Hey everyone,
well, sorry I haven't written for aaaages. I've got some great photos I need to put up from the past few weeks in San Fran. Basically, I've been absolutely flat out - I'll catch up those entries sooner or later.
It's now week four of term two and the mood amongst the first year business students is changing (and that's just not because of the cold-ish weather). It's interview season time, and the casual t-shirts and jeans that we usually wear have been replaced by well-pressed (or in my case, adequately pressed) suits and power dresses. And whilst we're only recruiting for a 2-3 months job over the northern hemisphere summer (the gap from mid-June to mid-August/September when we don't have class), the stakes for many are high - this is a great chance to get a probably long term job offer (if you work well, they'll usually give you an offer post-school) and, for many people not from business backgrounds, an important opportunity to reposition yourself for a better shot at job offers post-school.
To make it more hectic, Stanford has a policy where
any student is basically allowed to obtain an interview with any company that wants to come on campus (which almost all the major employers do). This is fairly amazing if you think about it, when you reflect on all the times your well writte resumes and cover letters resulting in nothing but rejection, this kind of stuff is unprecedented! As a result, employers here are going crazy (McKinsey for example, are interviewing over a third of my class - some 130+ people) and many of my eager friends too (some of them ave 7-9 interviews
per week, in addition to normal classes - not to mention the second round interviews many of them will hopefully then receive!).
So, I've been fairly laid back, focusing on cooking for people and helping them prepare for their consulting interviews ... but now my time has come. I have five interviews scheduled for the next 5 working days - most of them in marketing, mostly for London (though Seattle and Chicago also make an appearance):
- Eli Lilly (I thought they made cups, but actually they make drugs!)
- Cisco
- Johnson and Johnson
- Microsoft
- Pepsi
.. so it's going to be pretty hectic these next few days (with hopefully some second round call backs!).
Blessings
john
