The MBA Student Voice

Anderson Case Competitions: Pick your flavor

One of the items that topped my business school bucket list was “participate in a case competition.” I didn’t have the opportunity to compete in one during undergrad and thought it would be the perfect avenue to apply the many skills that I’m honing at Anderson. Plus it’s a quintessential bschool activity, almost a right of passage. Luckily, Anderson hosts a range of case competitions on campus each year, so students have a lot of interesting challenges from a range of industries to cut their teeth on.

During the fall, some of my classmates came up with the next big thing for Amazon during the HTBA Amazon Case Competition and solved a complex hypothetical growth problem for Smart Things during the 2014 Deloitte National Case Challenge. This winter quarter, my friend and fellow first-year, Dan Abbott, and his teammates took home the gold during the 4th annual Challenges in Energy Case Competition for their win-win solution for EV charging at commercial location. Another friend, Liz Prutting, competed in the Entertainment Case Competition during the annual MEMES Pulse Conference, sponsored by Paramount Pictures. Her team came up with a set of creative recommendations on how to move media consumers up the margin ladder for movie purchases.

I, on the other hand, leapt into the case comp pool by way of the Net Impact Consulting Challenge (NICC), which took place last weekend. While most case competitions are just a few days, the NICC was a fascinating 2.5-week real consulting engagement with a real client. All participating clients were local LA non-profit organizations that signed up with real issues they needed help analyzing. My team of five was paired with a client org, which will remain anonymous, that has a serious volunteer recruitment and retention problem. (They rely on volunteers for 90% of all activities.) As someone who is deeply interested in all things human-capital-management related, this was a great fit for me!

Over the course of the next two and a half weeks, our team conducted extensive secondary research on volunteer trends and best practices in the non-profit sector. This informed our primary research, as we did multiple site visits to interview volunteers and conduct surveys. Ultimately we came up with a detailed plan outlining different recruitment and retention tactics to increase volunteer numbers and keep them engaged longer, and presented our recommendations to a panel of social impact experts. I wish the story ended with "then we won first place!" But it doesn't, because we didn't. We didn't even advance to the finals. But that didn't matter - our client was thrilled with our research, analysis, and recommendations. In a follow-up meeting, they said that they planned to implement most, if not all, of our suggestions. That meant more to our team than any first place prize. Plus, now I think I've found a new organization to volunteer with here in LA!

In other Anderson Case Competition news (for all you bankers out there) - tomorrow marks the kick-off of the Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition 2015. Good luck to the team representing Anderson!

Team Sugar Dumplings: Richard Wang, Britney Sussman, Kirby Ryan, Lucy Prom, and Lindsee Redmond

Follow me on twitter: @brit808 

MBA Recruiting Season - Repost from FT

The same is reproduced on Financial Times MBA Blog - http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog/2015/02/11/recruiting-season/

The winter quarter at UCLA Anderson brings On Campus Recruiting (OCR), changing the entire mood around the school. This year, a diverse set of companies started visiting, conducting internship interviews with first-year full-time MBA students. Happy hours were replaced with interview-practice team meetings and queues at the career management center seemed longer than those in food cafes.

The finance companies wrapped up their recruiting by the end of January, whereas the big tech and consulting firms are conducting subsequent rounds. Alums, career advisors and second-year coaches have been very helpful during the process, as is the internal database which helps students tap into a wealth of knowledge regarding interview questions and best practices.

What I learnt: Do not compare yourself to other candidates. Different industries have different recruiting cycles, so it is just a matter on time before you will land your desired internship. And remember – every failed interview is only practice towards cracking the job you really deserve.

Congratulations to all those who have secured their internship and good luck to everyone else.

My not-so-nervous colleagues waiting for their interviews

Challenge for Charity (C4C) Casino Night

What do raising money for charity, playing Blackjack with your professors and bidding on various awesome auction items (such as a signed shirt from David Hasselhoff!) have in common? The answer is Challenge for Charity (C4C) Casino Night. C4C, Anderson's student run charity organization helped setup casino night with a silent auction to raise funds and compete against other business schools on the West Coast in one of the largest fundraising activity of its kind, that culminates with Stanford weekend.

All proceeds from the auction go to charity. This year's theme was Venice Carnival style mask party. Students got to play blackjack with their professors as dealers, while some tried their luck at craps and poker. All the while our in house DJ blasted the best tunes for the dance floor. Even though the chips had no monetary value, students enjoyed playing to win big and get more tickets for the raffle draw. There was even a photo-booth style picture taking opportunity complete with props. All in all it was a great night of mingling for full-time, fully employed and executive MBA students.  

Pictures from the event say it all.

 

6 things to keep in mind when you are getting ready for an admissions interview

    I have had an opportunity to meet so many great prospective students in the past several months while interviewing them for admission at UCLA Anderson and I would like to share some advice for future candidates to help them get ready for an upcoming interview.

 1)      Know your resume! You need to know your story well in order to make a good impression. Think about it: when you get to business school, you will be talking to companies and you will have to know your story well.  It’s much more impressive when a candidate knows his or her story without having to refer to a copy of the resume during the conversation.

2)      Treat a skype interview as a face-to face interaction.  Eye contact and strong presentation skills are just as important over Skype as in person, so be sure to look in the camera while you are talking! Avoid having ready answers printed in front of you.  It is very easy for an interviewer to realize that you are reading the answer instead of telling it from the heart. This one thing can quickly make the wrong impression.

3)      The interview normally is about 30 minutes long, and the time flies very quickly.  Remember your goal is to show you are a strong candidate, while the interviewer’s goal is to get to know you. Be mindful of time and aim for 2-3 minutes for an answer to a question, avoid taking up most of your precious interview time discussing too many details in your responses. Use a high level approach describing the situation, your impact and the results. The interviewer will ask follow up questions if something is not quite clear.

4)      Come up with good questions for the interviewer! Show your interest in the school and the person! The worst situation is when the interview went well and then the candidate asks very general questions about the program with answers easily found on the web site or even worse says: “I have no questions”…

5)      Don’t rush to the answer especially if you are taken aback by the question. Take a second to think your answer over and I guarantee you will find a good answer that will demonstrate how awesome you are and what you will bring to the program!

6)      Relax and smile! It is an opportunity for you to talk to somebody who was in your shoes some time ago and who is interested in learning more about you! Smile, be positive and speak about yourself with passion!

Good luck with the interviews!

Stay well,

Alena