My Cambridge MBA

Fewer jobs or increased competition?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:39:00 +0000

The job market in the past couple of years has been very tight. For those who are re-entering the market fresh out of an MBA or those wanting to change jobs the prospect is not bright. A lot has been said and written about job shedding leading one to believe there are less jobs out there. Having gone through a job search recently I feel slightly differently about it.

There aren’t as many jobs as in the golden early 2000’s, that’s a fact. But I haven’t seen a drastic reduction in job posts especially in the past quarter. What I have seen is an exponential increase in competition for the same spots. Consulting firms and banks are back to hiring again and they are advertising a decent number of job posts. However, nowadays there are loads of talented people fighting for the same spots.
Having gone to some interviews I feel it is a lot harder to get the offer now then it was 3 years ago. Nowadays it is not enough to have a good interview. You need an outstanding performance to get that offer. The reason? There will always be someone out there who will have more years of experience than you, better or similar education than you and will be willing to get paid less than you. This is the direct consequence of all the job shedding, especially in financial sector.

Even if recruiters really like you it won’t be uncommon to hear “we really like you, but there is this other person with 15 years experience in this particular area”. And we can’t really blame then, they are going for the risk free choice since they are spoiled for choice.

The job market is not stagnant. The problem is that there is too much supply of talent in the western economies and that shouldn’t change at least until later next year.

If could change one thing…

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:52:00 +0000

...about the Cambridge MBA what would it be? The answer for me is simple and very clear: the way Judge is interacting with its alumni community.

I have never attended other programs but from what I heard there is a tradition in many American top business schools of having a very strong alumni network that can be of great help in finding jobs or developing new ventures. The ability to send business ideas to a bulletin board might seem a simple thing but it can be tremendously valuable for someone wanting to start a new business. Unfortunately I feel a lot more could be done in this area and I would definitely invest in the alumni relationships.

Alumni relationships are not about setting up pub nights. It is part of it but it is a lot more than that. It is leveraging on the tremendous potential the alumni network has. It is about providing the means for talent to interact, for ideas to be discussed, for relationships to be established. It is about making sure every student, from the moment she joins the program, knows a lifetime bound is created.

Whenever I meet fellow Cambridge MBAs they are always happy to help out and have an incredibly generous attitude. They are always eager to chat and get to know more fellow MBAs. So why is that our alumni community is not a lot stronger or active? Some part should come from our initiative. But I truly believe a bit part should come from the school. The school should have the systems and platforms in place to enable the community.

We all learnt the power of team/group work during the MBA. Imagine the potential that could be unleashed if the group is the whole alumni community!

The interview day - part II

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:17:00 +0000

Sometime ago I wrote about my thoughts on my interview day and you can find a description of the whole day here (http://mycambridgemba.blogspot.com/2007/03/interview-day.html).

I receive many emails asking me about the interview so let me dwell on it a bit more and give you my take on it.

Receiving an interview invitation is a great milestone in your application process so if you got that nice letter you should feel confident. I think that’s actually the hardest bit. If you were invited it means you have the profile they are looking for. At the same time they are not going to invite you if they have many doubts about you. I’d say your chances at this point are looking pretty good!

The interview day is not meant to be a torture. In my view it has two main objectives: put a name and a personality to the application and sell you the Cambridge brand.

Starting with the latter, you have to remember this is a two way process. Cambridge wants to best candidates and the best candidates are likely get offers from many places. In order to beat the competition for the best talent, the interview day is set up to allow you to meet the staff, future colleagues, the facilities and the city. I would advise everyone to attend that day and not just do it over the phone. It really gives you a good taste of how that year is going to look like.

The other objective is to get to know you better and see if you are the person who prepared that application. Remember that many candidates get help from professional services in order to create the best possible application. Like for any interview, you should prepare well but let me tell you that you are not in for a grilling session. Some questions may be challenging but the idea is just to get to know you, assess your personality and ambitions and whether there’s any mismatch between you and the application you submitted.

So my advice is be honest, relax and really enjoy it!

