MBS MBA FAQs: Career Prospects

Every couple of weeks I get an e-mail from someone looking to do an MBA from Melbourne Business School. I get asked lots of different questions in these e-mails but the ones I get most often cover admissions advice, post-MBA career prospects and the MBS careers office, and what my impression of MBS is now that I'm in the job market.

I've been meaning to blog about my replies to those e-mails for a while now but have only just gotten around to doing so. Here then is the first of those blog posts, this one covering career prospects and questions about MBS' Career Services Centre.

Q. What is the Career Services Centre at MBS like?

A. It's pretty good and it's getting better. To give you an example: Back in 2006, when I started my MBA, the concept of an "MBA internship" was relatively new in Melbourne (and maybe even in Australia where internships and apprenticeships are generally 6-12 months long and are often something you do after your undergraduate degree). My MBA intake was the first to have an internship built into its program and, of the 30 or so people who wanted to do an internship, only 12 managed to get one. Things have improved drastically since then: of the 50 or so people who wanted to do an internship this year, over 45 got one. Most of that is thanks to the Career Services Centre's efforts of the last couple of years.

The Career Services team is pretty impressive, too: they have a general careers consultant who can help you figure out what you want to do with your life and a bunch of industry specialists who really know what they're talking about. The industry specialists also have great relationships with all the big companies in their designated industries. They also have a coordinator and general manager, both of whom know pretty much everything that's going on and are a valuable resource in themselves.

The Centre also runs weekly career-related workshops (which are invaluable), holds a two-day residential careers/leadership training session (which is awesome), and manages the relationships with all of the companies that recruit from MBS (see next question).

Q. What kinds of companies recruit from MBS?

A. All kinds, including some of the biggest, most successful, and most well-known companies in Australia and the world. There are on-campus recruitment sessions/presentations held throughout the year and here is a list of some of the companies that held one during my last term there:

Q. How do MBS students get/find their jobs? What kinds of jobs do they get, how much do they get paid, and which countries do they get these jobs in?

A. For details on all of this, read MBS' graduating class survey for 2007. The data for the 2008 survey hasn't been collected year (that should happen next month) and I'll blog about that once the results are in.

Keep in mind, though, that 2007's "average" starting salary of AU$105,211 doesn't actually tell you much because it doesn't capture the massive difference between graduates starting in, for example, C-suite positions and earning over 150k per year and graduates working in non-profits and earning under 70k per year. This is problem with averages.

What you can do to supplement this data is to look at industry-specific salary ranges as reported via salary surveys conducted by these four recruitment firms:

Notice how salary averages change across cities and industries and how they vary among the surveys themselves.

Q. What are the chances of using the MBA to switch industries?

A. It's never easy to switch industries but the MBA is a great degree to switch with. That said, unless you work really hard, are incredibly persistent, and get a little lucky, you are unlikely to get your dream job in your target industry right after you graduate (particularly if you want to get into something like investment banking!). Instead, you'll probably start at a lower-than-expected position in your new industry and will then work your way up to your dream job. This, by the way, is compared to the position someone from that industry would start at if they went and did an MBA and then came back. However, once you do make the switch, you're likely to move up the corporate ladder (i.e. to your dream job) quicker than someone who doesn't have an MBA.

The best part: you have tonnes of resources to help you make the switch. This includes not only books, elective courses, and industry clubs, but also your classmates, faculty members, Career Services staff, and alumni.

The most powerful industry-switching tool available to you, however, is your MBA internship. Assuming you manage to get one in your target industry, you'll not only get some industry experience on your resume, you'll also get networking contacts, lots of news and information about that industry, and maybe even direct contacts in companies that you might want to apply to for a job.

Q. What does it take to get a job in management consulting?

A. Lots of hard work, a love of numbers, the ability to see the big picture and the interconnections between elements, and the right (i.e. management consulting) attitude. The advantages you'll have

in being an MBS student include:

  • You'll get taught how to do all of this
  • If you like it, there are numerous electives you can take that will teach you how to do it even better
  • MBS has great relations with all of the top management consulting firms in Australia. Indeed, many of its lecturers have worked in those firms in the past.

