Industry week (Recruiting begins)

Hard to believe that it has already been three months since the start of the MBA program. What I find even harder to believe though is that we are starting our main recruiting cycle fairly shortly. So one might think that it is happening way too fast and that might indeed be the case if you are thinking in-terms of a two year programs. When it comes to the Ivey one year MBA experience it somehow ends up feeling more or less like a natural progression.

Recognizing that for the majority of students it’s the career enhancement aspect why we are ultimately here, Ivey places a big emphasis on trying to tightly integrate the career management activities into the curriculum. Right from the day one we are encouraged to take advantage of the fact that Ivey has such a resourceful career management team. The way it’s structured is by having individual Relationship Managers focusing on particular industry segments, such as consulting, finance, and general industry.

So now let’s take a look at a more specific career management activity to-date. Two weeks ago we had the “Get Connected” industry week in Toronto. Its purpose was to meet and get to know a variety of interesting companies. The beauty of it was that the whole week was pre-arranged for us. The recipe for success was simply to add Ivey students and mix and mingle.

The week was packed with networking events, information sessions, and career coaching activities. We had presentations and networking events going back to back starting at 8am and sometimes going until 10pm. For those of you curious about some of the companies that participated in activities that week, starting with management consulting firms – McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Oliver Wyman, Monitor, AT Kearney, Deloitte, IBM, ZS Associates. Finance – RBC, Scotia Capital, CPP, CIBC, BMO Capital markets. There was also number of general industry representatives. The one that particularly stood out for me was Google.

Overall, it was a great week, lots of useful contacts, tons of insightful information that we would not have had otherwise. The real test is going to come in less than a month when the main recruiting cycle starts!

Till next time,
George