MIT Sloan Students Speak: MBA 2013

Speakers at MIT, and the Sports Analytics Conference

One of my new years resolutions for 2012 is to attend as many interesting speaking engagements as possible. Last semester, I missed some great ones (Noam Chomsky, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, etc.) because of conflicts with recruiting events. This spring, I've made it a point to attend anything that remotely interests me and I'm really glad I have!

Last Friday I attended a presentation at the MIT Media Lab from Tom Stocky, director of product at Facebook. Tom graduated from Sloan and also was an MIT undergrad and he talked about how Facebook develops its products. He distilled his presentation into five major themes and gave examples from the evolution of Facebook to illustrate these points. Even for someone who isn't interested in a career in tech, it was really engaging.

Just upstairs on the sixth floor of the Media Lab was the Sloan Women In Management (SWIM) conference.  I was unable to attend the full-day event, but I heard from everyone who attended that it was really well-run, interesting, and that the panelists and speakers were inspirational. You can find more information here. Hopefully someone who attended can update us about it on this blog!

Today I attended a lunchtime chat with Stuart Davies from Sankaty Advisors (part of Bain Capital) and tomorrow I'm looking forward to hearing from Garrett Bauer. Bauer was a former prop trader at RBC and was convicted by the DoJ for insider trading.  He'll be going to prison in April for a 9-11 year sentence, but before he goes, he'll be here tomorrow to talk about his experience and what he has learned.  

The opportunity to hear so many people talk about their experiences in business has been one of the most rewarding parts about attending MIT Sloan. But the event I'm looking forward to most is the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. As one of the organizers, I'm still shocked at the caliber of speakers and guests we have for this unbelievable event, like Mark Cuban, Bill Simmons, Jonathan Kraft, even Drew Carey is attending! The media coverage from major outlets is astonishing. Known as the premier sports business conference in the world, this year our student volunteer organizers are taking the conference to a whole new level. If you're interested in a career in sports, I highly recommend checking out this years conference--but tickets are selling out fast!

Retail Trek to Hong Kong and Shanghai

Over our January break, I had the pleasure of attending the Luxury, Retail and Consumer Good's trek to Hong Kong and Shanghai. Long story short: it was a blast!

If I may make the story a tad longer, it was my very first time in Asia. For years, I've been dying to go, so I was extra pumped for this trip. Once there, we got to speak with executives at LVMH, Tiffany, Coach, Nike, Apple, etc. Our days were packed with meetings, but--don't worry--we made time to eat lots of tasty dumplings and dim sum and wander the streets in that blissfully slow way only tourists can. We went up to the Peak in Hong Kong and saw the crazy gorgeous views of the whole city. Plus, as we observed locals carrying around Louis Vuitton bags or pulling out multiple iPhones, we got to then go speak to the marketing masters behind the brands in person. It was such a fascinating ten days. For anyone interested in retail, you've got to get to Asia and a school trip was the best way to go (I think!).

Ski Trip - Park City, Utah

It's the eve before our first day of second semester. All the stress of IAP recruiting melts away for a few days of spontaneous fun. 

MIT Sloan Ski & Snowboard Club organizes a annual trip for current students and alumni to hit the slopes in Utah the weekend before second semester begins. This year 150 Sloanies descended upon Park City Mountain Resort. 

A video postcard from our trip (click the Vimeo link for HD and proper aspect ratio): 

MIT Sloan - Park City, Utah 2012 Ski Trip from Craig Hosang on Vimeo.

 

 

What are the famous Sloan C-Functions?

Sloan C-Functions (consumption functions) are amazing Sloan community-wide parties that happen most Thursday nights. They're usually on campus at Walker Memorial and there is free food and booze and lots of great music and live entertainment. Each C-Function is organized by a different student club (i.e., Latin Club, Korean Club, LGBT Club, etc.) and the music, entertainment, and food all coincide with the theme. Most other business schools have a regular weekly happy hour/networking event but I have yet to experience anything similar to a C-function. In fact, one of my favorite parts of AdMIT weekend was the LGBT C-function!

There are elaborate dance performances by classmates from different countries and contests and skits on a biweekly basis. In addition, C-functions are a great way to hang out with other members of the Sloan community outside of the MBA program including significant others and families, EMBAs, Masters of Finance students, and school administrators.

Check out one of my favorite performances from the Japan C-Function this fall when several guys (and girls) dressed up as a famous Japanese girl group and treated us to a hilarious performance! 

