship followed by a full time offer from this company.

 

The interview went okay. I was concerned because after my resume walk-through I was asked a technical question about the relationship between several financial statements. The question threw me off guard because such questions are very rarely are asked in non investment banking interviews. I thought the rest of the interview went well and whether I got invited for a company visit depended on how my answer to the technical question was perceived.

 

The next day the recruiter emailed me. She said I did extremely well in the interview. She even added that she wanted me to be the next person invited for a company visit. But she said the timing of my interview was unfortunate and that the finance position had just been accepted by an applicant.

 

There is no way to describe my initial reaction other than to say I was devastated. If she had sent the standard “thank you for your interest but we unfortunately cannot extend everyone an offer” email, I would have understood that I should have brushed up on the mechanics of a statement of owners’ equity. I couldn’t help thinking if I had submitted my resume three weeks earlier, things may have turned out differently. A UVA professor once said, “timing is everything in sex and politics.”  I guess it applies to the job market as well.

 

The only solace I can take is that after the interview, I once again prayed for God’s plan over my summer internship to prevail and that He will use the outcome of the interview to strengthen my faith. As hard as this is to take, I have to believe if God is sovereign and if He really wanted me to work at this place he either would have made it happen to or will eventually make it happen.

Googling potential job applicants

Saturday’s NY Daily News has an article on how Google has become the poor man’s private investigator.

“An increasing number of employers are investigating potential hires online to find out more about an applicant than what's on their résumé.”

I suspect that many people would be shocked at what others can find about them via the internets. In this past November’s election, someone wrote in my name for mayor of Durham County and that information now shows up under my name in a Google search.

“Bloggers may also have reason for concern. When Ciara Healy applied for a job at a university, she had no idea her personal blog could get her into trouble. But when a member of the search committee Googled her, he found she had called him a "belligerent jerk," though not by name, and canceled the interview.”

This is the exactly why I do not mention my name on this blog.

Bald looks gets love notes?

Either someone is playing a joke on me or my new bald look is having an effect on the women at Kenan-Flagler. I received a LoveOGram in the middle of my taxes and finance class this morning.

 

I wasn’t paying attention during the lecture because I was planning on dropping the class before tomorrow’s noon “add/drop” deadline, when the class selection system finalizes everyone’s class schedule. I was sitting in the back of the classroom and noticed that other classmates were either surfing the web or working on his Yahoo! bracket selection when I decided to check my email.

 

In my in box was something from LoveOGram telling me someone had anonymously expressed an interest and I had to log in to the system, type in the name and email of the person I am interested in, and if there is a match, we would both be informed of our mutual affections. My first reaction was that it was a joke. I was punk’ed a few years ago by one of these systems when I typed in the names of everyone I was interested in, only to be have the information emailed to a college buddy of mine.  Not wanting to have a repeat of the incident and having the information announced on the KFBS Onyen, I investigated the web site and concluded it’s legit.

 

The unfortunate part about this is, assuming this is not a joke, there is very little I can do in response. There are, by my estimation, about 135 women at Kenan-Flagler. Subtracting the ones that are engaged or married results in about 90 single women. I am not going to go into the system 90 times and type in everyone’s name and email address just to see if there is a match. Besides, every non-match results in a similar LoveOGram generated to the woman saying “your name has been entered into our system, log on to find out who it is.”

 

As flattering as this is, it’s a bit childish. This is not the sixth grade where you leave an anonymous note on someone locker (actually, that exact same thing happened to a classmate when she opened her locker on the first day of Mod III … I only know this because I had to borrow her textbook and had to meet her at her locker) .. grow some balls … I know that statement just now is politically (as well as anatomically) incorrect, but you get my drift.

 

In other news, the bald look has gotten a lot of attention. I was walking out of the garage earlier tonight for my India class when a former professor looked at me and smiled. I was waiting for my bacon and eggs at the Café McColl today when someone from admissions saw me for the second time this week and said “I can’t believe how different you look.” I have been asked in the past week if I have noticed any difference in the reaction from the women. My answer was “I didn’t do it for them.”

The road ahead

One of the things I have learned this year about trusting God is that sometimes He will purposely keep you from getting something you want because He has something better in mind for you. It’s a way of saving you from yourself.

 

I am hoping that this may be why I have yet to find an internship. I had a really good interview in February with a company I very much wanted to work for and two days later received the call that I would not be receiving an offer. Three weeks ago today I had a second round interview with a company in Orlando. I am not as excited about this company. Rather, I am more excited about the possibility of locking in on a summer internship and not having to look further. In the three weeks since the interview, I have yet to receive a decision. I called human resources today and was told they are still in the process of deciding. 

