Good afternoon!  Happy Friday!  (Is it Friday the 13th today?)

Anyhow, I am pretty excited about a speaker who is coming to campus on Monday.   His name is Tim Augustine.  From what I have heard, he is very energetic and very knowledgeable about networking.  For anyone, networking is a valuable tool and skill. 

A preview of Tim Augustine’s philosophy can be found at his blog.

Greetings from the GEPB Office!  How are you all today?

As a soon-to-be alumnus of the full-time MBA program, I have been actively pursuing full-time employment for after graduation.  Well, recently I stumbled upon an interesting revelation in the midst of the application process.    

Much is said in business about “thinking outside the box”.  We need to be creative and innovative.  We need to be able to adapt to change.  We need to take new perspectives and find new meanings.  On the flip side is a more reserved approach to business.  We need to be able to be effective and efficient on a consistent basis.  We need to be able to carry out daily tasks and adhere to certain routine tasks.

In the job search and application process, both a traditional mindset and a creative mindset are needed.  This applies to all employers, not just some, although some employers may appreciate creativity and innovation more than others do.  Regardless, in answering application and interview questions, there are the obvious meanings of questions, and meanings beyond what is stated in the questions.  While I was aware of this, I found out that paper-based and online assessments contain more open-endedness than meets the eye.  Ethics is critical, and I thought that some of these questions were intended to catch people stretching the truth or flat-out lying.  While this may be the case in some instances, in other instances employers are really checking to see if we have critical thinking skills and transferrable skills.  In the case of transferrable skills, we might have them and not even know it.   

Do not misunderstand my words: please always keep honesty in mind when applying and interviewing for jobs.  Tell the truth.  Be ethical.  Be authentic.  At the same time, remember that what you learned from past experiences, whether at a full-time job, as a full-time student, in a social organization, etc. may be useful at any time later in life.  I do think that it is possible for a person to be so far outside the box that he/she becomes impractical.  However, in completing online assessments while applying for jobs, there just might be no limit to how far outside the box we can be. 

Good afternoon all!  How are you???  Things have been pretty hectic on my end.  Unfortunately, I had to leave early from an HR/Marketing internship I had at Aflac.  It was a great place to work at with awesome people, but I just did not have the time and energy to balance the job with my studies and my assistantship.

In the past, I had done a pretty good job with balancing my time amongst numerous activities, commitments, and other opportunities.  However, in this instance I found that I might be trying to take on too much.  As such, I sat down and made a spreadsheet with time estimates for my weekly and semester commitments.  In doing so, I realized that there literally was not enough time in my weekly schedule to honor all of my commitments.  Had I not taken the time to analyze the situation, I would have continued to think that I was not being efficient enough.  Efficiency is important, yet quality, health, and balance are also important aspects of work and life. 

As I have said in previous posts, it is important to develop not only as a student or a professional but as a whole person.  It is good for me to push myself, to both dream big and reach far.  Yet, part of my personal growth is also realizing that I cannot ‘do it all’ or ‘have it all’.  As Aunt May told Peter Parker in one of the Spider-Man movies, “You’re not Superman, you know.”  Well, I am not Spider-Man either. 

Last year, in MBA 583 class, we watched most of the video The Smartest Guys in the Room.  I remember when former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling made a bold remark about his intelligence and how we all laughed about it.  When we stopped the video to discuss about intelligence, I recall saying something along the lines of ”being smart is not just knowing what you know, but also knowing what you don’t know.”  We need to know both our strong points and our limitations.  In doing so, we can play to our strengths, improve upon our weaknesses, and know when to ask for help. 

Even Superman and Spider-Man (who are fictional superheroes) have strengths and weaknesses.  While on the surface level it is their super powers that make them seem superior, in the long run it is their knowledge and understanding of their abilities and limitations that sets them apart from their villainous foes.  Like these fictional characters, we–the real people that we are–are all vulnerable at some point or another.  It is up to us to admit this vulnerability and learn how to deal with it.