 

Why Women Should Be Ruling Entrepreneurship

Alright, I know I'm feeding a bit of the blogging flames here, but I would like to put forth that I wholly believe in my declaration above - that women should be killing it at entrepreneurship, even more so than men.

Let me explain by giving some quick context. I've spent approximately the last month thinking about one thing and one thing only - E-Commerce receipts. As part of MIT's Independent Activities Period (aka IAP), many of my classmates have been spending January perfecting their consulting case interviews, while I have been hanging out in San Francisco working on an idea that I thought would have a lot potential. Here's what I wanted to do: turn the traditional e-commerce receipt into a marketing / upsell bonanza. I even built a prototype (check out rcptd.com if you're actually that interested, but no hard feelings if you don't). But I needed to find out one important part first: did e-commerce companies (aka potential customers) also feel me on this idea (would they want to buy?). To keep it short, no, they did not feel me. They have many pains and headaches, but receipt marketing is not one of them.

The hardest part about this month has not been the rejection (though it still hurt) or the stretching of my programming abilities. Rather, it was that it took me so long to talk to my customers with a sense of empathy that allowed me to fully understand their situation and gain insight into their real pains as a potential customer. Let me give an example of a typical interaction with an e-commerce manager at the beginning of my journey:

Me: What are your current marketing practices?

Dude: Ugh, we use a lot of stuff

Me: What's your percentage breakdown of marketing spend?

Dude: Ugh, I'm not sure.

Me: If I told you that you could boost sales 5% through upselling would you do it?

Dude: Yeah!

Me: Want to pilot my product?

Dude: Eh, not really. I'm thinking about a lot of other things right now.

Oh man. Talk about overdosing on the consultant / MBA speak. The main difference here is that I was trying to apply hard business lingo that I have learned over my career since undergrad. Shit, my consulting managers used to applaud me for riding the interviewees harder with that nonsense.  I finally got the message when my mentor told me after a week of disappointing interviews: "Cut out that MBA bullshit." What I needed to do was empathize with my interviewees, not grill them. And here's the big problem, as a guy I have little natural ability to empathize. Most guys are the same. Women, however, will empathize in a heartbeat. It comes naturally to them. Let me give you an example of how a better interview went after I forced myself to learn empathy for my customers:

Me: Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today. I'm here mostly to listen. Tell me, what is your typical day like?

Dude: Oh man, it's crazy. I have tons to think about.

Me: Like what?

Dude: I need to grow e-commerce and don't know how.

Me: Sounds tough. What are some of the ways you're attacking this?

etc...

So much more productive. 4x at least. Seriously

At the risk of setting off a gender firestorm, let me just say that I'm 99% sure I'm right about the gender / empathy correlation and it would take a lot to convince me otherwise. So let's concentrate on the more important question: why, if women are so much better equipped, is there still such a big gender gap in entrepreneurship? Step up ladies, you get it; a whole better than I do at least.

So excited to be blogging!

I'm really excited to contribute to this great student blog, and please don't be shy about posting comments, questions, or messaging me directly. 

About me: I graduated from Dartmouth in 2006 (go Big Green!) and I spent the last five years working in support roles in the financial services industry. I decided to attend business school in order to switch careers, but I chose Sloan because of the people and the amazing international opportunities.

Living in New York after college, most of my friends and acquaintances were from school and work and had somewhat similar backgrounds. Heading to Sloan, I was especially excited to meet my international classmates and those with non-traditional experience. Take my core teammates for example: one has summited Mount Everest, another worked in the pet snacks industry, and each have great stories (many rounds of "never have I ever" have revealed some REAL gems). C-functions are another great way to experience the diversity of Sloan. I'm especially excited to travel to my classmates' home countries. During the upcoming spring break I'll be traveling with 45 other first year Sloanies on the student-led Israel Trek.

Some more about myself: I live in Central Square with another 2013 Sloanie I met during AdMIT weekend. I like the 12 minute one station commute to school on the train because I feel like a "real person" with my coffee in the morning. I spent a ridiculous amount of time during the fall recruiting for investment banking summer associate positions by traveling to New York every Friday for informational interviews, but more about finance recruiting in another blogpost.  Also, I am a regular at Beacon Hill Pub (aka BHP), a great Sloanie hangout on Wednesday nights.

Please let me know if there is anything you would like to hear more about!  'Til next time,

xoxo Judy

 

Internship Recruiting

I shouldn't have been surprised to see my co-blogger Craig Hosang writing about the internship recruitment process at Sloan. For me, it's another example of Sloanies at their finest. 

