How to Plan a Booth Career Trek in Five Easy Steps: West Coast Marketing Edition

My name is YaoYao Wang and I’m a first-year MBA at Booth.  This past quarter I helped organize a West Coast Marketing Trek for my classmates over Winter Break.  The trip provided great opportunities for Booth students to get a leg up in internship recruiting, get to know the great companies which hire Booth talent, and spend some quality time with classmates.  As I found out, organizing a trek is hard work, but a rewarding way to engage with the broader Booth community and give back to your classmates.  Here are my five easy steps for organizing a trek:

1.       Decide where you want to go and why

In the weeks leading up to Winter Break, first-years are faced with many difficult decisions: go home for break, relax in Chicago, go on the Ski Trip, or go on one of the many career treks for future bankers, venture capitalists, marketers, retailers, techies, and entrepreneurs. As part of the Chicago Booth Marketing Group, my classmate Joanna Wung and I were excited to lead the West Coast Marketing Trek.   While the Marketing Group had traditionally offered an annual Brand Week on the East Coast, and the annual Tech Trek visited large tech companies on the West Coast, we felt that we could offer something to first-years that was a combination of the two. Since Joanna and I are both originally from California, we knew that we could show our classmates around while also pursuing our professional interests in marketing.

2.       Learn Trek best practices from the experts!

Joanna and I met with Anna Sukenik, one of the Marketing Group Co-Chairs who had led the previous year’s Brand Week, to learn how to organize a trek. This was just the beginning of many helpful interactions we would have with the second years. We also met with various members of the Career Services team to learn about their experiences with Career Treks, their resources and where they could help us. We learned that the alumni network is a great place to start reaching out to people. It was great to get support from so many Booth resources who could give us the benefit of their expert experience.

Trek participants at a SF alumni
networking event

      3.       Get companies signed up!

Our goal was to get companies to set aside some time for us to tour their offices, speak with alumni and current employees, and listen to a company presentation. We created a target list of CPG, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, tech, and retail companies with marketing roles to visit and split up the research to contact alumni. On our radars were some of the largest and most well-known tech companies and mega-retailers, but also some smaller, niche consumer companies. We were amazed by the willingness of Chicago Booth alumni to help out with our trek, even though we had never met any of them before. Some even referred us to their friends at other companies so we could visit them as well! Such a strong showing was a testament to the power of the Booth network.

      4.       Get classmates signed up!

With a list of companies we were working with in hand, we set out to get trek attendees. Joanna and I publicized the trek to our classmates via email blasts and word-of-mouth, thinking that a week in California wouldn’t be too hard to sell to anyone. We got a great group of first-years interested in careers in marketing at California-based companies who were excited to pound the pavement during their Winter Break.

5.       Go on the trek!

Ok, so maybe I skipped a couple of steps (and massive amounts of emails) here but I learned that you can plan out every single minute and still forget some detail. For example, one company had an enormous campus and we ran around trying to find our way out of the maze.  As a result we had to rush to our next meeting. The best you can do in a situation like that is use your best judgment and roll with the punches.

The Trek group outside Google, one of the companies on the Trek

While there are hundreds of companies that give us the convenience of recruiting on-campus with job postings and interviews on-site, there are hundreds more that want to hire Booth MBAs. The trek taught me the importance of reaching out to companies for off-campus opportunities. With so many great resources at our disposal – including second years, student groups, Career Services, and of course the Booth alumni network – the sky’s the limit for our professional goals.

A Day-In-The-Life: Investment Banking Interview Edition

First-year Jason Arican recently (and successfully) wrapped up recruiting for an investment banking summer internship.  One of the great strengths of Booth is the number of investment banks which recruit on campus for summer internships and full-time positions all over the US and the world.  This gives Booth students incredible access to firms and a one-stop-shop for internships, with the ability to interview at a number of firms all in one place over the course of a week in January.  Jason shares what the interview experience was like in one of his busier days, and reflects on the great preparation he got from his classmates, the Investment Banking Group, Career Services, and coursework at Booth.  For more on Jason's investment banking recruiting experience, check out his post on his Bank Week recruiting trek to NYC last quarter.

--Matt Richman

4:35 am: Unlike during Bank Week, I will not be hitting the snooze button today. Today is the first day of on-campus recruiting and, as much as I want to, there is no way I can go back to sleep.

4:50 am: I'm out of bed, so that's a solid start. Except now I am I just pacing back and forth across my living room, asking myself the same interview questions out loud and practicing my anticipated answers. I try to outsmart myself by asking a slightly different question, or challenging an answer with a tough follow-up. I pause and laugh at the thought of the proverbial fly on the wall observing a man who has seemingly been driven to madness.

6:56 am: I get a ride today from a fellow classmate who is also recruiting for banking. If all goes well, I will be invited back for final round interviews that take place either this week or next. For as much as this process has been a marathon, now we sprint.

7:50 am: My first interview is not until 9:30 am, so I set up shop in a group study room that a few friends and I have reserved for the day. When we arrived at Booth, students had the option of selecting a second-year student as a mentor and my mentor has been a tremendous help. Last week when we sat down for a mock interview, she gave me a ton of useful tips, including the importance of having a quiet space during interview week as a home base to decompress.  