That said, there are two things you have to be ready for.

  1. Consulting firms will only hire you if your grades are really high (i.e. top 20% of your graduating class high) and, even then, only if you do really well on their case interviews (which are never easy).
  2. Only one or two people get into any of those firms in a given year and there are lots of smart people at MBS who want to get into management consulting so there's plenty of competition.

In other words: the prospects are great if you work really hard, do lots of preparation, and get really good grades. If not, your prospects are still good but it might take longer and may be harder to get in.

Finally, the Career Services Centre and the student-run MBS Consulting Interest Group will guide you in all of this.

On to other topics...

Those are the most popular career-prospect questions I tend to get. I'll move on to other topics next time but if there are any other specific questions you want me to answer on this topic, please let me know and I'll cover them in a subsequent blog post.

MBA Skills at Work: Part 1

I've been working at Linfox for almost two months now and I've hardly even noticed. Time really does fly when you're having fun and working your butt off, doesn't it?

Now that my major project at Linfox is complete -- we re-launched Linfox.com last week -- I thought it would be a good time to do a quick recap of how things have been at work and how the Melbourne Business School MBA is helping me do my job really well.

But before I get to that...

Actually, funnily enough, the thing I found most immediately useful at my new job was not something I learnt during the MBA but is something related to the work I did in MBS' Information Technology Solutions department earlier this year. That is: I knew how to use SharePoint really well.

In May, MBS launched its new intranet (called 'MBS Direct') based on Microsoft's SharePoint technology. Just a month before that Linfox launched its own intranet (called the 'Lintranet') also based on that technology. Having learnt a great deal about SharePoint at MBS -- and many SharePoint tips and best practices from our vendor, Bullseye -- taking over from the previous Online Coordinator was incredibly straightforward and hassle-free.

E-Commerce and Information Management

As you would imagine, stuff learnt in Pat Auger's E-Commerce and Information Management courses is coming in really handy in my new job. Here are two lessons I'm finding most useful at this time.

1. Making a business case: My boss understands how important both the intranet and public website are to the business; she is, after all, Linfox's Group Communications Manager. People in top management, however, are more focused (as they should be) on running a logistics company, a couple of airports, and a few other Linfox Group businesses. My boss and I therefore need to demonstrate -- in almost everything that we do -- the business benefits of maintaining these two sites (which I am in charge of and she is the champion for).

This is where something like Google Analytics comes in. My boss can now tell her boss that, just last week, over 1,000 unique visitors got to Linfox.com via a search engine (we also know the keywords they used to get there) and that, by far, the most popular section on the site is the 'Working at Linfox' one. Now the site's only been up for ten days so there's more data to collect before we take things to the next level (like further developing the recruitment section) but already it's clear what one of the major benefits of having a good website is: you can communicate directly with potential employees in order to get the best and most suitable candidates to apply for jobs that you advertise.

2. Internal communications: Having spent years in IT -- which in many companies is the one of the least communicative, least understood, and possibly least-liked departments -- I know how important it is to communicate internally the benefits of the work you're doing. Things are a little different in the Communications department but internal communications is still an important task for me.

For example, two phrases that I've found to be really useful are "it's on the Lintranet" and "search for it". These are important because the last iteration of Linfox's intranet took the usual route to uselessness: it had too much stuff on it (it had become a bloated file archival dump) most of which was irrelevant (no versioning, lots of replication) and hard to find (limited search functionality). This new iteration is lean, well-organized, and has versioning, no duplication, and excellent search functionality. However, not everyone knows this.

My job, then, is to (a) keep the intranet in great shape and (b) to tell everyone how great the intranet is. My aim is to make this a virtuous cycle: if people expect it to be great, they'll make sure it stays great -- with a little poking, prodding, and policing from me, of course! So when someone asks me for something, I usually say "it's on the Lintranet" (since it usually is) and, most of the time, they're able to find what they're looking for quickly and easily. If not, a simple search does the trick.

