The job hunt

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

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

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.