The gift of boundary-less friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Spending a whole year of your life inside a pressure cooker with 149 other individuals is a challenge, no doubt about that. However by the end of the process you’ll have such strong bonds with those people that you can be certain you’ll have friends for life. This is one of the gifts the MBA gave me and anyone who goes through such a programme knows what I’m talking about.

These are special friends. They are different in nature from the ones I had before. They are scattered all over the world and I don’t talk to them on a daily basis. In spite of distance or irregular contact the interesting part is that whenever we get together it is like time froze. It’s like we are back to the Cambridge times. It’s like we never left.

That is an invaluable gift and the pictures show what happens when we get together three years after the end of the programme in some (not so) random part of the world.

The location changing paradox: when two MBAs can be too much

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Generally speaking, I think most would agree that it is easier for someone with an MBA to change job-location than it is for a non-MBA. However, for an MBA-couple it can be a lot harder to change job-location than it is for a non-MBA couple. This sounds counter intuitive but from my experience this is how it works:

Assuming a couple wants to change location (without a predefined location in mind) they would change it as soon as the first person finds a new job. The second person would follow and try to get a job at a later stage.

Now consider an MBA/non-MBA couple – in this case, it tends work like it does for a single person with an MBA. The rational approach is for the MBA-person to try to find a well paid job in a different location and as soon as he/she finds it, they move to a new location. The non-MBA-person will follow, giving up his/hers job and will try to get a job once they are in the new location. It seems to make sense to have the better-paid person leading the way and the opportunity cost of losing the non-MBA person’s salary might even be partly or fully compensated by an increase in pay of the MBA-person or in the quality of life. I’ve seen this happening many times when the couple just wants to change location or when the MBA person goes for an assignment in a different country with the same company.

But what happens with an MBA-couple? Something a little bit different. In this case, I assume both have a comparable and high salary. Following the same reasoning, they start searching and they plan on moving as soon as the first one finds a job. In a tough economy, chances are one will find it before the other does. Now add that to the fact each individual salary is high, so giving up any of the salaries implies a significant dent in the household income. Even with a pay rise of 20% for one the parties, the household dent will be significant. Depending on the risk aversion profile of the couple (and the job market dynamics of the chosen location), the opportunity cost of moving can easily be too high preventing them from moving, even if both were not fulfilled with their original jobs.

Isn’t it ironic that one MBA could make us perfectly mobile (and I posted about that before here), but if you put two MBAs together it might be the perfect combination for getting stuck in the same place?

PS: I know this is a simplification of the world and I know I’m making a few assumptions regarding differences in MBA/Non MBA salaries that are not always true. The truth is I see this happening more often than not.

The overwhelming beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

The pace of a one year MBA can be overwhelming, especially at the beginning when most students are still trying to get used to a whole new reality. It takes time to adapt to being a full time students again, to new people, to a new country, to working in a foreign language (for most of the class, at least). On top of that you are required to start making decisions very early. Financial companies tend to recruit in October/November, which is only a little bit more than one month into the MBA. That’s why prioritising and focusing is paramount.

You’ll have plenty of readings and class preparation to do. The work load will pick up with group work, readings, and exercises. In parallel, you need to prepare your CV, cover letter and think about your application strategy. Heck, you’ll have to think what is it that you want to do after your MBA! These are a lot of things to cope with at the same time. You’ll be making friends at the same time and wanting to go to every social gathering to make the most of your new student life.
I remember feeling exhausted around this time of the year. Speaking in a different language, knowing new people, reading, working, attending classes, researching for career paths, creating CVs, having a social life at the college…a social life at the school….that all can be exhausting! But at the same time, it is a lot of fun and everyone is going through the same. The key is to enjoy it and search support in your newly made friends.

It is very intense…but that’s why you’ll get leanings, experiences and friends for life!

The right of rebuttal

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:21:00 +0000

After having posted about some of my dislikes of the Cambridge MBA and got a few interesting comments. In particular, when I referred to the disappointing way the alumni community is coordinated I got a comment from my dear friend and classmate Jenny Dean, currently the Executive Director of Cambridge Centre for Health Leadership & Enterprise.