9:15 am: I arrive at the Career Services wing of the Harper Center. The check-in desk is a bustling central nervous system of Career Services staff, some of whom are directing traffic, while others are doing last minute reviews of resumes and cover letters. I have always been so impressed with just how well-run Booth is. All the details matter, even down to the fact that interview rooms have reverse peep holes on the doors (yes, just like Seinfeld) so that you can look inside to see if an interview is currently in progress before knocking. Maybe I'm just easily impressed but I find that so cool.

9:30 am: For all the nerves that build up in the moments just before the interview, there is a calm and confidence that sets in as I get started. The stakes are high, yes, but we have spent almost a month in formal preparation and informally, we have been preparing for this moment since we arrived on campus in September. This interview in particular is case-based and it requires me to take everything I have learned about valuing a company and apply it to a theoretical scenario – the type of questions for which Booth classes prepare us so well. 

11:20 am: After my first interview, I go back to the study room to hang out with a few classmates and cram in some additional last-minute prep. As I head upstairs for my next interview, I feel the need to pick my energy up so I impulsively slap myself in the face. It gets the adrenaline pumping, but I slap myself a little too hard and now my ears are ringing. I am also worried about now having a red hand mark on the side of my face. This is bad, but I suppose I will be lucky if this is the worst thing that happens to me today.

11:40 am: Mike Tyson once proclaimed, "Everyone has a plan-- until they get punched in the mouth." My next interview is going wonderfully, until I am knocked off guard by a tough finance question. I go blank. I have to pause for a moment and remember that these technical questions are not about getting the right answer, but more about showing how you reason through challenges. I think back to all of the technical mock interviews I had with my classmates, compose myself, and give it my best shot.

1:15 pm: My last interview of the day kicks off and ends up being a breeze compared to the others, and I’m thankful for that. 

1:45 pm: Afterwards, I walk out into the Winter Garden and chat with classmates. People are visibly relaxed at this point and the conversations are a lot more laid-back. We share notes, joke about our slip-ups and regrettable answers, or just try to talk about anything but interviews.

6:03 pm:  My heart jumps as my phone rings with an unfamiliar number on the screen.  I pick up and one of my interviewers from earlier in the day calls with the good news that I’ve been invited to a final round tomorrow in their Chicago office (the nice thing about attending business school in Chicago is that whether you are recruiting for Chicago or other cities, many of the interviews happen here). Can I drop everything to join them for a few hours downtown?  Absolutely.

In retrospect, I thought the day went well. As a class, we have spent hours and days together getting ready for this important phase in the business school time line. This has truly been a team effort in all aspects, ranging from second-year students who have been generous with their time and guidance, as well as the world-class team in Career Services. I am certain that, on the whole, we will all find the best internship for our goals.

Five Pleasantly Surprising Facts about Life at Chicago Booth

My name is YaoYao Wang and I’m a first year MBA student at Booth, originally from Los Angeles, California. Prior to business school I worked as an Operations Manager at a health products startup while being the CMO of a volunteer-run nonprofit. Outside of work and school, I love playing badminton, cooking, and Yelping. Follow me @yaoyaowang where I tweet about all sorts of business school fun.

In just a few short months as an MBA student at Booth, I’ve learned a few valuable lessons and pleasantly surprising facts.  I share my Top 5 with those of you considering an MBA at Booth. Hopefully my lessons will provide insight into the wealth of opportunities at Booth, as well as the best way to navigate your decision-making to get the most out of your experience.

1. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

No, I’m not actually referring to Newtonian physics here. As a business school student, you quickly learn to manage your time very well; and often, what you’ll find is that you can’t add events to your calendar without taking something off. Planning your career, networking, learning in business school? I’ve quickly learned the key to success is actually all about mastering the art of making tradeoffs. If you can’t decide which amazing classes, student clubs, and recruiting opportunities to sacrifice over others, you’ll get great guidance from Career and Academic Services. And since this is Chicago Booth, home of brilliant professors and Nobel prize-winning economists, concepts like opportunity cost and marginal utility will creep into your daily vocabulary before you even know it, and will help you make these tough decisions.

2. Use your pre-MBA summer wisely.

Once school starts you will have 20 million events and deadlines on your calendar (Legal disclaimer: OK, maybe not literally 20 million events and deadlines, but there are tons of opportunities here!). If you can, take time before Booth to travel, spend time with family and friends, work out, eat healthy, and sleep.

See if you still know how to study. This sounds pretty basic but you’d be surprised at how many of us realize that being in the workforce for a few years has made us forget how to be students. A great way to regain your learning skills would be to take an online class or even a local language or art class.

3. Second years are to first years like sliced bread and zippers are to humanity.

A third thing I didn’t fully understand before starting Booth is the tremendous value that second year MBAs add to the business school experience. Their willingness to help knows no bounds. Got questions about internships, careers, resumes, interviews, classes, housing, transportation, or what to wear in the Chicago winters? Second years will help you with that. I always find myself shocked with the amount of time second years put into planning events that improve first years’ business school experience, whether it be Random Walks, LEAD, student groups, school-wide events, company presentations, workshops, social events, trips, or mixers. If you ask them why, you’ll get a shoulder shrug that downplays their involvement and the usual, “the second years were there for us when we first got here.” You’ll see this sense of paying it forward permeating the Chicago Booth network from the first years all the way up to the alumni.  

