Sunday, November 06, 2005

End of manic week- rest required!

Last week was just insane! Midterms from Monday through to Wednesday, I had a mock interview on Tuesday, and on top of that we had some company presentations- I attended the Lehman Bros presentation on Thursday, followed by an early start for those interested in London opportunities. The highlight for me was the opportunity to have lunch with Ian Davis, yes, Ian Davis the MD of Mckinsey & co. I was so excited! So glad I entered the lottery, and so lucky to have won! It turned out to be a really nice lunch, lots of interesting questions and excellent responses, Ian seemed worried that MBA students were now prefering to go into “sexy” jobs such as Private Equity, Venture Capital & Hedge Funds- I don’t think he has too much to worry about, there will always be people knocking on Mckinsey’s door for post MBA jobs- after all they are the largest single MBA employer around.
I suppose I should mention how my mock interview went- all I can conclude is that I do need to spend a significant amount of time getting my story & “headline statement” perfected- or should I say my “elevator speech” for my target job position. The other thing that came up were the mannerisms and gestures that are acceptable for interviews here in the US. It was good to focus the bulk of the mock interview on improving my entrance and exit into the interviews, for me these were clearly the weakest- so a lot to work on there too.
So after a packed week, the weekend was so needed- I just slept, slept and slept again to make up for those late nights studying and early mornings for exams, company presentations etc… But studying started to creep in by today, as next week is the netimpact conference, lots assignments and classes are being squeezed into the first few days.

On the bright side, I'm now only focusing on 5 courses, which is a relief- so I'm now going to expand my club membership to include International Development and hopefully more social events- assuming my remaining 5 courses don't ramp up too much towards finals.