She was kind enough to inform me about what’s going on at the moment to ensure a more dynamic alumni community which to some extent addresses some of my concerns. You can find below some excerpts of her comments which I found very informative:

“Although the current alumni website, does in fact include a searchable database of all CJBS alumni, it is not very well used, with most people not updating their contact information. However, in order to address this and increase the visibility and value to the network, we are on the verge of launching a new web platform called the Common Room , which will include all alumni members, as well as current students and staff. This has a great deal more functionality including all those on your blog’s wish list: There is a searchable database; you can see who is on line; contact people; join special interest and regional networking groups; post discussions and blogs including advertise jobs and events on the notice board and calendar and much much more. “ You can find the full comment here.

This is indeed very exciting news. I know many top business schools already have one of these for a long time and I truly believe everyone will benefit tremendously with such initiative. I sure will be following the developments very closely!

And thanks Jenny for letting me know!

What I don’t like about Cambridge – Part II: Careers Team

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 May 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Following my commitment to share the thoughts on the things I don’t like, I’ll continue with the negative posts. And today I’d like to talk about a very delicate issue, the careers team and its role.
In my view, the careers team should be responsible for mainly three roles:

1.Assisting current students with their career management
2.Raise Cambridge’s profile as a school and ensure as many on campus visits as possible
3.Support and tap into the alumni network

Your view on the careers team will most likely depend on your situation at the end of the MBA. Not surprisingly, people who secured a job early are mostly happy and people who are still to secure a job at the end are not so pleased with the careers team assistance. Having said that, l must tell you I was in the former group, having secured a position before ending the MBA, so I feel I’m fairly unbiased to show my general discontent.

Even before starting to comment on each of the roles I should make a general remark. During the year of 2007/2008 there were two members in the careers team. When we joined in September it was announced the school wanted to add a third person to complete the team. I don’t remember exactly when this third person was recruited but I do remember it was close to the end of the course. Yes…end of the course! I find it shocking that it takes more than 6 months to recruit someone and in the meanwhile a whole class is affected.

Obviously, if the team is small, one can’t expect miracles and I’m sure the team did its best but it is the school’s responsibility to take care of these things. Because Judge Business School is part of the University, many decisions are taken by the University and some processes can be extremely slow. Not sure if this is the reason why it took so long to have a third person.
But having a look at the three roles I mentioned, here are my thoughts:

1.Generally they did this role fairly well, organizing workshops and having at least one 1-to-1 meeting with each student. However, there were many unavailability issues and the response time was fairly slow. We were asked to submit any documents for their screening with 72h notice, to ensure enough time for review. Truth is in many occasions we got answers way after the 72h and at least one (from personal experience), I got comments on documents way beyond the deadline set by the company I was applying to.

2.This is where I think they failed the most. There are some in campus presentations, but Cambridge is clearly lagging behind the likes of LBS or Insead. The top companies generally don’t go to campus nor there is a privileged relationship with their recruitment services. In most cases, we’re simply told to check their website and apply online. I know it’s not easy to have on campus visits, but I would expect more investment in raising the school’s profile.

3.As I mentioned in my previous post, the alumni network almost doesn’t exist, which is a shame. In many occasions, there will be alumni in managerial positions in companies we want to apply to. It was always a struggle to get the careers team to find them for us and (again, using my personal experience), when they did some times the deadlines were gone. Would it be that hard to have a nice database of alumni? Whenever I get contact, I tend to try to help or give advice, and most of my colleagues do the same. So we’re willing to help, but I don’t think current students are provided with the (right) contacts in a structured way. Most of the contacts I get happen because someone knew a colleague of mine pre-MBA.
About sharing opportunities with the alumni network, I think it’s even worse. Like I said, it would be nice to have some kind of bill board where alumni could announce vacancies for current and former students.

These are my views only and may not reflect the general feeling of the class. As I said, some students were happy, other students were very unhappy. It also doesn’t mean the people in the team were not nice, it just means that in my view there was a structural problem with the career management aspect of the MBA. What I also don’t understand is the fact many of the school services were subject to a survey close to the end of the course. Unfortunately, the careers team was not. That would most likely show what was the general feeling.
As an end note, I should say the team has been enlarged ever since, so it is likely that things have improved. This view is based on the year 2007/2008 alone.

