Ivey MBA Career quest, going in “deep and wide”

Let’s make this a part 2 of the George’s MBA career search series. A quick recap of where we left it off last time:

1. Came into the MBA program over ambitious
2. Thought a top tier consulting job was the “it” job
3. Started wondering if consulting was really “it”
4. Didn’t get second round consulting interviews
5. Thought I was a failure
6. Took another look at non-Investment Banking and non-consulting jobs to realize that despite the lack of glamour they are jobs out there that might be just as good if not better that those “it” jobs

Alright so here you might start to get a sense of what the MBA career search really feels like. The analogy that comes to mind is the one of a roller coaster. If you have ever been on one of those crazy high roller coasters, you know the feeling where you rise up up and up, and it seems like you are on top of the world just to be screaming and going doooooown the next moment. Similarly, MBA career search too has a lot of ups and downs. And the first time you go through one of these downs, your get a shrinking feeling in your stomach. You think to yourself: Was it the right decision to spend $100 grand on the MBA, or maybe I should have listened to my family!

So here I was at the end of September, I found myself with no job and at a bit of dead end in my initial industry of choice (consulting). I was at a crossroads; I could continue my career search in consulting, targeting more boutique firms and ultimately lowering my career expectations. Other option would be to decide that despite my initial decision consulting wasn’t the right “fit” for me and move on in my career search. As a bit of side note, I believe human beings are naturally prewired for continuity, from the infancy majority of us seek comfort in routines and familiar environments that we are accustomed to. That in turn makes life predictable and comfortable. Moreover, to make life even easier we create a mental picture of our environment, a map of sorts to help simplify the everyday life. One of the hardest realizations at least for me has been to admit to yourself that your map is wrong and needs fixing. For an instance you realize that you are in conflict with yourself, and you have to tell your old self that she was wrong and that hurts. It does sting your pride but none the less you have to take the “plunge” and just move on.

And plunge I did take…

First of all I decided not to be closed minded to any job posting that comes up on school’s internal job posting website. While trying to look at those posting as objective as I could. That was the wide part of the “deep and wide” strategy. As the result I ended up interviewing for Product Management at Google, Project Executive at IBM, Leadership Development program at Eli Lilly and Company (Pharmaceutical) and a couple of other ones that I would have never considered just few short months before. The only promise that I made to myself was to be honest with interviewers about both myself and what I was looking to get out of the next job. That way I was hoping to make the job search process more collaborative, enlisting employers to help me land an ideal job. I took the principles that at least in theory should make you a more successful entrepreneur and applied them to my job search. Those were an almost unlimited faith in success and the willingness to push yourself forward towards your goals despite people around you telling you it won’t work.

The months of October through February I was going wide, doing as much research on my own as learning in action through interviews. I kept actively reaching out to alumni to meet with them and to understand new industry niches that appeared as a good “fit” for my skills and future career aspirations. At the same time I started to better understand the rules of the game: understand your strengths, realize your weaknesses and look for jobs where there are jobs. Let me elaborate: Strengths and weaknesses help you realize some of the constraints that you are going to be operating under in your job search. And looking for the jobs where there are jobs is a “no-brainer”!

I took a clean piece of paper, and I wrote my direct work experience, so out came the experience with Wealth Management industry, Product Management experience with Technology and finally some Sales experience. Then I started thinking about my other interests, such as Project Management, Leadership and Finance. Then I wrote down my weaknesses, but I’m not going to tell you those ;)

And finally after months of searching, BINGO!! One of the things that I accidentally got involved in at school was a helping to put together a transportation conference. The purpose of the conference was to bring together majority of stakeholders for the upcoming Québec – Ontario transportation corridor and to get process moving on public policy framework for this project. One piece of the project that I found of great interest was the use of public private partnerships (P3s) to help finance and build the infrastructure. On top of it, the more I researched it the more I was getting convinced that this is the perfect thing for me. I thought that this industry will not only let me leverage my experience with Public policy and project management but also be a perfect fit with my interest in Finance. Lastly, talking to alumni and doing research made it sound as if there’s a lot of potential for growth in this industry thus creating a lot of potential opportunities.

Now it was time to go deep…

I spend the next three months doing exactly as planned: strategically trying to hammer at the P3 market here in Canada. I reached out to major organizations such as Infrastructure Ontario, Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (now Metrolinx), banks, and contractors, basically you name it. And things were going great. I’ve applied to a job at a major player in the Ontario P3 market. I spoke to their CEO, HR and couple other people. I felt that the prospects of me getting the job were good. I even had people trying to help speed things up internally. Now let me bring you back to my roller coaster analogy at the beginning of this post. It felt as if I was on top of the world and could smell and touch that P3 Job. But fortunately for me I would get a chance to experience that again couple of times during the summer. Did I mention that I love roller coasters? So needless to say the P3 job never happened for me.

Next on the list was an international career. I spend significant part of my life in Moscow Russia and speak the language fluently, so I thought why not look for a job there. Furthermore, the job situation in Canada and North America has been deteriorating significantly throughout the year leading to a recruitment freeze on both Bay and Wall Streets. Again working my contacts and alumni I was actually able to come quite close to getting an internship in Moscow Russia with European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). And again up I went on that roller coaster getting all excited at the prospects of joining EBRD and helping them put together a policy framework for micro financing in Russia with potential for a permanent job after the 6 month internship. But you guessed it, at the last minute EBRD cancelled the position as they didn’t get enough applicants. All I could do at that point was to smile and think that this all felt too much like a déjà vu over and over again. How can one operate if even such a basic thing as the lucky three rule has failed you ahaaahah (consulting, P3, and now EBRD)? I knew though that instead of putting my hands down now was the time to push it even harder.

But what I didn’t know if that my luck was about to finally take a turn for better.