One thing that really helps me here is the direct support I get from my team. This mostly comes in the form of a line in every bit of internal communication that we do that goes something like "you can find (more information about this) on the Lintranet".

More in Part 2

There's much more I want to write so I'm going to split this into two, or maybe three, posts. I have yet to talk about:

  • Applying people skills learnt in the Managing People for High Performance, Negotiations, and Leadership courses.
  • Applying marketing skills learnt in the Brand Management and Consumer Behaviour courses.
  • General skills learnt while doing the MBA; such as how to handle multiple projects, deadlines, and priorities without breaking a sweat.
  • Observing how things are working at a more strategic level within the company; such how business and corporate strategy are playing-out, what leadership is being exhibited by senior management, what the company's environmental strategy is, and how intellectual property is being managed.

But more about all this next time.

Mark Ritson: Prolific Blogger!

I've mentioned earlier on this blog that Mark Ritson, my Brand Management professor at Melbourne Business School, contributes to the Branding Strategy Insider blog. Of course, "contributing" is a mild word considering the number of blog posts he writes!

Here are some of my favourites:

Impressive, isn't he?

I Graduated!

That's it. I'm done. I have graduated!

As of this morning, I am an MBA from the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Business School...and I can prove it:

Proof!

 

I'm even wearing the University of Melbourne lapel pin! And in case you're wondering why that's so important, that pin is given only to UniMelb graduates (exclusivity works, eh?).

This is what I looked like in full graduation regalia (fun to wear, a hassle to sit in):

In my formal regalia

 

Graduating Ceremony

The ceremony was good -- despite the fact that today was the rainiest and coldest day Melbourne has had this winter (non-stop rain, temperatures dropping to three degrees overnight).

We heard from the University's Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, who started the ceremony with the traditional welcome address in which he talked about the privileges and responsibilities that come with the degrees we were being awarded. We also heard from MBS' Dean, John Seybolt, who introduced our occasional speaker, REA Group's Simon Baker (an MBS alumnus who I've mentioned before on this blog). Baker talked about his top ten business tips that he didn't learn in his MBA (good speech).

Associate Dean Mark Crosby (from MBS) read out the names of the postgraduate diploma and masters students while we walked on to the stage and got our degrees from the VC (with much hat doffing). Crosby did an excellent job with name pronunciations. Associate Dean Ron Slocombe (from the Graduate School of Research) then read out the name and citation of our single PhD graduate for 2008 who, appropriately enough, got the longest round of applause from us mere MBAs when he went to get his degree.

We then had an excellent celebratory lunch at MBS during which we ate, caught up, and met friends' families. All in all, it was an awesome day.

Valedictory Dinner

Oh, and since I haven't blogged about this before let me quickly mention that three nights ago we had our valedictory dinner. This was held at Ormond College, one of the University's oldest (founded in 1879) residential colleges. It also has the most castle-like building on campus, complete with Hogwarts-style dining hall (yes, that's an actual photo from our dinner!):

 

You can read about that, including details of the awards and prized conferred, in a news article on the MBS website (which is also where I got the photograph from).

All I can say now is: All's well that ends well and thus endeth my MBA.

One More MBS Blogger

Add another MBS blogger to the list:

Alanna's been blogging about her Melbourne Business School MBA since October last year but I came across her blog only recently. (Hmmm...maybe I should write a SEO primer for MBS bloggers).

Her blog is both informative and really fun to read so, for all those interested in what the MBS experience is like, hop on down and take a look.

Update: I've started to maintain a list of all MBS or MBS-related bloggers that I know of on a static page on this site. That way, people looking for MBS bloggers won't have to hunt through my old blog posts, they can just look at that one page. (Though I will continue to publish a blog post every time I find a new relevant blogger.)

John Armstrong is MBS' Philosopher-in-Residence

Melbourne Business School recently appointed John Armstrong as our first ever Philosopher-in-Residence.