What I don’t like about Cambridge – Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:01:00 +0000

It’s easy to praise the Cambridge MBA and to share great memories. After all it was a remarkable year spent with amazing people. However, I’m sure it’s equally useful for prospective students to hear about the things I didn’t like about it or those things that could be improved. That’s what I’ll try to do during the next few posts.

My first note regards my current status as an alumnus. While a student, I had access to many resources, many interesting people and many facilities. As an alumnus, a get close to zero from Cambridge. As I mentioned in a previous post, we don’t even get an email account that clearly identifies us as Cambridge alumni. Unlike most top B-Schools we don’t get an email account like first.lastname@mba08.cambridge.ac.uk or something equivalent. Instead we get a very basic and poor account with the domain @cantab.net, which let’s be honest, few people know what it stands for. This is a very simple thing that has not been solved yet.

More importantly, there is no connection amongst the alumni community. Most top B-Schools have bill boards or some kind of forum where alumni can share thoughts with other alumni, share employment opportunities and simply find business partners. Cambridge does not have any of that, which I find almost shocking. A great deal of going through business school has to do with the powerful network you’ll belong to once you’re done with your MBA. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in Cambridge. All there is at the moment is a newsletter, a few pub nights available for the London alumni and a few series of speakers, usually also in London.

Even job opportunities are rarely shared with alumni, except for the odd job that the careers team decided to send out, which happens once or twice a year.
I guess this reflects the young age of the Cambridge MBA. However, ii believe the creation of a strong and well connected network is paramount for any MBA.

Instead, what we have seen so far in the past few years is an increase in numbers of each yearly intake of students and not so much emphasis on the alumni network.

Show me the money!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:27:00 +0000

Doing an MBA is expensive and represents a big investment for most people. Not surprisingly, knowing the payback time of such an investment can be of the utmost importance. Although I already posted something about the payback time, I really didn’t elaborate too much on salaries. Yes, I know, shame on me!

The post-MBA salary is very important to understand whether this is a worthwhile investment and I get many questions on this, so it’s about time I write something about it!

If you look at the career outcome stats posted on the MBA website, you’ll see that the average salary is around £55.000. After taking the Management Science course, you’ll surely understand any average hides a lot of information, so what does this really mean and what is reasonable to expect after graduation?

Salaries after graduation will vary a lot and so will the type of packages offered. It depends mostly on industry and location. I would say the two areas paying the most are consulting and banking. In these areas, it’s possible to get offers that go from £55.000 up to £90.000, depending on the consultancy name. Top consulting companies tend to reward their employees well, but only a few students will end up landing those top jobs and in most cases you’ll end up giving up your personal and family life.

The industry pays slightly less, but again, it’s highly variable. But these are the ones around the £55.000 mark. Some slightly above, others slightly below. In some well-known companies salaries can be very competitive and be almost at the level of consulting and banking. Usually not-for-profit is around £45.000 to £60.000, depending on the role.

Of course there are other things to have into account when choosing a job, such as sign-on bonus (a common practice in the UK…really makes me feel like a football player!), performance bonuses and other perks.

In terms of region, I’m still under the impression the UK has the highest salaries, following by Germany and the US.

All and all, this means if you land the average package, you should be able to pay your MBA in around 2 years, especially if you get a nice sign-on and annual bonus.

Class numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:04:00 +0000

As far as I understand, the Cambridge MBA is undergoing some changes with regards to class size.

I have my own view on increasing the class size. I understand the Cambridge MBA needs critical mass and a good alumni network and that can only be achieve by increasing the numbers and aiming to compete with the 300-plus-student MBAs across the world. It all makes perfect sense from the programme’s point of view and in the future, the alumni community will benefit a lot.