Today, I received an unexpected wake-up call in the form of a phone call.  On Sunday, I had submitted a resume and cover letter for an internship opportunity at a local company.  Well, today (just two days later) a company human resources representative called and left me a message to call her back.  Silly me, I tried to return the call during a break in my GA today.  Instead of setting up an appointment time to talk, the representative immediately began firing questions in my direction.  Like I said in a post on February 17, it is critical for people to know themselves and be able to use examples to answer questions rather than simply answering the questions with short answers that lack details.  Since I did not take the time to ‘warm up’ before the call, I provided answers in a choppy, unsmooth, and unimpressive manner. 

The representative did tell me that she will contact candidates tomorrow for interviews on Thursday.  Unfortunately, I may have filtered myself out of the competition with this screening/pre-interview phone call.  Please let this be a lesson to all of you out there: do not just prepare for interviews.  Remember to be prepared for any and all communication with prospective employers.  Failure to do so can be the difference between getting a call back to schedule an interview and having to call the employer back to learn about an already suspected rejection.

Good afternoon all!  Midterms are over, March Madness has begun, and springtime is right around the corner.  Needless to say, I am excited!  Thankfully, I have survived the Midterm rush and look forward to finishing strongly this semester.  Today, one class was canceled because a professor is out-of-town.  However, my classmates in Quantitative Analysis and one of the Accounting classes have tests today and tomorrow, so best of luck to them! 

In the meantime, I attended a GradSTEP meeting this morning and will stop by the student union again briefly for the Summer Job Fair.  For those of you not familiar with GradSTEP, GradSTEP is a series of educational and informational training sessions for Graduate Assistants that is held prior to the start of the assistantship assignments.  More information can be found at http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/gradstep/.  As for summer employment, I have been pursuing internship opportunities.  However, with the struggling economy and a sagging job market, I have expanded my horizon to non-internship options as well.  Wish me luck!

As for the prospective students out there, please keep in touch with the GEPB Office regarding the application process.  Again, feel free to ask us any questions you may have about the MBA program, life in Bowling Green, the business world, and so on.  Best of luck to you!

The spring semester is in full force, and as we move on through our MBA program, I’m really noticing how the pieces fall together.  This semester, it seems that our classes are very intertwined and I’m often learning about topics simultaneously in two classes.  For example, in our finance class we are learning about the time value of money, and some specific methods of discounting cash flows…in our quantitative analysis class with Dr. Rump we are building linear programs to solve cash flow problems where we maximize our NPV.  I’m really enjoying learning about the various topics because it shows us the big picture.  In my undergraduate studies, I was an accounting major, so I spend my days taking managerial accounting, tax, and estate planning.  Once I got a job post graduation as an accountant at a CPA firm, it was sometimes a struggle to see how the different areas of business come together so I’m grateful that we are seeing this in our program. 

On another tangent, Spring break is only a few days away, and with that the stress level is high.  I have a group presentation on Tuesday, and I often have anxiety for days prior to speaking in public.  I know that this is even more reason for me to practice speaking so I can get more comfortable.  After the presentation, there’s an exam in Operations Management on Wednesday, and a Finance exam on Thursday.  It’s going to be a tough week for me, but I know that vacation is just around the corner, and I’m excited to spend a week somewhere a little warmer!

In the interview process for any job or academic program, we need to be prepared to answer numerous questions about our experiences, our careers, and our means of handling situations and problems.  Thus, we should always review our information and essentially ‘know ourselves’.  There are also lists of sample questions out there that we need to understand–not only how to answer the questions, but why the questions are being asked (what is/are the meaning(s) behind the questions).  Overall, our preparation reflects our readiness and competence for the job or program at hand.  

Yet, the interview process is a two-way street.  As we are being interviewed, we are also interviewing the company or school.  As the interviewer and the company or school are trying to see if we fit into the job or program, we are trying to see if we fit and the company or school fits us.  This means that we should be ready and willing to ask the interviewer questions when given the opportunity to ask questions (typically at the end of the interview).  I recommend preparing questions in a two-fold manner.  First, have some questions prepared beforehand, such as questions regarding the company or school (ex. career track/course schedule, benefits, something notable found on the web site).  Please note that sometimes interviewers will answer some of our questions during the course of the interview, meaning that we should not ask the already answered questions.  Second, be open to formulating questions during the interview.  Sometimes, the interviewer will say something attention-getting (ex. he/she loves his/her job, he/she loves a unique training program) or ask us a question that causes us to wonder about something (ex. company structure, procedural/logistical issues).  With that in mind, the number of questions that we can ask is limitless. 