4. There is such a thing as free lunch.

In the form of Lunch ‘n’ Learns, that is! Career Services and the career-focused student groups host prominent companies from various functions and industries to recruit MBA talent and these presentations often come with free meals! Though I’ve enjoyed not having to buy lunch my first quarter because I’ve been to so many events, the real “free lunches” are the valuable interactions Career Services has facilitated with Booth alumni from companies large and small. Through presentations of mini case studies of recent challenging problems they’ve faced or explaining their company culture and values, I’ve found it invaluable to learn about fit and culture at companies I’m interested in. It’s a two-way street, because as much as companies are recruiting us, we are also scoping them out to make sure we might enjoy our time there as an intern or full-time hire. Additionally, Career Services has been really helpful in working with us to make sure we have a good sense of our career goals and personal needs to get the most out of these events and interactions.

5.  Any interest or hobby you can think of, it’s probably here.

We have an amazing array of student groups solely focused on fun, hobbies, diversity, and interests. Food, wine, boxing, rugby – you name it, we’ve got it. Clubs are a great way to meet new friends who may not be in your classes or recruiting for the same career path. In addition to the extensive list of student groups people are constantly organizing informal events.

I could easily go on and on about the wonderful experience that Chicago Booth has been for the last two and a half months (that’s right, we’ve only been here for two and a half months!) but, there’s no blog or list that could tell you what it’s really like at Booth. For me, speaking with current students and alumni at locally-hosted Booth events and visiting the campus really helped me decide that Booth was the right place for me. As a prospective student, I met so many great people with diverse backgrounds and fascinating life stories, and I’m enjoying getting to know them now as my peers and classmates.

I look forward to seeing you at an on-campus event and welcoming you to our school!

Booth On-Campus Interview Week: The Superbowl of Recruiting

The Winter Quarter is such a busy time for first-year students because most are interviewing through the on-campus program for internships. This week, Matthew Richman gives a first-hand perspective of what the investment banking interview process is like.

Dana

***
We huddled together, nervously clutching our leather portfolios, adjusting ties and name tags, and spending one last minute going over the finer points of corporate valuation. Suddenly, with a pronounced “click,” a nearby door opened and a head poked out.

“Matthew? We’re ready for you.”

I bid farewell to my classmates and entered the interview room.

Over the past few weeks, this scene has repeated itself over and over again on the second floor of the Harper Center. Beginning in mid-January, hundreds of companies—recruiting for roles from consulting to banking, marketing to investment management—have traveled to Hyde Park to conduct interviews with Booth students. One of Booth’s strengths is the relationships that Career Services maintains with some of the most sought-after firms around the world, as well as smaller boutique firms and startups—and the affinity that alumni at these firms have for Booth job-seekers.

Moreover, the on-campus recruiting process means that Booth students can interview with a variety of firms, all in one place. I saw the benefits of this arrangement in my own recruiting for investment banking. The banks were the first firms to come to campus in January, and spent a week conducting first round (and often final round) interviews in the Harper Center’s dedicated interview suite.

Interviews were stressful. After a long four-month recruiting and networking process, it would come down to 30 minutes. Would the interviewer be the one person we didn’t meet at the firm? Would he or she be having a bad day? Would one misstep or interview flub flush months of hard work down the drain?

After the first rounds concluded each day at 4:30pm, many firms conducted final round interviews the same evening. We were often told to wait for a phone call inviting us to the next round. We milled about the Winter Garden, obsessively checking our phones. All of the sudden, the calls would begin. Being one of the less fortunate candidates was tough, but on the flipside, getting that call for the final round was exhilarating; even more so was the late-night follow up call, often on the way home, from potential future colleagues with good news about a summer offer.

To be prepared for these pressures, we had plenty of help from Career Services, and crucially, our fellow classmates. During winter break, students got together in groups to grill one another on case studies or accounting technical questions. I didn’t expect to spend my holiday break camped out at the Gleacher Center with classmates for hours each day, sweating the finer points of the financial statement impact of a $10 increase in depreciation expense—but it really paid off when it came time for interviews.

Second-year MBA students were critical in sharing insights from their interview experiences, and helped us with mock interviews informally or as part of Career Services’ Interview Training Program, where we got formal feedback and a video of our performance.

The bottom line is that Booth’s on-campus recruiting and interviewing provides students an incredible opportunity to be part of the one-stop interviewing shop for interesting companies. One can’t overstate the convenience and advantage that comes from being able to spend a week in the Harper Center being considered for many of the different positions for which we applied, with no more travel than the ten feet between interview rooms. After the first round was conducted on campus, some firms flew candidates to their offices for a final round. However, in my case, apart from visiting the firm in New York during Bank Week, the internship I ultimately secured didn’t require that I even leave Hyde Park, since the firm came to campus in October for recruiting and also conducted first and final rounds here.

Of course, in addition to on-campus recruiting, Booth students can apply for some of the thousands of job postings from companies that are interested in hiring Booth talent, but either lack the recruiting resources to come to campus or need to wait until later in the spring to assess their hiring needs.

