Posts Tagged ‘career week’

Career Services’ reactions and promises…

February 2, 2010

After two meetings with the Career Services yesterday it seems that your feedback on the article had an impact.  It is not quite official yet but the following changes are planned for the coming days and weeks:

  • An official statement of the Management
  • Restructuring of the Career Services (apparently there will be a re-allocation of responsibilites)
  • Implementation of clear processes and K.PERFORMANCE.Is beyond staff-student ratios based on the recommendations of a famous consultancy  (not sure why a Business School spends money on a consultancy but…)
  • Survey for Career Week
  • Migration of discussion to Nexus to open up further “internal” dialogue
  • Workshops with students on how to strengthen Career Services
  • Renaming of Career Week to “Career Forum
  • More in-depth company briefings prior to campus visits
  • Differentiating between company and recruitment presentation
  • A stronger focus on developing company relationships with student clubs and academia
  • Publication of a clear hierarchical structure incl. responsibility allocations (should be expanded across the school in my opinion)
  • More transparency and new faster feedback policies
  • Publication of recruitment/interview statistics
  • and a few more…

Obviously not all of these are a result of the blog article and coincide with some changes that have been planned anyhow but it is a good development in any case.

These are all high aspirations and it is important that they are being implemented however most probably this will take some time.  However I still hope and think that it is important that the outgoing students see the changes implemented before leaving in two months.

On the other side we still have to acknowledge that they always put in a lot of efforts into attracting companies to campus, organising the career week, etc. And  you can’t honestly expect them to offer you placements. We do all need to be proactive ourselves. The crisis is bad for placements but that’s was already clear when we started, no?

In any case the latest discussions and feedback from us students have been heard. Let’s see and good job hunting!!

After Career Week = Before Career Week

January 28, 2010

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Update [31.01.2009,21:37h]: I think that the points have been made. I have taken the comments offline for now and now it is time for a dialogue. Everybody involved has been informed.
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Today somebody explained the Career Week quite well in class: “Career Week was a good branding exercise for the companies…!

ESADE itself did a great job! The networking tent was excellent and the video conferencing presentations worked really well. They also did well in  attracting quite a good number of interesting companies and there where some good positions available without a doubt. That however applied to only a few company presentations I attended!

From a lecture point of view some of the company presentations were very interesting especially the questioning session.

From a presentation skill or assessment point of view, they failed! Not all but many of them failed the whole point of Career Week.  A French luxury goods group was a good example!45min company presentation in Spanish, 20min questioning session. In the 65th min (5min overtime) one student finally asked the most important question: why did come you to ESADE? Answer: Oh yes, btw. we have a position in Portual but you have to speak Portuguese and preferably French! Mission of branding accomplished. Task failed!

If you give a presentation at a Career Week you should at least have a vacancy, mention the job profile at the beginning and sponsor visas in case applicants are non-residents! How about a job vacancy in Korea and you need to speak Korean! That applied to 1 student at entire ESADE. Thank you very much!

I still wish everybody applying to those companies a lot of luck and best of luck with your own job hunting in case you are also looking outside!

(For those interested in working for the French luxury goods group, I can confirm that everybody present had a handbag from its own company, men included!).

ESADE Winter Career Week (22.01.-26.01.10)

January 22, 2010

Today the ESADE Winter Career Week begins and will take place as well on Monday (25.01.10) and Tuesday (26.01.10) on the ESADE Campus Building 3. This will be great recruiment opportunity for all MBA students graduating in March 2010 and the first year students looking for summer internships.

