Career Services Office, company talks and internships

Hi
I am excited to write this post. It has the potential to become a popular post. This is because of the volatility of the topic - Career Services Office (CSO) and company recruitment talks. Everyone has an opinion on this topic and invariably the CSO have become the whipping boys of the school. I have a slightly different take on this topic. The CSO definitely needs to improve by leaps and bound but I don't believe that they are as bad as they are made out to be. I came to this conclusion based on my experiences at MBS.

This topic is specially important for anyone joining NUS. My suggestion is to do your research. People's opinions are skewed by their experiences. Anyone who has got a job through the CSO probably thinks they are great. Anyone who did not get a job through the CSO probably thinks they are shit. So, while your research might reveal a myriad of opinions, the truth is somewhere between the extremes.

Here is my take on the CSO and internship search in general...

We got introduced to the CSO during the first day of college. This was great except that is was a very negative experience. The CSO official who addresses us was greatly negative. He came up with a million reasons why it is difficult to get a job. He was specially vicious on career-switchers which in an MBA batch is pretty much everyone. On top of that he pulled out resumes of some students at top b-schools (read "Harvard" and "Wharton"). He asked us to match our resumes with those students. Obviously, mine did not match up. Basically, he implied that I was shit. The CSO was probably trying to inject into me realistic expectations about my future job. But the talk only dampened my spirits.

This talk was followed up by a host of company talks within the next couple of months. August and September are the months of company talks. Things die down in October and November. Initially, I attended every company talk. But they were mostly futile experiences. Because the companies were not looking for interns at that point in time. And those that were gave us an e-mail id in which to apply into. This meant that I was among a sea of people and needed more than a prayer to get selected.

However, I made a huge mistake during these months. I never interacted with the company folks after the talks. By interacting with company folks we can get their personal visting cards. This creates a point of contact within the company. By sending our resume to this point of contact, we can bypass the sea of people. I did know all this at that point in time. But I was too reserved to approach any of the company folks. It was a huge mistake.

Besides the company talks, the CSO sent us reminders to company application deadlines. Within the Investing Banking space, the deadlines for structured internships were spaced around the middle of October. I did not have enough of an idea about Investment Banking at that time. So, my applications were mostly run-of-the-mill and poorly conceived. I even managed to miss a few deadlines because everything was happening so fast and I was not prepared.

Every application consisted of a Covering Letter and a Resume. These two terms gave me nightmares. They take more time to create than you would hope. And you can never create the perfect covering letter and resume. Mine went through five iterations before I was happy with them. There are others who have done twenty iterations and are still not happy. There is a great danger that half your MBA life will be spent preparing Resumes and Covering Letters. And this part of your life takes precendence to the academics.

Another CSO event was Career Connexions which I shall explain in my next post...

For most of us nothing materialized during the first semester. It was a frustrating and made us hate the CSO. But I don't think that they are as bad as we made them out to be. When I was at MBS, I had complete access to their Career Services. Their career services were really good at attracting some of the top companies like Mckinsey, Bain, etc. But there were very few companies after them. If we didn't get into the top firms then it was a long road. Only around 15% (unofficial figures) of their batch had internships when I left MBS. Compared to this my NUS batch has fared much better. I estimate that atleast 95% of us (unofficial figures) have an internship. Some of us had to get these internships through our personal contacts. But a large number (me included) got the internship through the CSO. They were good at creating a larger pool of companies in which to apply into. While this made the application process frustrating atleast it improved our chances of selection. While the CSO was not always effective, they kept coming up with initiatives. While the CSO was highly negative, they were still willing to work with us.

A case in point is the CIG (Career Interest Groups) initiative. We were divided into teams specific to our career interest. We were asked to work together to help everyone in the group to get an internship/job. This initiative is yet to achieve its full potential. But it has the potential to succeed.

Phew, this post has already become too long. I hope this illustrates my earlier point. The NUS placements still have a long way to go. They don't function like the IIMs where companies come to campus. They work (like any other global b-school) on a 'push' basis where we have to keep applying to companies till one of them gets back. Besides NUS doesn't have the brand that IIMs have. Comparing them to any Indian b-school is the wrong frame of reference. For all their faults, the CSO is on the right track. Like any other place, it has good people and bad people. With time, the bad ones will get weeded out. The NUS brand will improve. Efforts to tap the NUS alumni network have been made. All these point to one fact. While the road ahead is long, atleast the CSO is on the right track...

Cheers,
Suraj