 

About two hours later I received an email from a company which I sent my resume to over the internet last week. It came from a recruiter asking to schedule a phone interview. I am not going to hint at the identity of this company, but this is a company I very, very much want to work for. It is not as big of a name in finance as the company I interviewed with in February. But for someone with experience in the technology field, getting a finance position in this company makes a lot of sense. It would be tremendous to have this company’s name on my resume next year … going from the telecom firm I worked for out of college, to America Online, to this tech company will tell a compelling story. Or as my strategery professor would say, the combination will create synergy.

 

So in a way I am actually glad the company in Orlando has yet to make its decision because if the human resource manager had made good on his promise to communicate a decision to me by the Wednesday following the interview, and I had received an offer, I would have had until today to either accept or decline. And accepting the offer would have negated the possibility of interviewing with this other company

 

And in case any of you are wondering, as of this past weekend, 111 out of the 270 members of the Class of 2007 have accepted internship offers.

Taking too much credit

I said yesterday that I don’t have Tuesday classes. Actually I am enrolled in a Tuesday and Thursday class, I just don’t know whether I want to take it now or wait until next year.  There are three classes I know for certain I will be taking. They are investment banking, doing business in India, which ends in a trip to India, and managerial accounting. Together these three classes make up 7.5 credits.

 

To put things in perspective, 63 credits are required to graduate and by the time a student has completed the required courses in Mods I & II, he has already earned 21 credits under his belt. This means that he only has to take an average of 7 credits per Mod to graduate. Last Mod I took five classes, for a total of 7.5 credits. If I were to take only the three classes listed above, I would be earning enough credits toward graduation.

 

But, just like everything else in business school, it’s not that simple. One common complaint among students is there is not enough time for us to do everything. This is true not just about school work, or the work required to find employment, but also when it comes to taking the classes that we want to take.

 

One class I very much would like to get into is business plan analysis. It begins every Monday with a class discussion followed by a talk by an entrepreneur who has founded a successful business. The class meets again on Wednesday with the same format, except on Wednesdays we hear from the investor who invested in the enterprise. The best advice I have ever received on business school came from an alum I met last year. He said that when you have an MBA, people will assume you possess certain skills such as marketing and accounting and telling them “I don’t know this because it was not my area of concentration” is not an acceptable answer. If I get off the waitlist, I would certainly take the class because knowing how to analyze a business plan is something that I may not be asked to do on the job but it is something I would be expected to be able to do. The professor said yesterday that a recent survey shows that 95% of Kenan-Flagler alums have read a business plan in the past year. Besides, I cannot take this next year because the class is for first years only.

 

The class I am enrolled in but don’t know whether I want to take is a completely different story. It is taxes in finance and open to first and second years. On the last day of Mod I, my financial accounting professor described it as highly recommended for anyone who will either pay taxes or work for someone who does. If I get into business plan analysis, I will definitely take it next year instead. If I don’t get in, I may still take it just to give me an excuse to get out of bed on Tuesdays and Thursday s.

Surprise!

When I walked into accounting class this morning, I received a couple of stares from my classmates. For many of them, the stare quickly turned into a smirk. This past Friday I shaved my head and for the first time in my life, I am bald.

 

I am not sure how long I will keep this. A couple of people have commented that they like the new look. Someone else said I can expect to spend the next two weeks fielding questions on why I decided to shave my head. For those who did not get to see me today, they will have to wait until Wednesday because I have no classes on Tuesday.

“I woke up this morning … brought myself a …”

Mod IV begins in a couple of hours when I go to my cost accounting class. This class is a custom core in the MBA program and is one of the more infamous classes at Kenan-Flagler. The professor has a reputation for his aggressive cold calling and saying things to students that border on being inappropriate. He makes students sit with their study groups and if a student is unprepared, he will question other students in his study group until either he receives a satisfactory answer or has exhausted and humiliated the entire group. Surprisingly the professor and his class are actually pretty popular among students. When I was in Charlotte in October for the investment banking trek, one alum said that the class is the closest we will get in school to what happens in an actual office setting.

 

I still need to finalize on what classes I am taking. I will write more on this later. The weather is suppose to be amazing today, we may even break the record high of 88 degrees. Needless to say, I will be going to class in shorts and flip flops. Also, I went ahead on Friday and got my classmates a little surprise for today. It will be interesting to see how they react to it.

