“Tell me about a time when …..”

Did anyone see Game 7 of the National League Championship Series when Scott Rolen of the New York Mets thought he had hit a two run homerun only to see his ball caught by outfielder Endy Chavez of the Detroit Tigers? That is how I would describe this morning’s interview with a telecom company.

 

The interview began with the predictable softball questions about my past work experience. The lead interviewer was a Kenan-Flagler grad who currently works in the management leadership program and the other was a human resource personnel. The next question was about what strategy I would pursue to deploy the company’s new television service. I listed my strategy into three bullet points which demonstrated my understanding of the industry, its challenges, and where it was going. I even referenced an article in the Wall Street Journal last year about a Verizon executive whose job it was to negotiate deals with content providers to appear on its FIOS television service. The lead interviewer was familiar with the article and was impressed that I had read it.

 

I was beginning to think I had hit a homerun until I glanced at the clock and realized the interview was nowhere near the halfway point. Then the real questions came in. There were three behavioral questions in a row about situations I have been in where I showed leadership, changed other people’s point of view, or had to prepare for a meeting. I struggled with answering them and it showed. The truth of the matter is during the years when I was working, 99% of the time I went into the office, sat at my desk, and waited for work to appear. I know what I just wrote is shocking (except perhaps to my former co-workers who no doubt are giggling as they read this) for it is something you almost never hear an MBA student say but hey …. the subtitle of this blog is “a place for me to share my hopes and thoughts” and not “a place for me to brag about how smart I am to a potential employer.” Some of my answers were about situations with working in groups at Kenan-Flagler, which I have been told are not as impressive as examples from actual work experience. I could tell from the lead interviewer’s response that while he tried to be positive and encouraging, that he was not as impressed with my behavioral answers as he was with my earlier answers.

 

When the interview ended, we performed our obligatory handshakes and the interviewer said “good luck.” It was the same “good luck” I have heard so many times during my first year, the “good luck” which tells me that I would not be getting a second round.

“I am buckyhoo and I do not approve the contents of this ad”

Hey, looks like someone was trying to make a political statement around Chapel Hill last Thursday by driving her (if I remember correctly, I think it was a woman) Celica through main campus by the well. This reminds me of a joke that my Advanced Placement American history teacher told in high school, that when God made this country, he tilted it and all the nuts rolled to the left (geographically, not politically) and landed in California.

Attempting to score at NSHMBA

Greetings from Cincinnati where I am attending the National Society of Hispanic MBA (pronounced nar-SHIM-bar) job fair. I woke up early yesterday morning and took a irect flight from to Cincinnati where I got a free cab ride to the Duke Convention Energy courtesy a recruiter who gave a presentation at Kenan-Flagler the night before and was on my flight also on his way to NSHMBA.

At the event yesterday, it was wall to wall recruiters and nonstop networking with them. I hit up the three companies that I talked to at the Atlanta job fair a month ago. I made yet another attempt to score with the world’s largest software company, and the attempt once again failed to result in success. I had more success with a couple of companies that I have been trying to get into including the online retailer, a wireless phone company from the Midwest, and a newspaper company that owns a portfolio of internet content web sites.

When the career fair ended, I went back to my hotel room to change into something only slightly more casual and returned to the area around the convention center for the receptions and parties. I went to the reception for the world’s largest software company where someone confirmed my suspicions that the company is hiring in its online division, and that the recruiter I interviewed with on Tuesday was blowing me off by telling me otherwise. I also went to a reception for a company that I will be interviewing with at Kenan-Flagler later on this month. But the main event was a dance party organized by a major retailer and major sponsor of NSHMBA. The entire Hyatt ballroom was decorated with items that bore the company’s red and white logo, which is a circle within another circle. Guests were given round magnets that they wore on their clothes that blink a red light. I met a girl from another business school who had on a tight red turtleneck and she strategically placed two magnets on each end of her breast. As we were talking,I found her “dots” to be quite distracting and at one point she said “hello my eyes are up here.” There were other guys coming up to her and offering to shake her hand, have their pictures taken with her, and one recruiter even gave her his business card jokingly told her to email her resume and write on the subject line “I am the girl with the blinking (expletive deleted).”

I returned to the job fair today to hit some of the companies that I did not talk to yesterday. I went up to a restaurant company from Orlando and while talking to the recruiters about a marketing position, I decided to take a gamble by disclosing that I had second round interview in March for a finance internship with the company. The gamble paid off; instead of coming across as unfocused, the recruiters were impressed at how much I already know about the firm. The recruiters gave me the email address of someone they want me to talk to (recruiters are usually reluctant to disclose contact information so getting an email address is usually a good sign) and a $5 gift card.