There is a great line-up of companies presenting on campus as well as video presentations and workshops. Today the Career Week was kicked off by LVMH followed by PepsiCo LatAm this afternoon. Other companies coming are the following:

  • ALFA CONSULTING
  • ALTAIR MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS
  • AXIS CORPORATE S.L.
  • CENTRE DE RECHERCHE PUBLIC HENRI TUDOR – TECHNOPORT
  • COCA – COLA FEMSA
  • DISNEYLAND PARIS (Business Case)
  • DISNEYLAND PARIS (Presentation)
  • DSM
  • EVERIS
  • GE LATAM
  • INFOSYS
  • JOHNSON & JOHNSON
  • LOEWE
  • L’ORÉAL ESPAÑA S.A.
  • LUXOTTICA
  • LVMH
  • NESTLÉ
  • PEPSICO LATAM
  • ROCHE FARMA SPAIN
  • SK GROUP
  • TECH DATA ESPAÑA SLU
  • TECHNOPAK
  • TRADEBE
  • WERFEN GROUP
  • WILLIAM J. CLINTON FOUNDATION
  • WIPRO
  • ZURICH FINANCIAL SERVICES

This is a great line up offered to us with plenty of networking chances so we have to take advantage of it. I wish everybody a successful recruiment process!!!

Shape the future of online recruitment and win high tech prizes!

November 11, 2009

Tired of looking for career information in complex websites?
Tired of endless online job applications?
Tired of too general information that does not help you to take a decision?

We want to change that! Tell us what you would like to improve in companies’ career websites and we will let them know!

Potentialpark is conducting this research to improve the communication between job seekers and recruiters. The survey is anonymous and takes about 15 minutes to complete. It is independent and not sponsored by any company or organization.

What’s in it for you?

1. You will shape the future of online recruitment so that it will become easier to find the right career opportunity at the right company.

2. You will learn more about the latest trends in online recruitment and gain insights that will be valuable for your own career.

3. You can win an iPod Touch, a PS3 slim, a Sony Digital Ebook Reader or vouchers for Amazon or iTunes. A jury will pick the winners out of the best free text answers!

Please follow this link to take part:
http://www.potentialpark.com/teweb2010

We will publish the results in the media in spring 2010 and, if you like, we will share them with you if are interested.

Thank you, have fun and learn a lot!

The Potentialpark Team

http://www.potentialpark.com

IIM-A places all students in four days

November 9, 2009

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Update [27.11.2009]: I spoke to professors of IIM-B today, who are visiting ESADE this week. They confirmed that all the numbers and facts refer to MBA students and full-time positions. This was not sure previously but now it is! Apparently the figures are also the same for IIM-B, hence congratulations to both IIM’s.

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I would like to share this article from the India Times with you because it is impressive (thank you for the information, Romit). We have just completed our Career Week 2009 at ESADE ourselves as have most other Business Schools around the world. With the flat world we are living in ESADE is competing with the universities around the world.

One of those universities is the Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad (IIM-A). Have a look at those facts because they are impressive:

  • Placed all 321 students in four days
  • Investment banks made 77 offers on Day Zero (first day)
  • 76 students received offers oversears (eg. US, France, Germany, the UK, the Middle-East, Africa and Southeast Asia)
  • McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co placed 3-5 students each
  • We are experiencing a Financial Crisis!!!!

I think that those figures are quite stunning and have set the bar high for other universities. This also exemplifies the quality of the Indian universities and students. The statistics for ESADE are not available to me but I would love to them know them.

Source: India Times

My Roland Berger Interview Insider!

October 30, 2009

In the wake of the ESADE Career Week many companies have been on campus and some even took the opportunity to conduct interviews while here. As mentioned earlier I had applied to Roland Berger and in fact I had my interview on Monday. Yesterday I got my rejection letter therefore I am finally able to publicly share my experience of the interview with you.

The two interviews took one hour each and were conducted by the two consultants, Javier C. and Alexander P. First of all I would like to provide you with the questions that i was being asked so that you can get a feel how the interviews went and how you would react under the pressure.