When considering a business school, it is important to evaluate its on-campus recruiting capabilities to ensure that you’ll be best positioned for your ideal job. At Booth, there is something for everyone in terms of function and sector. While this stage of my career transition to investment banking has required a tremendous amount of hard work, Booth—with its amazing Career Services team, collegial students, and dedicated alumni—provided me all of the resources to successfully land an exciting internship with a firm that is a great fit for me.
Matt Richman Matthew Richman UPenn TCNJ booth

Landing the Perfect Internship

While first-year students have been busy with on-campus recruitment for internships, second-year students have been volunteering to help through various Career Services programming and case interview prep. In this week's post, Nupur Bhargava describes her experience giving back to the Booth community and assisting first-year students on their internship hunts.

Dana
***

Hi everyone,

Hope the new year is treating you well. As an Admissions Fellow I have been spending a lot of time reading applications and continue to be amazed by the quality of the applicants to Chicago Booth. I often wonder how I managed to get in to Booth, but I’m glad I did. Continuing in the tradition of my past blogs on the career aspects as Booth, below is a note on how we as second years get involved with first-year recruiting.

This is the time for me and my classmates as second years to truly "pay it forward". Over the course of the last few weeks a lot of us have been helping first years with interview preparation. I’ve been particularly involved with consulting interview prep since that’s what I did over the summer. There are three avenues that most first years exploit as they try to get as much practice as possible before actual interviews happen in the last week of January/ early February.

1. Case prep with first-year classmates: Most of this happens over the winter break and is the best method for first years to get familiar with the process. Prior to the break the Management Consulting Group hosted a mock interview process where a few second years (myself included) demonstrated how a case is done and try to share the knowledge we’ve gained going through the process over the last year. This is usually the first time first years see how a case interview is conducted and how they will potentially be evaluated.



2. wInterview and ITP: Career services organizes two formal events: wInterview (winter + interview) and Interview Training Process (ITP), in early January.
   
   wInterview is a particularly fun event. The entire first year class took over the Harper Center in their suits early on Saturday morning, January 12,to go through a whole day of interview prep. The Winter Garden was completely transformed too, complete with polar bear and snowflake decorations. I remember being nervous coming to this event last year and about the day and the process ahead. As a second year, though, the day was a lot easier, since my task was to interview eight first years and to give them a feel of what an actual interview would be like.
   
   The best part of the process is that first years are recorded on video throughout the interview so that they can watch how they behave in the interview setting. I distinctly remember watching my own video last year and noticing how much I played with the pen in my hands while speaking! Overall I was quite impressed by how most first years were able to handle the stress as they fielded questions such as “tell me about a time you failed” or “tell me about a time you had to lead without being in an appointed leadership position”. The interviews last about 15-20 minutes and then we spent about 15 minutes debriefing on what was good and what needs further work. It was a particularly rewarding experience for me as I got to meet a number of really talented first years while honing the skill of giving actionable feedback.
   
   ITP is a similar concept where first years register for a mock interview with a firm. As a second year, I volunteered to represent Bain and conducted an hour long interview with a first year. This interview too was recorded so that the first year could reflect on his behavior. I spent about half the time interviewing and the remainder of the session giving feedback on what I believed were his strengths and weaknesses.
   
   
3. Case prep sessions: Individual case prep sessions with second years was where I learned the most and to "pay it forward" at the start of the quarter, I set up a Google doc with free time slots that a first year could sign up for to do individual case prep with me. I shared this document with a number of first years who had connected with me early on in the process and who had reached out to me over winter break with requests to do case prep. Although these sessions took ten hours of my time each week, I found them to be the most rewarding. Having worked with a few first years from the day they stepped onto campus, from conducting resume reviews to now helping them with cases, I’ve seen how they have grown and I’m glad to have been a part of it. Along the way I’ve made some friends and gotten to know a lot of really amazing people. I know a lot of my classmates have been doing the same and we are all rooting for Booth students to secure the right internships for them.

I know that we will all be glad once this process is over so that as a combined group we can all enjoy Spring quarter! Good luck to all the first years looking for internships!

Booth Career Trek Opportunities: Investment “Bank Week”

The second perspective on Bank Week is from Matthew Richman, a first-year student and member of the DSAC Communications team. Although it sounds like Matt had a very busy week attending events, he still had some time to enjoy New York and to get to spend time with classmates!

Dana
***

Matt Richman is a first year MBA student at Chicago Booth concentrating in finance and accounting. Prior to Booth, Matt founded and managed the federal government and defense contracting division of a company which provides foreign language services. He came to Booth to make a transition to investment banking, and is recruiting for a Summer Associate position.

For MBA students interested in investment banking, Chicago Booth provides top-notch opportunities. Because of Booth’s reputation and the relationships that Career Services builds with employers, our MBA program is a recruiting target for all investment banks, large and small. Booth Career Services and student groups organize a variety of career treks after finals are over. Booth students pursuing investment banking spend “Bank Week” in New York attending formal events and cocktail receptions, conducting informational interviews with bankers, and networking.

My experience during Bank Week was the culmination of all the networking I had done during the recruiting process. Beginning in September, Career Services and the student-run Investment Banking Group (IBG) organized about 50 events with many different investment banks. These events gave us an opportunity to get acquainted with all of the firms looking to recruit Booth students, and to begin the networking process.