However, it also contributes to killing one of the things that made the Cambridge MBA unique. One of the reasons that made me choose Cambridge was exactly the class size. I thought with the class size of 150, it would be possible to know all my colleagues and get more of a family feeling when attending the course. And that was spot on! I feel like I know a lot about most of my colleagues and I learnt a lot from them.

There’s a lot to be learnt from your colleagues and fewer students also allows us to get to know our colleagues, share experiences, spend time together and connect with them. There is a very strong bond between most of us and we keep in touch regularly. I’m not sure how that would be possible with 300 students.

I think there’s a big trade off between getting the right scale and providing a great experience to the students. I just hope Cambridge is able to keep the right balance and doesn’t become like some of other business schools which resemble more of a mass production MBA-making machine.

The Cambridge email account I don't have

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:19:00 +0000

I just received an announcement from my Cantab email account letting me know that if I want the full service account, I need to pay, otherwise I'll be downgraded. The Cantab.net is the official alumni email account for graduates from Cambridge. Most people don't know that because "cantab.net" or the alias "cambridgejbs.net" seem more of one of those email accounts you get for free such as engineers.co.uk or doctors.co.uk.

There are many nice things about Cambridge, but one of the biggests faults is actually one very simple thing: the lifelong alumni email accounts. Harvard, Stanford and all the others give their alumni free lifelong email accounts that are recognisable....using domains such as Stanford.edu. I expected to have a @cam.ac.uk account, with my name and year of graduation, like they do it in Harvard. That doesn't happen in Cambridge. For some reason, we loose our email accounts when we graduate.

How difficult can it be to make sure alumni keep their emails? Wouldn't it also be good for the school to have it's name advertised by the alumni community?

Instead...we have to use a very basic webmail service with cantab.net as domain....honestly, I'd rather use my personal email!

Fast paced life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:06:00 +0000

I think one of the consequences of doing an MBA is changing your life pace. Even though I was a consultant in my previous life, I still can’t help being surprise at the pace things go after an MBA. It’s no surprise that the MBA year is really intense and although the rhythm calms down a little bit after the course, I feel like things keep changing at an enormous pace.
Less than a year after the MBA, I already had two full time jobs in two different European capital cities. I also not only changed industries right after the MBA, I changed industries again 7 months after changing industries for the first time.

I’m very happy with my job at the moment, I seem to have an increasing urge to let my entrepreneurial side go crazy and create something. I think one of the benefits of the programme was that it tested me and made push harder. Putting myself out there also made me realize that there are so many things that could be done in a much better way they are being done.

I’m not sure whether it is MBA arrogance or just the will to create something and push even harder. I guess time will tell.

My MBA pass

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:13:00 +0000

After working for slightly more than six months in one the world’s largest bank, I decided banking is not for me. Like many MBAs, I was attracted by the glamour and challenges of the banking industry but it didn’t take me long to realise things aren’t what they used to be anymore.

Banks are bleeding inside, the morale is low and the challenges they face are more related to headcount cuts than anything else. Therefore, I decided to move on to a more exciting industry: renewable energy! If you read earlier posts on my MBA projects, you’ll know I did them in this area.

Many people wonder if an MBA is still worth it. As far I’m concerned, I really think it is. The way I see my MBA is almost like a pass that everyone recognises wherever I got. Don’t get me wrong, the job market is still very tight. But I am also positive that without my MBA I wouldn’t be able to change industries again!

More importantly, I’m going to an industry where I have very little experience and I will be based in a different country. I can’t imagine I would be able to do so without my MBA. I think having the name of a top business school in my CV opens me doors that otherwise would be completely closed.

As far as my personal experience goes, I highly recommend doing an MBA!

More than an MBA

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:52:00 +0000

I decided to end the year with a completely different topic: relationships in the MBA. I guess we all expect to make friends for life in the MBA. A career change and a life experience also come with the territory. But every year, for some people the MBA gives them something else. It seems like every year something like 5% to 10% of the class engages in some kind of romantic relationship. This year was no exception and there were some couples formed, which have resulted in two scheduled weddings for 2009 amongst MBA classmates!

