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MAY 2001 MBA JOURNAL: INTERNSHIP INTERVIEWS Nate Kraft: Navigating the Process "This year's recruiting season has been tough, for first- and second-years alike. People are still finding work, but it has been no picnic."
Haas is a member of the Challenge for Charity, or C4C, an organization comprised of all the Left Coast B-schools. It raises money for needy organizations in a variety of ways, from sports contests between the schools to fundraisers to working with big firms to secure in-kind donations. After Kilimanjaro, I knew I wanted to climb a bit more technical of a mountain for my next big adventure, so I thought, "Why not turn it into a way to raise money for C4C?" Hopefully it will be a way for Haas to generate some buzz around the organization and make some dough for a few needy kids. But now I'm stuck with trying to put it together over the next few months. Maybe because it's a charity trip the gods of travel will look kindly upon us, but somehow I don't think my karmic wheel's going to spin all the way around. Speaking of karma, the economy's hangover has settled heavy over most of the Haas community. Last year, people blew off firms like McKinsey and Goldman to go work for start-ups. It's funny how things like that come back to bite you. This year's recruiting season has been tough, for first- and second-years alike. People are still finding work, but it has been no picnic. Which, I suppose, is actually a positive thing: it's good practice for the real world, where business cycles make life tough every few years. My own internship hunt has been interesting. I started off focusing on marketing and consulting, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself in demand by even the bluest of blue-chip management consulting firms. So I passed on most of my marketing interviews, went for a summer gig as a consultant. The only problem with that is that I should have read the fine print: while consultancies traditionally hire something like 25% of every Haas class (it's the #1 post-Haas career) for full-time work, there are usually very few summer internships available for the job. Add that to the economy's downward spiral, an increased number of people eschewing the start-up world, and you get trouble, particularly for ex-advertisers like myself. Anyway, I got final round interviews with most of the top strategy consulting firms that came to Haas, but needless to say I didn't get any bites. To give you a sense of the numbers, for the five firms I did final rounds with (Monitor, Towers-Perrin, Cap Gemini Ernst&Young, AT Kearney, and Accenture), there were about 25 candidates. Those firms, collectively, made eight offers. Tough odds, particularly if, as I said, you have a "non-traditional" background. To be fair, even the people who got offers aren't getting the same perks as usual: a couple of the firms I mentioned cut their summer internships down to seven and eight weeks, respectively. Not a lot of time to learn anything (or put much in the bank for next year's tuition, for that matter!!). Anyway, after that I re-trenched and changed focus a bit. I thought about taking the summer off and hiking the 2,000-plus mile Pacific Crest Trail (it runs from Mexico to Canada), but I decided instead to sit down and write my "dream job" description. I decided to look for a job with two components: an analytical side - so I can put to work all the tools I've worked so hard on developing at Haas - and some sort of unique "cool" factor. To those ends I started talking with firms like Lucasfilm, Enterprise IG (a brand consultancy in SF), and other smaller companies. Last week I ended up accepting at Lucasfilm where I'll be doing several strategic consulting projects that go along with the launch of the new StarWars film. Throughout the process the Career Center at Haas was a great resource. We've had session upon session of interviewing workshops, case study prep, and salary negotiation tactics (the last was not as heavily attended this year, I think), among others. But I think the best piece of advice I've gotten is also the most simple: when you're looking to start up a new career, look for the best fit, not the best name. I found the consulting case interview process stimulating and fun - I actually prefer it to sitting through forty-five questions about my leadership skills as a teenager. At least the coursework has settled down a bit - academics have gone very smoothly this term. I started off the year as one of the lucky few who managed to test out of Marketing. In it's place I'm taking a great class in Global Marketing Strategy, which is really, in many respects, a class in global strategy. The professor - Peter Wilton - splits time between Haas and Stanford, so I've gotten to compare notes with some of the kids down in Palo Alto. Speaking of Haas' neighbors in the South Bay, I just found out that there are more than a few fellow Dartmouth grads at Sanford GSB when we had a Haas-Fuqua-Kellogg-Stanford bar night down in their neck of the woods. It was great to catch up with them (and reassuring to hear that their job searches are just as tough this year). It's interesting how far the reach of Dartmouth and Haas both extend. Alumni from both have been a great source of info and guidance throughout the B-school process, from application to academics to job hunting. One of this summer's events that I'm most looking forward to is heading back to Hanover in June for my fifth-year reunion. Since, as I've written before, the Haas Core program is the center of the academic experience and everyone has to take core courses or test out of them, the rest of my classes bear mention, too. This semester the Core consists of Cost Accounting, Macro-economics, Operations, and Marketing, which I already mentioned. I've been greatly impressed by the level of teaching provided by the Accounting group at Haas, both this semester and the past. The hottest class at Haas this Fall? Financial Statement Analysis. In fact, it was so popular I couldn't get into it. Both the Financial Accounting class I took last term and the Cost Accounting class I just finished before Haas' Spring Break were excellent: the professors in each managed to breath life into rather stale topics, not an easy feat. My macro-economics class is taught by Prof. Janet Yellen, who also happens to have sat on the Fed's Board of Governors and served as Clinton's Chief Economic Advisor. What's most amazing to me about Prof. Yellen is that we have now passed nearly an entire semester with her, with class discussions full of countless inane and obscure questions, and she has not once pulled the rip-cord and said, "I'll have to get back to you on that." There is no topic in the world of macro-economics that escapes her. Then there are also the stories about Greenspan, her psycho-analysis of the Fed's moves, and tales of life at the White House. Makes for a fairly engaging course. Operations is a bit of question mark to me. Not necessarily due to the quality of instruction, although the classes are run by two visiting professors who are, for obvious reasons, not as polished as regular faculty. The biggest issue I have with Ops is whether it should be in the Core at all. Queuing Theory (managing order back-ups in a operational system) is interesting but, I think, less useful than a course in Supply Chain Strategy might be. I also question whether even 5% of my classmates will ever put the theories to use: the modeling and simulation techniques we learned last semester are much more widely-used. I think the Core Reform effort that's going on right now will address these issues; I certainly hope it takes a hard look at the course. My final course, an elective, is Management of Technology (MOT), a class that's the center of the eponymous certification program. The course itself is focused on the strategic issues of technology (R&D, product development, alliances, etc.). Since the program itself is open to grad students from the various Berkeley engineering programs, we also get an interesting perspective in our discussions. The MOT program is also linked up to Silicon Valley's biggest firms; they provide all the MOT courses with consulting and research projects for student teams. My own team is currently working with Sun Microsystems to develop a partner strategy identification and implementation plan. Classes, work, and now fun: I'm heading off to Mt. Shasta for a little weekend ski/climbing trip, so I'm going to sign off. Since it's late in the year all I'll say is good luck in your B-school decisions; and if you're coming out to visit Haas, be sure to look me up.  | | Learn about your online education options |
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