Though this news was covered in the press, I didn't write about it here because I was really busy at the time and figured I'd mention it later. That later came about yesterday when The Guardian published an article about it. So let me do a quick recap of the news coverage that Armstrong and his appointment at MBS have received so far:

Though Armstrong hasn't started teaching his own courses yet he did guest lecture in our Business & Sustainable Development course which was both fun, as guest lectures always are, and eye-opening, if you hadn't yet looked at consumption from that point of view before.

Now that I've graduated, however, I won't be able to attend any of Armstrong's courses. Fortunately, he has given talks to MBS alumni in the past and I hope he will do so in the future as well. Regardless, I wish him all the best and hope he makes the students graduating from MBS better thinkers, philosophers, and, ultimately, leaders.

New MBS Blogger

My Google Alerts tell me that we have a new Melbourne Business School MBA blogger to add to my previous list:

He's only just started blogging, with two posts so far, and is a part-time student (our only full-time intakes are in January and September). Let's hope he keeps it up and tells us the story of his entire MBA journey.

Of course, like the rest of us, he'll probably go silent during the last couple of weeks of each study term while he struggles to juggle work, study, home life, and (if possible) a social life...but that's to be expected :)

And I'm Done!

And I'm done with my MBA. Actually, I was done on Friday but I took it easy over the weekend :)

This now concludes 20 months of hard work, late nights, early mornings, essays, individual assignments, syndicate assignments, case studies, class discussions, research, and exams. During this period I met a lot of great people who taught me a lot of different things. I also formally learnt a heck of a lot about many different subjects. Specifically, I took these courses during my four study terms:

  1. World of Management

  2. Data & Decisions

  3. Managing Processes

  4. Accounting for Managers

  5. Financial Management

  6. Corporate Finance

  7. Managerial Economics

  8. Economics and Public Policy

  9. Business Strategy

  10. Corporate Strategy

  11. Implementation of Strategy

  12. Managing People for High Performance *

  13. Leadership & Change

  14. Negotiations *

  15. Marketing

  16. Brand Management

  17. Consumer Behaviour

  18. E-Commerce *

  19. Information Strategy

  20. Business & Sustainable Development (half subject)

  21. Strategic Management of Intellectual Property (half subject)


Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Actually, it really was.

And now it winds to a close. All that's left is my graduation on the 17th and then I can officially say that, yes, I am an MBA from Melbourne Business School, thank you very much :)

Now to find a job so I can start my next adventure...

Speaking of jobs, by the way, I received the nicest job application rejection phone call today. It was from the job I mentioned a few weeks earlier (the one I was most excited about) and, though I'm terribly disappointed that I didn't get it, I understand that the company needed to choose the best person for the role who, in this case, was unfortunately not me. Still, out of the 200 applications they received I was one of the four people they interviewed and that's a really good feeling. Oh well. Next time, then.

- - - - - - - - - -

* I received commendations from the Dean for my participation and academic achievement in these subjects. Woo hoo! :)

All Done with MBA Classes!

Today I attended my last MBA class and participated in my last syndicate meeting. I now have two assignments (one individual and one syndicate-based) and two exams to do before I'm completely done with the MBA.

11:15am on Friday, 2 May, 2008...here I come!

Meanwhile, I went and signed up for my graduation regalia. Since The University of Melbourne follows the Oxford style of gowns and hoods for its formal academic dress, I get to wear a black gown (the Melbourne Business School MBA's colours are a sky blue stripe with a gold band), a hood, and a black trencher cap (with black tassel).

We have two other functions before that, though -- the end-of-term party and the valedictory dinner -- both of which should be lots of fun. I'm getting all excited about this now :)

Components of a Successful Intranet

Toby Ward of Prescient Digital Media has a couple of really good models on what it takes to have a successful intranet. Specifically:

You can read more about them in his article Intranet Planning: An Intranet Model for Success. Great stuff -- and very close to home as well because, at MBS, we're in the middle of rolling out our new intranet portal. In fact, the first phase of our project is in the Implementation and Marketing stages of Ward's project methodology model. Exciting times, indeed.