During Bank Week, I began most days at 8am with a walk uptown for a breakfast networking reception hosted by one of the banks. Wanting to focus on the networking part and not the breakfast, I usually ducked into a deli on the way to pre-game with a bagel and lox. The days’ subsequent receptions and office visits were set up back-to-back, so I strategized with classmates who had lived in NYC previously to figure out the best way to hustle to the next event without being late or looking too undignified running through Midtown Manhattan. Bank Week evenings featured cocktail events and dinners hosted by individual firms.

After the formal portion of the week was over, I rounded out the trek with a couple of last minute meetings that I’d managed to schedule and happily, but exhaustedly, flew back to Chicago in time for the holidays—and to begin preparing for interviews.

One thing that prospective students may hear about Booth is that apart from the LEAD course, we don’t have a strict cohort system for our first year’s studies. While formally true, Booth’s flexibility provides us the ability to form our own cohorts. During investment banking recruiting, I’ve developed close friendships and camaraderie with many of my classmates, whether sharing good news or frustrations. You might think that students pursuing finance jobs would be competitive with one another, but I’ve found that most Booth students are well-versed in game theory, and have reasoned that the optimal outcome for each of us comes from cooperating. We often share emails or business cards from people we’ve met, information about each bank and its process, and pass on all manner of rumor, speculation, and innuendo to help each other strategize through the process.

Here are a couple of great (non-finance related) experiences with my classmates from Bank Week:

• Spending an evening off the grid with a few of my classmates at a Korean BBQ, chowing down on an experience called “Meat Mania.”
  
• Arriving to a Starbucks in Midtown to prepare for meetings I’d organized with bankers in the neighborhood, to find it filled with fellow Boothies camped out for the same purpose.
  
• Relaxing at the end of the week at a Booth Fusion happy hour event, where I ran into friends from the Banking Trek, the Retail Trek, and Investment Management Trek happening concurrently, and some alumni based in NY.

The success of my time in New York confirmed that Booth was the best choice for me for business school. Bank Week was the perfect mix of structure and flexibility. Booth provides access to top firms in finance through formal programming, but gives us enough room to customize the recruiting process to our own needs and goals. On top of that, I’m building a great network of colleagues and friends for the future.
Matt Richman Matthew Richman UPenn TCNJ Booth

First experiences at Booth: my first campus visit, Random Walk, and my first quarter

It's hard to believe that this is the last week of classes for the fall quarter. Especially for the first-year students, the fall quarter has been packed with memories and exciting opportunities on the horizon. In the following post, Felipe Marin, a first-year student and Country Captain for Cuba, recounts the highlights of his first quarter at Booth and how the experience has been for him thus far.

Dana
***

It almost feels surreal, but the end of my first quarter at Booth is almost here and the experience has been all that I expected, and then some. I first thought about applying to business school in 2009, but multiple factors did not allow the goal to materialize until I began to study for the GMAT in mid-2011 – from then on, time seems to have flown and somehow I’m here, reliving the process through this blog.

My first visit to the Harper Center, and to Chicago, was only ten months ago, but as soon as I walked into the Winter Garden I knew that I had found the place where I wanted to be for the next two years.

At Booth, many of us participate in one of the twenty-five Random Walk trips that take place before orientation, and I would absolutely recommend this exciting adventure to all future members of the Booth family. I had the opportunity to visit Russia for Random Walk and I am convinced that I made friendships on that trip that will last well beyond my on-campus experience. Having heard many Soviet stories while growing up in Cuba, I had always wanted to visit the Kremlin, and I’m thankful that I was able to visit Moscow with classmates who were also interested in seeing the evolution of Russia’s new capitalist society.


Statue of Peter the Great and the Russian Random Walk team

Many exciting things have happened since our arrival on campus, but I’d have to admit that our orientation retreat to Wisconsin tops all other experiences thus far. It is difficult to summarize the retreat on a blog; more than being read, it has to be lived: the outdoor adventures, the games, and the group exercises all converge into a mélange of unforgettable memories. To be perfectly candid, I really did not have many expectations from a three day trip to the woods in Wisconsin, but there’s just something about high rope obstacle courses, improvisational acting lessons, and hanging out by a camp fire that makes people bond – even when the group is as big as 576 new Boothies.

Before coming to Chicago, many people familiar with the business school process told me that the first quarter would probably be somewhat overwhelming, and they did not exaggerate. Since I had been working as a Financial Analyst at a REIT for some years, I wanted to join Booth so that I could switch into a career in investment banking. The banking recruiting process begins three weeks into the quarter and it is all about adaptability: one has to juggle classes, group meetings, the endless array of bank presentations, and social events, which of course, happen quite regularly at Booth. Recently, I’ve learned the true meaning of the phrase drinking from fire hose, but we all get through it. As a matter of fact, not only do we get through it, but we also help each other in the process. I’ve gotten contact information of recruiters and bankers from many classmates, and I’m convinced that other Boothies have been helped in this regard as well. In the end, we know that more than competitors for the same jobs, we’re a family of 576 rooting for each other. I’ve even heard some former students say that they wish they could do this process again, so I’m enjoying it as much as I can because I’m sure that, at some point, I will miss it as well.

All in all, the quarter has flown by, but I am thankful to be part of a community that has been extremely supportive throughout this initial process. From a professional development perspective, I have to say that our Career Services office has impressed all of us – yes, I really mean all of us. My classmates and I feel that the school does everything within its power to prepare us not only for the interview process, but also for a career post Booth. As a true baseball enthusiast, I would like to summarize my Booth experience with words from Dean Kumar’s welcome speech: “Swing for the fences, Chicago Booth has your back” – he means it!