Cut down on junk mail

I received a credit card offer in the mail today and saw this information printed. There is a phone number you can call to request a five year moratorium on the three major credit reporting agencies giving out your information to companies that will mail you insurance and credit card offers. The number is 888-5-OPTOUT. You will be connected to an automated voice recognition system which will ask for your name, address, and social security number.

 

After I called the numbered and provided the information, I looked once again at the credit card offer and noticed that it was actually addressed to the apartment’s previous tenant. Another good reason why everyone should call this number.

March Madness Mania

You know it’s March Madness in North Carolina when you turn on your radio on a Friday and the five stations that normally carry Rush Limbaugh are all broadcasting basketball games instead. I was at a bar in Raleigh on Thursday when Virginia squeezed out its 60 to 56 victory over Virginia Tech. All throughout the area yesterday people were enthralled with following either the Wake Forest versus NC State game (Wake Forest won in an upset), the Duke versus Miami game (Duke won), or the Virginia versus Carolina game (Carolina won).

Today’s big games were Duke versus Wake Forest (Duke won) and currently the Boston College versus Carolina game. Carolina is currently leading by 5. It would be great if we win because the winner gets to play Duke tomorrow at 12:30. This series of basketball games is a nice distraction from Mod IV which begins promptly Monday at 9:30.

Bucky, at thirty

Earlier this month I celebrated my thirtieth birthday. It was a very nice birthday. The nicest part was the emails I received from my Kenan-Flagler classmates, many of whom I do not normally socialize with. I guess they must have found out from the personal data spreadsheet on the public drive.

 

This is the week of spring break and classes don’t begin until Monday. There is something that I have been thinking about doing for some time, I may get around to doing it tomorrow or this weekend. If I do go ahead with it, it will be a surprise for my classmates on Monday and I will blog about it then.

The great telecom battle begins

The Wall Street Journal reported this past weekend that AT&T (formerly SBC Communications) will acquire Bell South for $67 billion in stock. As someone who worked in the telecom industry, I can tell you that this is a big deal. It’s essentially the rebirth of Ma Bell. Once this merger closes, assuming it receives the proper approvals from the government authorities (either the FCC or the FTC), a large chunk of the country from North Carolina, down to Florida, west to Texas, and good chunk of the Midwest will once again receive its local phone bills from AT&T.

 

I am particularly interested in how Verizon will respond. Hopefully this will light up the telecom industry once again and the shares of some of the telecom companies will go up.

UNC graduate drives SUV through main campus, injuring several

I just saw this on the Drudge Report. This happened at noon today while I was at Paneras enjoying my Boston clam chowder after my corporate strategy final. The Pit is a plaza on the main campus, surrounded by the bookstore, Lenoir dining hall, and Frank Porter Graham student union.

 

Update 8:33pm: ABC News is reporting that the suspect, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, "allegedly made statements that he acted to avenge the American treatment of Muslims."

A tale of two cities

It is 79 degrees with now in Chapel Hill. Meanwhile freezing rain is falling in New York City. I went to lunch earlier on Franklin Street in the summer like weather. The weather really has been incredible this year, we have not had any snow at all and it looks like we are not going to for the remainder of the school year.

Carolina 99, Virginia 52

I just returned from the Dean Dome. Boy that was ugly. I have never seen a team fare so poorly against Carolina. The first highlight of the evening came at about 9:15 when the television screen flashed that Duke had lost to Florida State, breaking its ACC winning streak. The entire Dean Dome, Carolina and Virginia fans alike, erupted. While I have never been a big Duke fan, I don’t particularly understand the animosity between Carolina and Duke. It just happened that this morning there was an author on the radio talking about a book on the rivalry, titled To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever. Hopefully I will get around to reading it one day. The second highlight was at the very end when we all got onto our feet to see if Carolina could bring the scoreboard to triple digits in the last 35 seconds.

 

With 28 seconds left, Carolina was awarded two foul shots and missed both.

Kenan-Flagler team tied for first place in Wachovia finance case competition

This just came out on the student announcements board fifteen minutes ago. The team that won the Wachovia case competition within Kenan-Flagler back in December participated in the next round this past Friday at Chapel Hill. They competed against teams from Fuqua (Duke), Darden (UVA), Babcock (Wake Forest), Goizueta (Emory), and Owens (Vanderbilt).

 

Here are the results:

1. Kenan-Flagler (tied)

1. Darden (tied)

3. Goizueta