Arming MBA students with hand sanitizers

When I get around to it, hopefully later today, I will give a full wrap up of the National Society of Hispanic MBA (pronounced nar-SHIM-bar) job fair. But I saw this article last night on the internets, politicians from the Vice President to Senator Barack Obama are carrying around bottles of hand sanitizers and using the product after every event that involves massive hand shakings.

 

Not only do I think this is a great idea, I think most MBA students should consider doing something similar, especially at networking events like job fairs which requires a massive number of handshakes.

“You have been added to a Closed List”

These have got to be the most beautiful eight words that can possibly greet me when I check my email the first thing in the morning. I have just been added to the closed interview list for a credit card marketing position of a major financial firm.

I am not exactly sure why the rate of return on my cover letters has improved so much this year. It could be that I am not longer targeting finance jobs, it could also be that a friend helped me rewrite many of the bullet points on my resume.

Now if only this friend can walk into the interview room with me and help me craft the answer to every question before it comes out of my mouth, then I’d be golden.

Should have eaten my Wheaties this morning

This morning’s interview with the world’s largest software company was one of the more humbling experiences of my second year at Kenan-Flagler. The interviewer began by telling me about her background, which includes an MBA from Kenan-Flagler, a couple of years at a big name consulting firm, and a walkthrough of the various positions she has held and products she has launched at the company over the years.

 

Her questions included what I believe are the major challenges facing a software testing organization such as the one I worked on at AOL, what changes I would make to AOL with everything I have learned at Kenan-Flagler and from my summer internship, she also asked for a ninety second overview of my summer internship. As I was struggling to form words with my mouth, I couldn’t help getting the impression that she was not impressed with my answers.

 

One of the requirements of the interview was for the interviewee to tell the interviewer what divisions of the company he wants to work for. For me the choice is obviously the company’s online division (content portal, internet services, search, online marketing) and coincidentally this is the division she is about to transfer into starting next week. I spent the plurality of my time answering her last question which was if I were to put together a “first 90 day” plan for the online division, what would I recommend in terms of strategic partners, business opportunities, or product changes to pursue. She then handed me a blank piece of paper and asked me to sketch out the high level bullet points of a presentation I would put together.

 

Toward the end of the interview, she told me that the online division is one of the harder groups to get into because there are few openings. I was tempted to try to score a bonus by telling her it’s the division they need to invest the most in and fire off some rehearsed factoids that I forced myself to memorize, but I decided against it.

 

I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t do any better but I wouldn’t say the interview was a waste of 301 bid points because looking back, I got two important pieces of information from it. I had chosen the online division not only because it’s the division I feel most qualified for given my interests and work experience, but also because my industry knowledge tells me this is an area that’s most critical to that company’s future. The interviewer telling me there are few openings tells me either my research is wrong or it was a polite way of telling me I won’t be getting a second round. And while I was attempting to answer her question about putting together a plan for the online division, I came up with something on the spot that I thought was really quite brilliant. While I was explaining this to her, for the first and only time during the interview, she looked at me like I had brain in my head. I am not going to share with you what this idea is, but I am going to do some research on this and coyly bring it up the next time I interview with another company in the same industry. And I should do this soon because knowing the history of the company I interviewed with this morning, my interviewer is probably going to steal my idea as her own.

Job search strategery

Today is the first day of Mod II. The beginning of every Mod is always hectic because I don’t know what classes I want and will spend the first week sampling different classes and getting onto the wait lists of various sections before the Friday noon drop/add deadline when the computer finalizes everyone’s schedule. So far it looks like I will have Monday and Wednesday mornings free, classes on Monday and Wednesday that stretch from the afternoons into the early evenings, and may even have Tuesdays and Thursdays off.

 

I won’t be taking too many classes this Mod (the minimum at Kenan-Flagler for full time status is three classes and 4.5 credits) because I want to concentrate my efforts on the job search. Since the job fair in Atlanta, I have been looking at web sites of different companies and have found myself mentally categorizing them into two categories, “top tier” companies that I would gladly give my right arm to work for, and “other ” companies that would make me happy but not as much. I have decided that since we are still pretty early in the job search process, at this stage I am only going to hunt after opportunities in the “top tier” category. This is important especially since accepting an offer will keep me from looking at other opportunities and at this stage I cannot imagine myself removing myself from the job search process unless I get something that will put a big smile on my face.

 

In other news, tomorrow is my interview with the world’s largest software company. I will be spending tonight catching up on a couple of industry blogs that I have bookmarked. I also found out last week that I made the closed list of three companies, all interviewing for general management rotational programs. The first is a telephone company whose close list I had expected to be able to get ondue to my technology background. The other two companies were more unexpected, the only thing they have in common is that they both make products you use with your car, one is an oil company and the other is a major manufacturer of car tires. So far this year, the rate of return on my cover letters is substantially higher than the one I had last year and the we are still early in the recruiting season.