Episode 43: Serving Up Hot Cups of Coffee Chat

What’s going on TRTR? Well MiroKaz, the recruiting season has officially started.

I was talking with an incoming student the other day and I mentioned the idea of a coffee chat, and he said, “What is a coffee chat”

[miro laughing smugly]

I realized, someone has to do something to help these youngsters out.

Well, I have a tip. (Something about beans)

Woah, there Joe Starbucks.

Contrary to how it sounds, the coffee chat has little to do with coffee, and is actually a formal part of the interview process.

Coffee chats exist for big firms only. They make employees available to students for brief chats about the company.

You’ll be signing up at your career center for a time slot with said employee.

It is often the first contact between you and the firm. (unless you happen to have been an info session already.) In the coffee chat, a rep will speak with between 1 and 3 candidates.

It will be billed as a casual conversation, despite the fact that

THE OPEN

Miro: Well, I guess we’ll get started with out him.

Consultant: Richus Exhausticus

Candidate: Whore-itus desperatus

[Miro sitting in front of glass wall speaking to imaginary interviewee.]

[Tom outside banging on wall screaming]



Tip: Don’t miss your sign up and get stuck with the 5:45 am slot.

Tell me about yourself...

Miro: So, tell me a little bit about yourself.

[Tom face:] Struggle to think, go crazy and spout gibberish.

Miro: At consulting co, we welcome people with diverse backgrounds.

Tip: Make sure you have well-practiced 30-second pitch for yourself.

Your turn to ask questions

Miro: Do you have any questions for me.

Yes, I have a great question for you. As a person who prides himself on client service, data analysis, and actionable results, (which you may have noticed are the top three bullet points on your website), I have often wondered how a person of your stature handles the logistical supply chain optimization in this increasingly global world. I’m particularly fascinated by techniques for applying the newton raphson method to facilities that have traditionally employed news vendor optimization. I think this is specifically important considering the rise of the BRIC countries and the shift of the world’s reserve courency away from the US dollar and towards the Chinese renminbi (or the ‘yuan’ as it’s colloquially called.) What I’m really trying to say here is, ‘Tell me about work life balance’.

Tip: Don’t be a dick, ask real questions.

The close

Miro: That’s very nice, but …

Tom:

And that’s when I realized I was on the wrong greenline!

And I’ll never eat that many hotdogs again.

And that’s really the only time my herpes have been a problem

Have you considered using a facial mosturizer

Which is why, I never ever play poker with a four fingered person

Seriously feel how soft my skin is

That’s how I found myself down at fraggle

Tip: You should end the interview
-Thank the interviewer for their time
-Ask if you can follow-up

-Get a business card

-Write a thank you note

It’s a week of top 10 lists here at The MBA Show

Title: The 10 Best Places to Work and the Most Expensive Places to Learn.
42-The-Top-Ten-List-Episode-Youtube
It’s top 10 week at the MBA Show. Tom and Miro review the best places for MBAs to work and the most expensive business schools in the country. Also, find out the easiest way to generate content for your personal brand.


(1) Headline: It’s a week of top 10 lists here at The MBA Show:

First up: The top 10 jobs for MBA’s.

This is a Universum survey:

Google
McKinsey & Company
Apple
Goldman Sachs Group
The Boston Consulting Group
Bain & Company
Facebook
Amazon.com
J.P. Morgan
Nike


http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/mba100/2010/full_list/

Google? That’s not a consulting firm, OR a bank. I don’t understand it...



Moving on.


(2) The top 10 most expensive private MBA programs.


Business School, Tuition & Fees,
1. Havard University (MA), $56,204
2. Columbia University (NY) $55,588
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), $54,009
4. Stanford University (CA), $53,118
5. Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA), $52,500
6. University of Chicago (Booth), $51,680
7. Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL), $51,680
8. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH), $51,000
9. Yale University (CT), $51,000
10. Cornell University (Johnson) (NY), $50,992


http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/articles/2011/07/19/10-most-expensive-private-business-schools

(3) The top 10 reasons to go to business school.

10. Education

9. Find a mate

8. The Experience

7. The Network

6. Getting a Job

5. Escape

4. Pedigree

3. Money

2. Money

1. Money


http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/mba100/2010/full_list/

(4) Jagon: Boilerplate

Boilerplate. Boiler plate is a slug of text that never changes. It is commonly used to refer to clauses in legal contracts that are used over and over again, but can also be used euphemistically to refer to things that are boring or un-original.


(5) Business School Tip of the week: Write top 10 lists

Radar
Tom: At the beach, in NJ
Miro: Clambake at my place

Not recruiting yet? You're late!

(1) Headlines: This week’s headline comes to us from viewers Brian Jones and Zach Cohen. Recruiting season has begun!

[Cheering, Whooping]

I love recruiting. I can already smell the coffee chats and padfolios greese.

Dude, you’re looking at the wrong month of your calendar again. Recruiting doesn’t start until september.

Not true my friend. Two major recruiting events have already happened.
In the last week:
Bain held a global info session and JP Morgan started up the MBA Advantage recruiting program.

They can’t do that, there’s a moratorium.

For those of you who aren’t aware, Miro is referring to a mythical limitation on company recruiting which protects students from aggressive company recruiting events.