2 MBS Profs Selected for Aus2020 Summit

Two Melbourne Business School (MBS) professors -- Ian Harper and Joshua Gans -- were among the 1,000 delegates selected to attend the Australia 2020 Summit to be held in Canberra later on this month.

They'll be on the Productivity Agenda - educations, skills, training, science, and innovation panel for which the attendees list, according to Gans, "looks like a pretty typical economics conference". I presume that's a good thing.

Mark Ritson Talks Luxury Brands

Mark Ritson, who taught us Brand Management at the Melbourne Business School this term, is featured in the latest University of Melbourne Up Close Podcast in which he talks about marketing luxury brands. He touches on what we learnt about luxury brands in the BM course which is really fascinating (well, at least to me) so make sure you take a listen.

Also, I don't think I wrote about this back then but a few months ago Amanda Sinclair, another one of our MBS professors, was featured in an Up Close Podcast as well. She talks about mindful leadership, which is something we learnt about in her Leadership & Change course last term and now, hopefully, practice! That's also a really good podcast so check that out as well.

I like this whole podcast business. Of the non-IT elective I've taken at MBS, Leadership, Brand Management, and Negotiations were my three favourite (though Consumer Behaviour comes very close) and now, instead of just waxing lyrical about them to everyone I meet, I can give people a slight taste of them as well.

Melbourne Business School on Dopplr

I came across Dopplr in June last year via Web Worker Daily ('Social Networking Dopplr Connects You When You Travel' by Stephen Collins) and thought it was a great networking tool for people who travel a great deal:

How often have you thought to yourself, “I’m going to <insert random conference/city/event here> next week. I wonder who else I know is going.” At this point, there’s invariably a chain of ill-timed emails, inevitably missing someone who is actually going to be in the same place as you at the same time. Dopplr aims to resolve this issue through providing a way for those serendipitous moments to be under your control, rather than left to random chance.

After signing up for Dopplr, you enter your upcoming travels, building a list of your movements. As you add connections with people you know, Dopplr comes into its own, letting you, and your connections, know when you will be in the same place at the same time.

Yesterday, while searching for MBS-related blogs, I discovered that in November last year Dopplr opened up its then-in-beta website to business school travellers from a hundred global b-schools (called its 'MBA 100') and that Melbourne Business School was included in that list.

Dopplr's service has since been launched to the public and, from what I've heard, it's pretty good. I don't have much use for it myself -- I don't travel much, at least not yet...maybe I will once I get a job -- but I'm sure others will find it useful. And who knows, maybe our faculty and Alumni department already use it. I guess I'll ask.

For more on Dopplr, read this Webware.com post by Josh Lowensohn.

Melbourne Business School Blogs

UPDATE: I now maintain this list on its own page.

A few days ago I mentioned to a colleague that very few Melbourne Business School (MBS) students, faculty, and staff members are also bloggers (to my knowledge: two faculty members, three students, and four staff members).

Later it occurred to me that I might have spoken too soon. Yes, I had done quite a bit of research on this in the past -- which is why I was confident enough to have made that statement in the first place -- but was my statement completely accurate?

To check, I did a much more comprehensive round of research on the 'net and, whaddya know?, I found some more MBS blogs. Here's an updated, more comprehensive, listing:

Current Students

Alumni

Staff

I know of three other staff members who blog but, since they haven't declared themselves as MBS staff on their blogs, I'm not going to mention them here.

Also, one of my part-time MBA class mates, who is also the CIO at MBS, wrote an blog post (don't know if he's going to contribute there regularly) so he also gets a mention:

Faculty

I haven't found any new faculty member blogs so I thought I'd list faculty member websites instead. Also, since a lot of our faculty members have their publications listed at the Berkeley Electronic Press website, I've included a link to that as well:

Have I missed anyone? If so, please let me know. Thanks.