To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me that some couples are former during an MBA. It is a very intense experience where we get to know each other very well. MBAs spend many long hours with each other in group work and doing many different sporting and social activities (already described in this blog) and travelling for holidays or projects.

MBAs usually have many things in common. Most of them are ambitious, hard working, well educated and the MBA admission acts as a filter to create a group that despite being very heterogeneous, it has many values in common. Therefore, relationships during an MBA don’t surprise me at all. In fact, I had heard stories before about MBA sweethearts and seeing couples being formed during the MBA was normal and not surprising.

However, there was something that did surprise me about the couples that were formed: I am part of one of them!

Looking back, I went for the for the MBA completely open minded regarding my career, job location and all those things but quite frankly, the idea of finding a partner never crossed my mind. I was seeking for many things by signing up for an MBA. This wasn’t one of them.
Sometimes we can only find something when we’re not actively seeking.
I’m very happy I found what I wasn’t looking for. I must say this was a great year that changed my life. This whole year was definitely much more than an MBA!

Goals and expectations: reality check

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:35:00 +0000

On the 8th of September 2007 I was one week away from starting my MBA. I was still in my home country and had many expectations and some goals I wanted to achieve with and after the MBA. In this blog, I listed most of them so I could go back some day and compare what happened with what I expected.

A bit more than a year has passed now and in this post I want to do that exercise. I will list again my expectations as of 2007 and will comment on them as of December 2008.
This is a very interesting (and nostalgic) personal exercise that I hope can help some of the readers too. So here it goes:

Looking back at my expectations, it seems like I achieved almost all of them with distinction. It's actually very rewarding to look back and see how things turned out to be in all items. If you are thinking of doing an MBA, as I was in 2007 maybe this will help you make up your mind!

The job hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:28:00 +0000

This topic is one of the most important ones for someone doing an MBA, and shame on me for not posting about it before!

I guess getting a good job is one of the main reasons to do an MBA. We all have the expectation of landing a great job in the end and most of us have the expectation of changing careers and industries and usually an MBA is a great means for doing so.
Unfortunately, the world has changed really fast. When we first started the MBA, we all were living in a different world. The economy was doing well and the expectation was we all would have jobs at the end of the MBA. As time went by, we started to realise the world was changing. We all were in the middle of a crisis with an uncertain duration and unforeseen consequences. Finding a job under these circumstances is harder. But it is even harder when you are changing industries, which is exactly most people enroll in an MBA for.

I started my job hunt around February 2008, which is rather late. I should have started before and I advise everyone to start as soon as possible. Obviously, it is hard to know what we want a month into the MBA. And I had many areas that I wanted to explore and investigate a bit more. I applied for many different things and was called for some interviews and I guess I used some interviews to practice and to know a bit more about some companies.

Job hunting can be frustrating. Sometimes we get interviews sometimes we get rejections and we don’t even know why. It is very important that you check your CV and Cover Letter with friends and colleagues so you don’t get myopic. Many times I was under the impression I had the perfect profile for a vacancy, but the ones who got called were the ones with totally unrelated backgrounds. So, sometimes it is a gamble. And we need to keep our hopes high and not give up, as it is very stressful too.

In the end, I had job offers from banks and consulting firms. Having been a consultant previously, I decided I wanted to try the banking industry. Joining a bank in a middle of a crisis is a risky move, but I thought it would be interesting to see a crisis from the inside.

So right now, I’m working in Canary Wharf, London, for one of the biggest banks in the World. I joined one of those MBA tailor made programmes which will allow me to have rotations in different functions and different countries across Europe. It sounds interesting and it has been a learning experience so far. Let’s see what the future holds!

The Individual Project with the World Bank

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:02:00 +0000

The Individual Project (IP) is the final deliverable for the MBA. It can take the form of a research paper or an internship report. It runs from late June until the end of August so it suited for summer internships.
Sourcing the IP is not easy, especially if you have particular interests. The process is the same as the GCP. If you really want something in particular, you really have to go for it and try sourcing your own project. The list provided by the University is decent but doesn’t cover some areas of interest.