Despite being a competitive recruitment process, collaboration runs through the veins of Sloanies, and interview prep is no different. Many of the career-oriented student clubs provide their members with interview preparation workshops and guidebooks, with second-year students sharing their internship recruitment experiences with first-year students, continuing a tradition of "paying it forward".

I've found the materials second-to-none, and I'm certainly not alone in feeling this - a classmate shared an anecdote with me yesterday, in which a friend of hers who attends one of our peer business schools asked a recruiter for interview preparation advice, only to be told "Do you know anyone at Sloan? If so, get their interview prep materials."

Interview prep in E62

With many people back on campus for IAP, E62 is now abuzz with Sloanies helping each other out with practice behavioural and case interviews. Walk along the second floor lobby, and each study room will have a different pair of students taking turns to quiz each other. Some of the student clubs, such as the Management Consulting Club, offer to coordinate interview partner matching - not only helping make the interview practices more 'real', by having you do it with someone other than a close friend, but also helping you to meet more of your classmates. Other clubs have email lists that are full of people offering to help each other out.

With interviews for several industries now underway, it won't be long before many of us will know where we will be spending the summer. As Craig commented in his post, it can be a nerve-wracking time - but the preparation process is also fun, and a great way to get to know more of your fellow classmates. 

If you'd like to find out more about the range of industries and companies that Sloanies work for in the summer, check out our Career Development Office's 2011 - 2012 Employment Report - pages 8 - 11 cover summer internships. 

IAP Recruiting Period - Getting that Summer Internship

The entire month of January off?! That's awesome! We should have been listening to the rest of that sentence though... because it reads, "is devoted to recruiting." 

IAP - as my fellow blogger Jocelyn described well, is a time for all of us to pursue activities that further our education, life, or work experiences. For many of my fellow Sloanies, that means practicing interviews for two of the mainline industries that come to MIT Sloan for summer interns, banking and consulting. Bankers had their first-round interviews this week and consulting firms start the end of this week and follow on until next week.

A common activity I've seen on campus these days is "casing," where students pair off to practice cases for consulting interviews. These can vary quite a bit, but typically a student is given 25-35 minutes to analyze a business question and to provide a recommendation they would give to the CEO of that company. Competition for a lucrative consulting spot can be quite intense as over 100 students out of the 404 first-year students applied for each of the big three consulting firm internships. That said, everyone is heavily invested in coaching each other to represent the school well and to see their classmates succeed. I can't speak for other schools, but I've been told this level of teamwork is especially strong at MIT Sloan.  

Most of the people I've met looking into consulting for the summer were not in consulting before. So if you were interested in making the transition, you'll be in good company. If you have questions on what recruiting is like at MIT Sloan, my twitter handle is craighosang. 

2nd Round Apps due today! (Motivational blog post below)

Second round applications are due today for MIT Sloan. I met a number of you who were working towards this deadline at the Prospective Students event in SF last week. I myself was a second round applicant. 

In these final 30 mins before applications are due, I wish you the best of luck. Don't stress too much, you all will do fine and I look forward to meeting those of you who choose to come here for next fall. 

Until then, if you need a little motivation to push that last mile, here's a screen capture from one of my favorite online stores that helps me through the tough times. I think this somewhat applies to trying to perfect essays at this point :) 

(image from despair.com) 

 

Silicon Valley Tech Trek

First, a quick plug: I'm going to be at a Prospective Student meetup in SF tomorrow night from 6-8PM. It's a last minute notice (my apologies!) but if anyone would like to come out, it's a great opportunity to ask all your deepest questions about the MIT Sloan experience. Find me on twitter at @craighosang and I'll send you details. 

Silicon Valley Tech Trek 

There are far too many clubs at MIT Sloan to be involved in. In fact, I can tell you firsthand since I believe I signed up for about 15 of them. That said, they are one of the many great resources for students, especially in our first year. Many clubs focus on sharing knowledge between first and second years about industries and functions and give you a leg up when it comes to recruiting. 

This week is the Tech Club's Silicon Valley Trek. Every year the club takes a group of students to a variety of tech hubs around the country. For 3 days we will be touring tech firms, meeting alumni, and gaining a better understanding how we can be relevant and of value to tech companies. I'm looking forward to the experience and I'll let you know how it goes on other side. 

Happy New Year!