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.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
What I don’t like about Cambridge – Part I
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.
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.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Show me the money!
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.
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.
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