You can’t be telling me that the moratorium is BS

Well it’s going with or without you. You can sit this one out if you want. There will be plenty of interviews for startups at the END of the year.

Ahh damit.

So should incoming students freak-out?

That’s a great question. And we’ll answer it... In this weeks bonus content!

Check it out by subscribing to our newsletter at www.TheMBAShow.com

Sneak preview. Don’t worry about it too much. We’ll tell you what you do need to do in the bonus content. You can subscribe at www.TheMBAShow.com

J.P. Morgan MBA Early Advantage program
http://www.joinbain.com/apply-to-bain/recruiting-process/mba.asp

(2) Jennifer Fremont-Smith
Jennifer is a true serial entreprenur. She has founded a whole boatload of companies before getting a mid-career MBA as a Sloan Fellow and is currently the CEO the super-hot Boston area start-up Smarterer.

How may companies did you start?

Is the limiting factor was your interest?

Give us an example a company you didn’t care about?

Recommend for curent MBAs thinking about Entreprenurship?

How do you package yourself as an MBA?

Why go get an MBA?

Did theory pan out?

How will the job search look different in the future?

Is network not important anymore?

I thought there were people who played the game and people who didn’t? Is that changing?

We who are you are funded by?

(3) Jargon: Slipping the noose


(4) Business School Tip of the Week
Write a review of the product of a company you are interested.


What’s on your radar this weekend
Miro: Making Cheese
Tom: My wife Tracy’s birthday
Jennifer: My daughter Lucy's 8th birthday

INSEAD Reveals Its Secret US Invasion Plan

We have Great Show today.
Business school essays are about to get much, much shorter
and say goodbye to a relaxed summer before business school

But First: breaking news!

(1) Headline: The French are Coming the French are Coming

INSEAD Announces that they are invading the US and plans to offer a degree on US soil!

What kind of degree?

They won’t say

When are they opening the campus?

No timeline as of yet.

Well will they go indepenant or continue their parnternship with Wharton.

Unclear.

This is like academic vaporware.

Miro, are you listening? Our sovereignty has been challenged! They’re not setting up shop in one of our expendable territories such as Puerto Rico. We’re talking about the main land.

I’m not that worried. The whole point of INSEAD is that it’s international. as a commentor pointed out in the aritcle about this on Poets and Quants It doesn’t make any sense to get a 100% US INSEAD education. That sentence barely make sense.

Why would you take one Europe’s best B-schools and bring it to the U.S.

INSEAD is a great school with an amazing education. By coming to the US, INSEAD finally gets rid of the one thing that has been holding them back:

What’s that?

French People.

http://poetsandquants.com/2011/07/01/can-you-tweet-your-way-into-b-school/


(2) Headlines: Tweet your way to an MBA

University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Business is adding a new requirement to their MBA application: the Tweet.

It never ends. Am I required to friend their Dean on Facebook.

They are asking everyone to submit a tweet as part of their b-school application.
140 characters to answer:
“What makes you an exceptional Tippie Full-time MBA candidate and future MBA hire? Creativity encouraged!“

the question itself is over 100 characters.

The thing that makes me an exceptional Tippie Full-time MBA candidate and future MBA hire is … damn I ran out of characters.

The school is offering a full scholarship for the best tweet.
Wait a minute, the article says, “The school plans to ask five or so finalists if their tweets can be shared with others via social media and the winner will ultimately be announced on Aug. 4 on both Facebook and Twitter.

So they’re not actually tweeting the essays? Hahaha. They have finally taken the ‘social’ out of social-media.

God forbid a low quality tweet, escape the lips of an MBA candidate without prior review by an admissions committee.

(3) Jargon - Eat your own dogfood.

For instance, if you are a blogger at blogger you better be using blogger to blog your own blog … rather than wordpress

Huh?

So eating your own dogfood is when a company uses it’s own product. The rason this isn’t called feasting on your own filet migon. Is because you usually find out that your product sucks in a bunch of ways. But this way, you can make it better.

Let me give you a different example using my job.

Miro, you have a job? That’s amazing! How much to you make?

well, I have a start-up called Testive.

They’re not paying you anything are they.

It’s called equity! Its an investment in my future. Why can’t my father understand that?

So tell me about the dog food at Testive.

Anyway, we make software that we sell to test prep companies. So we started a subsidiary company that does test prepartion, just to be a customer of our own software.

You started an entire subsidiary company just to be a customer of your own product.

Yes

So how’s it going?

We were right. It sucks! But this is fastest way to make it great.

(4) Business School Tip of the week:

Do a pre-MBA internship.

Are you sick and tired of only having one internship during you MBA?

Do you wish you could destroy yet another summer with three months of work?

Want to invest your time on a project someone else is going to get the credit for?

Well look no further!

The pre-MBA internship. It’s like a regular internship, but it PRE!

Business week is covering students how quit their jobs in the spring before the MBA and spent the summer before they start school doing an internership.

As patrick henry once said: I regret that I have, but only 1 summer to give to Goldman Sachs First Boston, Singapore Branch.

http://www.businessweek.com/business-schools/a-farewell-to-summer-the-premba-internship-06302011.html

What’s on your radar this weekend
Miro: Tutoring
Tom: Coding Coding and more Coding