Introducing...your new Communications Co-Chairs!

Hello Booth Experience readers! Beth and Dana here, writing to introduce ourselves as the new DSAC Communications Co-Chairs. We have some big shoes to fill. In the past year, Tina has brought this blog, the Facebook page, Wednesdays in the Winter Garden, and the Day in the Life videos to life. We are thrilled to have all of these forums to show you what life at Booth is all about. To kick things off, we thought we’d share a quick tale of how we first met and what’s in store for The Booth Experience over the next year.

How we met:
Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was just a careless coat checker. But Beth and Dana were destined to meet, and it’s only fitting that their first meeting was facilitated through their class Facebook group.

Per Thursday tradition, both first year students met up with 100 or so of their classmates to kick off the weekend at a local bar this January. When Beth went to retrieve her coat from the coat check she was handed an almost identical coat and learned that hers had been given to someone else. She put a call out for her coat on Facebook and Dana responded. When they met at Harper to make the exchange, they learned that they had more in common than their puffy coats. They shared a passion for wine, live music, and all things admissions. Three months later, their relationship became official when they together took on the roles of DSAC Communications Co-Chairs.

What’s next:
We are so excited to work on The Booth Experience! In the coming year, we hope to continue to share the Booth community with everyone through all of our online channels, and to increase interaction with our readers through them as well. We’ll be featuring many of the academic, professional, extracurricular, and social elements at Booth that make this school such a wonderful place to be. We hope you’ll let us know what you want to see more of, what topics you’d like covered, and how you think we are doing. Here’s to a great year and getting to know each other better!

Also, this week, make sure to check out Beth's Day in the Life video to learn more about her! Follow her on a day where she plays strategy games in class, skypes with Australia, enjoys a sushi dinner and the kick-off to Admit Weekend 1 at a bar downtown, and ends the night with a Booth favorite - Rock & Roll McDonalds!

Taking on the New Venture Challenge

Hi everyone,

Happy Friday! Here at Booth we have just completed Finals week (woohoo!) and are getting ready to head off on our Spring Break vacation destinations all over the world. It’s almost a shame to be leaving the 70+ degree and gorgeously sunny days we’ve been having in Chicago over the last week!

In addition to a new blog entry today, we’d are very excited to bring you another Day in the Life - a continuing video series through which Booth's students share with you what the Booth experience is really like. Today, we join Albert for a day as he starts his day with a healthy breakfast, goes to meetings and class at Harper Center, then Kuma's Corner (great burger place) for dinner before finishing the night with a model (an excel model). Check it out here and let us know what you think!

In today’s blog, we check back in with our aspiring entrepreneur, Dana, as she gets ready for Booth’s New Venture Challenge that will take place this spring!

Tina

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Although the spring quarter hasn't even started, I know it will be one of the most exciting and busy of my time at Booth. Why? I will be participating in the New Venture Challenge (NVC), one of the country's best-known MBA business creation competitions. NVC is hosted by the Polsky Center and previous winners have included high-profile start-ups such as Bump and GrubHub. This year has been one for the records: the Polsky Center received 119 applications, 52 of which are advancing to Round 2. Although the final round of the competition is not until May, my team has plenty to do and thankfully, the Polsky Center has incredible resources and contacts for us as we work on our business plan. I will be working on Omakase, an online platform that will bring "underground" dining and supper clubs to a broader base of eager diners.

Both Professor Rudnick and Professor Kaplan teach a course, Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: Developing a Business Plan, for those of us who have progressed to Round 2 of NVC. The course not only allows teams to dedicate additional time to business plans, but allows us to practice our presentation skills and receive feedback from our professors and judges. The lecture portions of the course cover legal issues, sales and marketing, and how to develop a financial plan. My team will be one of the first to present; the Monday we get back from spring break, Team Omakase will deliver our first 15 minute pitch and business overview. In addition to the time spent in class, teams also have appointments scheduled with entrepreneurship professors for additional guidance and leads. Although each member of Team Omakase has an extensive network, I am both very impressed by and gracious for the network that Professor Rudnick has provided us, generating further leads in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

After our final business plans are due in late April, the last few weeks in May leading up to the finals are dedicated to our second presentations. Based on the quality of the presentations and the final business plans, a handful of teams are then selected to present in the finals, where the top teams (as determined by a panel of judges) will win cash prizes.

Personally, I feel as though I have a tremendous deal to learn from the NVC process. I have never had to pitch to investors and have never been part of a team to develop a business plan. Although I have sold tangible goods in the past, it is so much different to sell target consumers on an idea and service in its infancy. And no matter how much sales experience I've had, it's always difficult to hear "no" from a potential client or customer. As an entrepreneur, I believe that selling skills are critical to have and I know that by participating in NVC, I can improve a great deal.

The NVC process has already taught me a great deal about some of the nuances in building a business and the decisions that are required. What are the implications for incorporating as an LLC or C-corp? How much equity is appropriate for each team member to have? How do we go about finding a lawyer who has sufficient experience with start-ups? These may seem like relatively mundane details, but the NVC process thus far has taught me not to overlook these important steps.