I was torn between doing something in the financial services (asset management) or digging deeper into the renewable energy industry, following my GCP. Fortunately, I was offered summer internships in different industries such as asset management, consulting and even not for profit.

After an eventful month of June, I ended up taking an internship with one of my dream institutions: The World Bank. I’m an economist so I always had the World Bank in high regard and the prospect of working in its headquarters in Washington D.C. for the summer was really exciting.

The internship was a really good experience. I worked with the Energy Unit and the internship allowed me to see how people work in the World Bank and how their work impacts thousands of lives throughout the world. It was a great opportunity to meet fantastic and interesting people and to travel in the United States and Canada.

I don’t think it could have gotten any better than this!

Three months later

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:01:00 +0000

It has been more than three months since I last wrote on my blog. When I last wrote, we just had our ball and took a class picture. Since then, many things have happened and the only reason I stopped blogging was the crazy pace of the last few months (along with some laziness, I admit!).

Things have changed a lot since the 13th of June. I am now living in London and about to start working in one of the biggest banks in the world. My class mates are scattered all around the globe. Fortunately, there is still a very good community of MBAs in London, which helps making living in a different city much easier.

I have received many emails asking about careers, IP and so forth, so in the next couple of weeks I’ll try and pick up the pace to update the blog to provide some inside information regarding all the issues I’ve been asked.

The end is the beginning...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Friday, 13th. Where I come from, a Friday the 13th is associated with bad luck.

Rather than unlucky, I would say that was a sad day. Yesterday, the MBA has ended. It was the last day of classes and from now on we are all in the Individual Project stage.

What that means is that from now on many of us will fly to many different places and some of us will not come back to Cambridge at all. It is a very strange feeling and it is amazing how fast this year went by.

It has been the most amazing year where I got to know lots of fantastic people and more than dwelling on all the fantastic things we did together, I just wanted to pay my tribute to all these amazing people and leave my big thank you for all we've gone through together!

The MBA Class of 2007

The Oxbridge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:50:00 +0000

The Oxbridge is an annual sporting meeting between Cambridge and Oxford and each university takes turns in hosting it. This year Cambridge was the host and it was held on the 24th of May. As hosts, our class had to organise a full day event with 15 different sports.

I must say the day was amazing. It was brilliantly organised and everyone recognised it as being the best organised even ever! Everything went so perfectly and even the British weather helped! We were blessed with an amazingly shiny and sunny day and it was a lot of fun. There even was some family entertainment to make the event children friendly.

May was a great month with the MBAT and the Oxbridge running almost together. In the end, Oxford won the thing as they won 8 of the 15 sports. I still don’t understand how could we have lost in punting, which is the home sport....had we one that won, we’d get to keep the trophy!

But not everything is bad. We beat them in Rowing, Cricket and Football which are the really important sports :)

And the football match was just fantastic. I must say we played really well. We beat them 3-1 and we probably played the best football of the entire season. I guess we were saving the good stuff to show those Oxford people how to play ball!

The Oxbridge was really great fun!

Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:01:00 +0000

The MBA is very intensive but some extraordinary people still find the time to do other activities. That is the case of one of our class members, who is organising an international summit on Climate Change and Renewable Energies. The summit will be held in late September, so the next intake can take the opportunity to attend it.
Here’s the link. Check it out...it will be a big and great event!

http://www.cambridgeclimate.com/

The MBAT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:56:00 +0000

The last weeks have been very hectic, therefore the lack of posts in my blog. There are many things going on at the same time. Job hunt, Individual Project hunt, assignments to do, presentations to make and plenty of sports.

And today I want to focus in one of the most important sporting events in the MBA Calendar: The MBA Tournament (MBAT). The MBA is a tournament held in HEC, France and brings the Top European MBAs together to compete in many sports. The event lasts for 3 days and it is lots of fun.

Obviously, being one of the smallest MBAs, Cambridge still has little chances of winning the whole thing, but our participation was very decent. We ended up in a mid of the table position after having very good performances in sports like rowing, sailing and even football (we reached the quarter finals!). But more than sports, the MBAT is a great networking event where we can meet people from the top MBA schools in Europe.

