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08 Feb 2016, 21:02
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09 Feb 2016, 09:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: The recruiting journey through self doubt | MBA Learnings |
 Second-year student Rohan Rajiv is blogging once a week about important lessons he is learning at Kellogg. Read more of his posts here. The MBA learnings series has two objectives. The first is to develop the discipline to synthesize and share some powerful concepts I’ve learned while at school. With about four and a half months left at school, I’m hopeful that I’ll continue to do this after I graduate as well. The second has been demystify what the journey is really about. I have been surprised at the lack of really good resources on this topic, and I hope to have a definitive list of eight to 10 posts on the topic that will be helpful to prospective, admitted and current students after I graduate. I’ve listed five posts I’ve written so far on the topic at the bottom of this post. Today’s topic is one that aims to demystify an important part of the MBA experience – finding a job or — to use a one-word description — “recruiting.” My experiences — both as someone going through the journey myself as well as someone attempting to help others through the experience — have shown that recruiting is hard. It is probably the single hardest piece of the graduate school puzzle. It is easy to laugh — this is almost as privileged a place to be when it comes to finding a job. Some of the best employers around the world make it a point to invest hours and days on campuses to talk to students about what life at their firm is like. All definitely true. But I don’t think life gets any easier when you are Bill Gates. Sure, you take away worries about shelter, sustenance and the like. But the kind of challenges you face are in no way inferior to everyone else. In fact, it is my belief that challenges of the mind tend to be the hardest to talk about and deal with. As evidence, I have learned that students from the law school and business schools at most universities are the biggest users of on-campus counseling services. I think this part of the experience is particularly hard for three reasons: 1) Every person going through the process has a track record of success that got them into school. It feels natural to expect this to work well with relative ease (and, in a few cases, it does). 2) The fact that you’re going through it with so many classmates — some of whom do better than you by balance of probability — increases the pressure. 3) And finally, most of these folk have received really bad career advice in the past that has led them to believe that there is that one “dream company” out there for them. In my case, I think the peer pressure involved with the experience definitely made me question my own competence and abilities more than once. I made a couple of unusual choices and those came back as questions — did I do the right thing? What if I had done things differently? It also took what seemed like ages for any progress to come through. It was tough, and it definitely felt like a journey through self doubt. It all worked out though, as I believe it did for most folks who put in the work. That doesn’t mean it is easy. And it definitely doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. Among the things that helped me in that period, I would pick three that were particularly helpful: 1. Focus on the feeling of walking away knowing you did your best. At every point, I just focused on getting to one thing – the feeling of walking away from the interview knowing I gave it my best shot. Since all my energy was focused on that one goal, it made my life a lot easier since I didn’t attach myself to any one outcome. This also took away any possible focus on a “dream job.” Sure, I felt extra pressure on a couple, but as I’d intentionally stayed away from focusing on the outcome, it felt easier. The principle here is to to focus on the process and trust that good processes lead to good outcomes in the long run. 2. Read Harry Potter. I’ve shared this story with many first-year students. I directed a lot of the pressure into reading Harry Potter. Now of course, I don’t advocate you do that. But I do think it is helpful to find something that completely distracts you — so find your own Harry Potter. I remember my wife offering up my iPad anytime she felt I was feeling the pressure. Thanks JKR! In general, when I wasn’t in class, I made it a point to be home by myself. I preferred solitude to hearing the constant chatter about “the latest and greatest.” I was on a light course load during that quarter and had plenty of time to myself. I spent this time researching about companies, reading Harry Potter and sleeping — my antidote to the pressure. 3. Build a second-year support group. I had a small group of second-year friends who I stayed in close touch with during the process. I engaged a couple of them on helping me with most aspects of the interview and another couple who helped me exclusively with cases. I kept this group informed of everything that was going on and vented, on occasion, to them. While I knew I could count on them to never mince words if I was doing something wrong, they were also generous with their time, energy and support. All of this helped give me plenty of perspective and was incredibly helpful. So, if you are a first-year going through the process, keep plugging away. The one thing that is worth remembering is that this is one of many job switches in the coming years. Focus on the long term outcome and use the process to learn how to approach finding a job better. This is definitely hard. But it also definitely helps to keep perspective. There are a a few billion people who’d love to be in your place. And, if you’re a second-year, I hope you’ll remember to balance being direct with your feedback and generous with your hugs. Previous posts that try to demystify the MBA journey: 1. I’m in, Now what? – An attempt at helping you structure your transition to school once you are admitted 2. Advice to an incoming student – A long “expectation-setting” post that breaks life at school into a tension between six priorities 3. Designing for introversion – An introvert’s guide to thinking about the MBA experience 4. Lessons learned from internship recruiting – Lessons + a guide of how to think about the summer before school 5. Digging into my first-year process – A reflection on how I approached my first year and what I learned Rohan Rajiv is a second-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to Kellogg he worked as a consultant serving clients across 14 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. He interned at LinkedIn in Business Operations and will be heading back to LinkedIn full-time after he graduates in June 2016. He blogs a learning every day, including his MBA Learnings series, on www.ALearningaDay.com. Filed under: Academics, Career, Student Life Tagged: career, job search, life lessons, MBA Learnings, recruiting  