If you'd like to see how NVC unfolds over the next few weeks, you can follow the Polsky Center (@polskycenter) on Twitter and search for the official #ChicagoNVC hashtag.

Looking forward to spring (break)

Hi everyone!

Wow, it’s really starting to feel like spring here in Chicago! We have been enjoying some days of 60 degree weather, with another week of it to come as we enter into Final Exam week next week. As we look forward to our Spring Break after finals, this week, Chloe Williams blogs about her plans as well as what other students are planning to do over our one week break.

Also this week, make sure to check out the next installment in our Day in the Life video series! Come along with Ingrid, a 2nd year student from Iowa, as she works out, goes to class, partakes in Chicago Restaurant Week and ends her day with a good book (and a class assignment). Let us know what you think and what you'd like to see in the future!

Tina

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Spring Break

I never thought I would be excited for Spring Break after college was over, after all, it doesn’t exist in the real world. The build-up to Spring Break in business school has been amazing. I’ve been working hard since school started so I really wanted to seize the opportunity and do something amazing. So naturally…MEXICO it is. I never did the Mexico Spring Break in college, the closest I got was Puerto Rico my senior year so I jumped on the opportunity for an all-inclusive trip this time around.

Sometime in December two students sent an interest email about a Spring Break trip to Cabo San Lucas. I was in interview prep mode and knew I wouldn’t want to organize my own trip. This was perfect! I signed up for the 7-day voyage and that was that…it was easy. There are around 100 students going on the trip with more literally being added every day. I am excited as are a lot of my classmates. We have theme nights planned, group dinners, “sport” tournaments, as well as swimming and relaxing on the beach. We definitely have amazingly creative planners in our class!

Cabo is not the only option. There are also other group-run trips for Spring Break including the Greater China Club’s China Trek, the Chicago Global Citizens trip to Vietnam, as well as students going all over the country and the world. No matter where Booth students are venturing off to this Spring Break, I know we’ll all come back with great pictures, stories, and will have appreciated the time off!

Surprise, Surprise

Hi everyone!

First of all happy new year! We hope you took some time to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. For those of you who just submitted Round 2 applications yesterday, congratulations on getting that in!

Students here are back at Booth and gearing up for our winter quarter. In today’s blog we thought we would step back and reflect a bit on first quarter. Today’s blog entry comes from Jason Wright, who is a 1st year student originally from Southern California, concentrating in Operations Management and Entrepreneurship, and looking to become a difference maker in urban education reform after spending some formative time in strategy consulting. Read on to hear more from Jason!

Tina

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The sigh of relief. That’s what is passing through my lips as I write. I completed my last Final exam five minutes and half a Mushroom Swiss burger special ago. As such, I can finally reflect on the first chapter of my Booth story. I would entitle that chapter “Surprise, Surprise” as my first quarter at Booth has been characterized by a series of pleasant surprises:

1) This school is not full of socially inept nerds. I already knew that the incoming MBA class was full of brilliant, accomplished women and men recognized as rising stars in their respective fields. What I didn’t know was the level of kindness, sociability, and humor almost each of my peers exudes. I have seldom met a person I didn’t immediately want to spend my non-existent free time with. I’m now convinced that I significantly bring down the average “cool factor” of this school since I do little else but study and spend time at home with my wife and seven month old daughter.

2) This student body is not full of stone-hearted, exploit-you-to-death ambition. I honestly believed that I would be one of the only students on campus with a commitment to work in the social sector. I figured I would regularly voice the dissenting opinion of compassion in classroom discussion. Wrong again. A large chunk of both the 1st and 2nd year classes on campus have intentionally chosen career paths that allow them to do socially impactful work. More surprisingly, there are an inordinate number of students interested in my personal area of passion, education reform. I’m very excited to work with a number of them in the Social Entrepreneurship Lab course next quarter. Prior to enrollment, I would’ve bet you a significant sum of money this wouldn’t be the case.

3) I am not the only student from a non-traditional background or with color to my skin. Every business school claims to value diversity. As I’ve become acquainted with my first year class, Booth’s stated commitment has been proven true. As a recently retired National Football League player, I believed I would likely have one of the more interesting stories on campus. Then I met a classmate who performed and taught dance all over the country. Then I met another who worked in the White House. At a networking event I met an international volleyball player who became an accountant. I was shocked to see on Linkedin that one of my humble friends is a multilingual phenom who did multiple high level military missions in the Middle East. And let’s not forget about my friend who started an educational non-profit while sailing around the freaking world! Additionally, it has been so comforting to meet so many fellow African-American students as well as other minority and international members of our first year class. All of these men and women are extremely intelligent and as they inevitably succeed, Booth will have a noticeable presence in the increasing diversity of the global business landscape. That is an exciting thing.

4) I DO belong here. As confident as I may sound in the preceding paragraphs, I came to school expecting to be something of a village idiot given my low baseline of business knowledge. It turns out the Admissions office knows a thing or two about who to let in. While I have certainly had to spend additional hours in preparation compared to classmates who’ve come from corporate positions, I’ve also seen myself rise to the level of gifted peers in coursework and debate. This was in large part facilitated by the patient instruction of Marketing study group members, encouragement from academic advisor Christine Gramhofer, and impactful mentorship by the LEAD course facilitators. I’m grateful to each one of them for bringing me light years forward in both personal and professional development.