It also translates de philosophy of some schools. LBS is clearly there to win and they look very professional in their impeccable matching uniforms. They had more than one team for most sports! Rotterdam school of management is very colourful and cheerful. Cambridge is very collaborative. Even though we didn't practice for most sports, everyone was willing to play everything and help each other out in forming teams for all sports. Most of us played more than one sport and believe me...that was tiring! Oxford is…well…I’m not talking about “the other place”! :)

Rivalries and jokes aside, I highly recommend attending the MBAT. It’s great fun, very healthy and a fantastic break from the crazy world of the MBA. And if you go you might see some of the most amasing live salsa performances that you will ever see. I still can’t figure out how on earth do they have time to practice and become so good! If you like, check some of the following links. They are very worthy!

LBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0iRW0zjgtU
SAD Bocconi (The winners): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YecYyGnK1E

International Worker’s Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Today is the International Worker’s Day or Labour Day, celebrating the achievements of the Labour Movements. To be able to fully appreciate all the fights for better labour conditions and the eight hour working day you must have something very basic: a job.

Today seems to be the perfect day to talk about something I’ve been asked many times by prospective MBA students: jobs and how the job market is. Jobs are a crucial part of any MBA, as most people do an MBA either to change jobs or to get promoted. As the MBA reaches its final stage, everyone is pretty much focusing their energies in finding a job. But the important question everyone who’s thinking how doing an MBA is: how is the job market?

Sadly, I have to tell you the job market is not doing very well. In particular, the investment banking industry is not recruiting as it did before. Due to the credit crunch, many investment banks are actually downsizing and, obviously, not recruiting. This is particularly relevant as a significant part of the MBA students aspired to get a job in this industry. The other main destination of MBA students is consulting. Consulting is not suffering as much as banking, however some of the main consulting firms are recruiting less or postponing their recruitment agendas. Again, these are not great news for MBA students.

Despite the not so encouraging news from these industries, it seems like there are still many opportunities out there to be harvested. Most MBAs get a job from the open market and not from the MBA Leadership Programmes so not everything is bad. If you like statistics, I’d say by now around 20% of our MBA class has secured a job. It’s not a great number but there’s still plenty of time to go and most jobs are actually found closer to the starting date. As far as I know, it’s a bit below last year’s number, but not dramatically below. So it seems this is just the way it is.

I’m part of the group that still doesn’t have a job. However, I think the open market should not be underestimated. Like I said, most MBAs get their jobs on the open market and not on the fancy programmes that recruit on campus.
Does this mean this is a bad time to do an MBA? I would say there is no bad time to do an MBA. Some years ago getting a job would probably require less effort than it requires today, but it seems like an MBA is still a very valuable asset to have and the networks that are built here should not be underestimated either.

So using my own medicine, now is the time to apply massively to the open market, be patient and be prepared for when the opportunity comes!

Dennis & friends

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:51:00 +0000

Last Friday a new subject called Leadership in Action started. It is part of the core courses of the Easter term. When you see something like that on your time table you wonder what is going to happen there. Interestingly enough, after attending one session the name of the course actually starts to make sense.

My first impression was that I was watching one of those concerts like Pavarotti & Friends, where a big start calls his friends to do some singing together. The principle of this course is the same. Lord Dennis Stevenson brings some of his friends to talk for 20 minutes each. In that time, they are supposed to summarise their entire careers into some hints and tips for us.

The concept looks very interesting and I must say it is interesting. 20 minutes is the perfect length. Whenever we start getting bored of the speaker, it is over. And the speakers are very diverse and interesting people with some good insights. Even listening to the obvious tips is interesting as it reinforces their importance. In a way, it reminds me of the Enterprise Tuesday (already mentioned in a previous post) but more diverse and shorter.

After the session, there is a get together at the restaurant next door with nice food and drinks, giving us the chance to speak with these people. Because it is in a restaurant it also means we finally get good food (yup...the food served after recruitment sessions at JBS is horrible!)

Believe me, if I’m praising a course that is taught at a Friday night, the thing must be pretty interesting!