Interview 1 (Javier C.):
Q1) What is the wholesale and retail price of a Seat Ibiza bumper and why?
Q2) What to do you suggest the construction companies and industries in Southern Spain to do now during the construction slump

Interview 2 (Alexander P.):
Q3) Give me 10 ways to find out the height of a skyscraper
Q4) What are the different company valuation techniques? What percentage of the entire value will the terminal value for the discounted cashflow method be?
Q5) What is the value chain of an insurance company? What are the cost factors and how can you improve the margin? How is it possible that insurance companies can make a profit if 100% of the cost are equivalent to 100% of the revenue?
Q6) What is the market value for electical shavers in Germany?

In addition of course I had the normal questions like, what are the take-aways from ESADE, what were difficult team situations that you had lead, etc.

One of my main questions to each consultant was why they had particularly picked me for the interview and the answers from the consultants was very interesting: they didn’t know! That makes it very difficult because only the lady from the HR knew, and she told me later, during the networking session that it was for my last job in consumer goods. Hence it has nothing to do with the telecommunication-, media- and emerging markets background, which I had figured out as a similarity from the interviewees profiles.

Generally I think that it was a great experience. Feel free to share your interview experience with me.

The final recommendation I can give: Prepare and expect the unexpected! (don’t tell the interviews that you researched them ;)

Potential Park – Top Employer Web Benchmark 2010

October 27, 2009

As we are currntly in the midst of the ESADE Career Week and the recruitment process we are very well aware of the quality and usability of online recruitment platforms and procedures.

Through my own experience however I have been stunned by some of the career and application pages of the corporate websites. Sometimes I wonder how oblivious some MNC are to modern day recruitment processes and what image the company website can project on the company itself. My Friend Andreu A. works for Potential Park, a consultancy specialised on  the optimisation of corporate recruitment websites. A lot of the ideal optimisation standards were identified through applicant feedback and surveys and therefore I would like to ask for your support as we are all experts on that now. Hereto below you find their survey explanation and links. Hopefully soon the application procedures on corporate websites will improve!!!

Source: PotentialPark

To search for a career can be time-consuming and frustrating. We want to change that, and therefore we ask for your opinion.

Help us to shape the recruitment of tomorrow. Tell us how companies can improve their career websites, application tools, events and offers. At the same time, gain state of the art insights that might be useful for your own career.

About this survey:

  • We will share the results with you, if you like.
  • The results will be published in media.
  • It’s anonymous, independent and not sponsored by any company or organization.
  • Takes approximately 15 minutes.
  • You can win one out of 7 fun high tech prizes: a PlayStation 3 Slim, a Sony Ebook Reader or an iPod Touch
  • Or you can win one out of 20 vouchers for Amazon or iTunes.
  • A jury will pick the winners out of the best free text answers (remember this during the survey…).

Click here for the survey.

ESADE Career Week

October 26, 2009

Today begins the long awaited ESADE Career Week. In the coming three days many companies are coming to the campus to recruit MBA students for internships (MBA class of 2011)  or full-time positions for those that graduate in March 2010. Many companies urged us students to apply prior to this career week so that the companies and recruiters can take advantage and conduct the interviews while here.

The following companies are coming to campus for recruitment:

  • Abbott
  • Accenture
  • AD Little
  • AT Kearney
  • Barclays
  • Barclays Capital
  • BCG
  • Bertelsmann
  • Celsa
  • Delta Partners
  • DPWN
  • DuPont
  • EBRD
  • Emerson
  • Europraxis
  • FSA
  • GE
  • ICRC
  • Morgan Stanley
  • Novartis
  • Roland Berger
  • Santander
  • Siemens
  • Syngenta
  • UNDP

This year the demand for certain company presentations has been so strong that ESADE has decided to provide live-streams of certain presentations. The cameras will be set-up in two rooms and all the presentations in those two rooms will streamed on the ESADE intranet. At least they will try to do that.

Now I wish everybody successful interviews and hopefully you all the find the job you want to do and the company you want to work for.  Today I will have my interview with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants so fingers crossed.


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