So with all that has happened this quarter, I can hardly imagine the remainder of my time at Booth being as dynamic. But if I’ve learned one thing about business school (and life in general for that matter) it’s that I don’t know truly know how things are going to pan out. I expect that the surprises yet realized will make my experience at Booth more fulfilling than I could ask, think, or imagine.

Navigating the Recruiting Maze

Hi everyone! This week we take a look inside Recruiting at Chicago Booth. In our Wednesdays in the Winter Garden video segment, we ask 2nd years and 1st years about how their experiences at Booth have helped shape their career ambitions, and how Booth’s community has helped in their career transitions. In this week’s blog, Nupur writes about learning to navigate the recruiting process as a 1st year.

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You’ve heard it before: Your job hunt at business school starts before you even get there – my mentor mentioned this to me before I came to Booth – and having been in school for 10 weeks now, I can tell you how true this is from my own experience. As soon I accepted my Booth offer, I began receiving invites to pre-MBA networking sessions at firms in the industry I was hoping to break into post Booth. The value of the Booth brand was on display even before I arrived at Hyde Park! Having left a job at UBS that I quite enjoyed a little over 3 months prior, I did not expect the recruiting process to pick up so soon! The process itself is intense and particularly informative if you are exploring alternate career paths or switching careers. Booth however has a great support system and infrastructure in place to help navigate the process - from the impressive career services team to second years and alumni, all of whom are extremely eager to help you navigate the process. The strong reputation of Booth’s Career Services staff was a key factor in my decision to come here, and I’m pleased to report that the resources and training made available to me to date has far exceeded my expectations.

Formal Programming and Resources

Each week we have a designated 3 hour slot for career services programming. These sessions cover a wide variety of topics ranging from crafting resume bullets, to building your elevator pitch (refer to Chloe’s earlier blog on mocktails) and conducting informational interviews. Last week I had a session on drafting cover letters, and I’m finding it extremely useful to go through the various templates that were shared as I begin drafting my own! Additionally the career services team has a librarian dedicated to helping you conduct research on the firms you are recruiting for. She helped me reduce the number of hours I was spending researching firms significantly and I have class mates looking at starting new ventures who have gotten a lot of their consumer data quickly by just approaching her. This week I’m looking forward to the session on conducting informal and formal interviews.

Companies on Campus and Booth Alumni support

Every day as I walk into the Harper Center, I glance at the various TV screens that display the day’s on-campus events, and continue to be amazed by the number and diversity of companies that Booth attracts. In the last three months I must have attended over 50 corporate presentations, networking nights, lunch and learn, and breakfast and learn events (free Starbucks at 7am is awesome!). Most firms visit campus several times within one quarter, and this allows us to engage with senior Partners from a variety of different backgrounds. It really allows you to gain a holistic perspective of a firm: what type of work you might do, what type of people you might work with, and whereabouts in the country (or abroad!) you might like to work.

In addition to all the phenomenal on-campus networking opportunities that exist, several firms are eager to host Booth students at their company sites to really get an up-close look at specific opportunities. Last week I visited a firm headquartered outside Chicago where Booth alumni had organized a full day of events exclusively for current Booth students interested in interning at the firm. They brought in several senior executives to talk to us exclusively and, perhaps most telling, at the lunch event, 6 of us Booth first years had the opportunity to speak to over 15 Booth alumni who were more than happy to share their experiences with us and help us through the recruiting process.

Second year students

The alums are an integral part of the Booth community that eagerly provides support and assistance in your career search, and staying on that theme, so are second year students! Second years have been an amazing resource for me, not just in terms of learning about the firms that they spent their summer at, but also in terms of helping improve my profile and fit for the companies I am targeting. Sitting with a second year Career Advisor for just 30 minutes completely transformed my resume (just a side note, count on having about 20 different versions of your resume while you’re here!). The second years have also been extremely approachable and willing to be a source of advice not just for careers, but for life here in Chicago. In spite of their own hectic recruiting schedules, second years are always looking to help in whatever way they can. There is really a pay it forward mentality here, and I look forward to doing the same next year!!

Clubs

The various industry clubs at Booth are yet another fantastic platform to meet more firms and get advice on recruiting. The co-chairs of these clubs are very well networked with the HR teams of most firms in their respective industries, and they help organize a multitude of events. Each club also organized a resume review session with their members, which was especially helpful. Last week I attended a session organized by one of the clubs on interview preparation and leveraging my resume during informational sessions with firms.

Resumes, cover letters, informational interviews, coffee chats, corporate conversations, case interviews, fit interviews, closed lists, recruiting events, lunch n learns, breakfast n learns, cocktails, mocktails… the list goes on; but with the resources at hand I feel confident that I will be well prepared to tackle interview season!

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Below are pictures from a conference recently held by the Marketing Group, an example of one of many career-oriented events put on by students to connect with prominent industry leaders and alumni.


The conference was held at the University Club of Chicago


Pictured here: Panel on Innovation. Panelists included executives from American Express, PepsiCo, Groupon, and Campbell's. The panel was moderated by Professor Waverly Deutsch, of the Entrepreneurship department.


The evening concluded with a networking cocktail hour between students and representatives from sponsor companies.


Congratulations to the 2011-2012 Marketing Group Co-chairs on a successful event! Click here to learn more about the Marketing Group.