In the end, the interview process is our time to communicate and shine.  This means being prepared, answering questions, asking questions, and ultimately being ourselves.  In ORGD 601 class with Dr. O’Neil, the term consultant Peter Block uses is “being authentic”.  Well, best of luck in all of your future interviews and remember to be authentic!

There is a job fair tomorrow on campus.  I am not sure about my classmates, but I am feeling a little nervous about it.  With expectations being higher as an MBA student than when I was an undergrad, and yet expectations being lower with the job market and economy being worse than it was when I was an undergrad, I guess I do feel a little extra pressure to come across well to the employers.

One valuable concept in today’s competitive work environment is having ‘transferrable skills’.  This means being able to make connections between school, various jobs, and various fields and carrying over skills from school, various jobs, and various fields to new jobs/fields.  Being able to show transferrable skills has helped me survive in my early career, and as I saw at the end of last semester, the final exam in Dr. Mota’s Ethics, Law, and Communications class for me was basically a day working at my last job before coming to BG.  With that in mind, my peers and I need to remember the value of having transferrable skills–both in the days ahead and in the duration of our careers.

Each MBA student has a reason or set of reasons for why he/she has entered his/her respective MBA program.  For some, the transition directly from undergraduate studies to graduate school seems logical and natural.  For others, the first years of the post-undergraduate career are unsatisfactory or unfulfilling, meaning that a career change is in order.  Yet, others see the MBA experience as a chance to advance further in their current career track.

While sick over the past weekend, I spent some time trying to put to guitar music a song I had written back in January 2008.  I am not a ‘musician’ per se, with minimal training and limited talent.  Anyhow, I had written this song called “Malcontent”.  At that time, I had continued to be thankful for having loving family and friends and decent work.  However, I had felt a general desire to take my life into its next phase.  Aside from my 8 semesters of undergrad spent in Cincinnati at Xavier, I had always lived in Bedford Heights, Ohio (a southeast suburb of Cleveland).  For me, life had reached a dead end; to some extent, I felt like I was being forced to live in the past.  I recalled how I had put taking the GMAT on hold for at least 6 months already (to the point that I had stopped studying for it) yet still believed that the MBA degree could be my ticket to anywhere I wanted to go.

For me, a complete career change was not in order, although I did wonder if there were better positions/fields in the long run, such as HR and OD, that would better fit my skills and personality. Regardless, the MBA decision for me went beyond my career and meant a better, more fulfilling life. Having found out about my acceptance into the BGSU program with just enough time to put in a full 2 weeks notice and finish getting stuff together for a day, I was able to hop into my car (just as I had written in this song) and move on to the next phase of my life in lovely Bowling Green, Ohio.

There have been ups and downs, successes and failures, developments and disappointments. I have found this MBA program to personally be a true learning experience—both inside and outside of the classroom. Overall, I am humble and thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the full-time BGSU MBA cohort of 2009 and look forward to completing the program in December.

-Richard F.

Last week, our MBA 583 class took a field trip to Cleveland.  For those of you who do not know, MBA 583 is a series of professional development seminars and events during the bulk of our MBA program.  This was exciting for me, being from the Cleveland area and having a couple friends that work downtown.  I was able to get a hold of both of them on the phone during the bus ride and got tips on the traffic conditions.  I also had the opportunity to have some extended conversations with classmates and Dr. Mota.  Visiting the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank and Avery Dennison was very enjoyable and informational. 

The road ahead looks tough, though.  Having mid-term exams and projects and an Ethics research paper due in the coming weeks will be time- and energy-consuming.  Just have to hang tough and keep truckin’ through…