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09 Feb 2016, 14:58
09 Feb 2016, 22:11
10 Feb 2016, 09:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Healthcare in a startup mindset |
 By Rob Nagel The Kellogg School of Management is known for a number of things, including its team-based approach and growth-focused curriculum. From a 10,000-foot view, at its core, Kellogg has always been known as the marketing school, although more recently it has the distinction as the consulting school. What is less broadly assumed, but equally important, is its voice in innovation and healthcare. It’s these specific areas where I became keenly interested in Kellogg when considering business schools, and ultimately what I’ve determined to be my path as an MBA candidate. Startups are in and cool, however their fundamental value is in disrupting or advancing markets that are established, but in some way broken in terms of the customer’s engagement and ultimate satisfaction. I’d probably be breaking an unspoken law if I failed to mention Uber in a piece about startups, but the core need addressed by Uber only existed because an established market was not satisfying customers to its potential. We have seen this disruption in many industries, from hospitality (AirBnB) to weight-loss (MyFitnessPal) in order to re-align industry business models to focus — at their core — on the customer. Healthcare has plenty of money, energy and lip service being thrown its way by people who want to take that success and apply it here. Unfortunately, healthcare suffers from unique challenges that happen when your next best option, or opportunity cost, may be seriously harmful to your health. What Kellogg has done is provide the tools and resources to students so they understand the macro-economic factors in this industry before attempting to create “the next Uber / Netflix of healthcare.” Courses like U.S. Healthcare Strategy work to enrich how we approach the question of quality and customer satisfaction when the end customer — the patient — is rarely the person wielding the purse. Courses such as New Venture Discovery help insert design thinking into solving strategic problems, like how to keep children still in an MRI machine without sedation (hint: it involves an MRI machine painted like a pirate ship and narrating a siege for their imagination). And experiential opportunities, like Medical Product Early Commercialization, get students in front of healthcare startups to assess their go-to-market strategy, test their hypotheses and develop financial forecasts. The second leg of an MBA experience geared around healthcare innovation is to identify what you want out of your summer. There are many established healthcare employers who recruit on campus, as well as a number of growth-stage firms in this industry that seek out Kellogg students. Many carve out specific strategic internships around new product launches, marketing initiatives and targeted R&D decision making. These paths are worn to various degrees, facilitated by the Kellogg alumni network. Alternatively, students can work through various partnerships the school has to engineer an “enterprise” or off-campus internship search. Examples include MATTER, the health incubator in downtown Chicago, as well as Venture Lab, an experiential course where you intern during the quarter with a VC firm, of which a number are healthcare focused. Settings such as Kellogg’s Business of Healthcare Conference are also an opportunity to learn about cutting edge ways the private sector is trying to improve patient outcomes and to network with industry leaders. Such experiences are tactile opportunities to learn what it truly means to disrupt or innovate in this sector, as those words tend to be hyperbole without substance behind them. My experience to date has been one where Kellogg provides the tools and resources to not only survey and understand the unique market challenges, but also to determine ways to make meaningful and substantive change. Whether its coursework that pairs MBA candidates with medical students or an alumni network that spans from the Kaisers to the Fitbits of the world, the challenge is not what opportunities are available but rather which to choose. I’ve decidedly stuck to my guns and continue to recruit through the enterprise or off-campus route, using the .edu email address liberally. It means forgoing the comfort of knowing your summer plans by the end of January, but it also means engaging with founders and thought leaders in the space where I’m most excited to work. I’ve chosen health startups because of my deep passion for solving patient — and more broadly — healthcare consumer problems within a small, dedicated team. I’m hopeful to have the opportunity this summer to affect change in this industry, using the skills and tools I’ve acquired through Kellogg’s resources. Learn more about Kellogg’s entrepreneurship pathway. Rob Nagel is a first-year student in Kellogg’s Two-Year MBA program. He is focusing on healthcare strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation. He previously was a senior consultant at PwC. Filed under: Academics, Student Life Tagged: design innovation, design thinking, entrepreneurship, experiential learning, Healthcare, Innovation, New Venture Discovery, recruiting, Startups  
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