Winter Break, Anyone?

Last week was technically the first week of the Spring semester. Stern gives us 6 weeks of winter break! Which I know is amazing, but REALLY it depends on what you are recruiting for, when you are a 1st year MBA. You see, most of the interviews for Banking, Consulting, and Marketing summer internships happen during the month of January. This is the usually the end of Fall Recruitment, the final push. Therefore, the MBA1s recruiting in these industries usually come back on campus the 1st and 2nd week of January. This period is great as it gives us time to only focus on interviews – without having to worry about classes, midterms or group assignments.

Once again the Stern Community pulled through.  Bootcamps, behavioral and casing preps were organized by the Management Consulting Association (MCA), the Graduate Marketing Association (GMA), and the Graduate Finance Association (GFA) to prep their members.  The Office of Career Development (OCD) was open and ready to help us. For example, the MCA created a spreadsheet that allowed us to sign up for casing prep with other MBA1s that were going through the process.  From Montreal, where I was spending the break with family, I was able to sign up and conduct multiple Skype casing sessions. When I came back on campus, we had rooms that were booked at school and that we could use for more prep. Some MBA2s even volunteered their time to help us, and give us some feedback.

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Recruitment is hard, it is part of the process, and we expect it. However, it can really make you question yourself, your abilities, and the reasons that you came to b-school in the first place. There are quite a few learnings that my peers and I took away, and that I am sure we will keep using the rest of this semester, for full-time recruitment and even later on.  A few that I can think of right now are: knowing yourself and understanding what the different firms are looking for, being open to more options, and more importantly remembering that there are more opportunities out there – and that we are in it for the long haul.  Fall Recruitment is emotionally taxing for everyone that is involved in it. For the ones that get offers, it is finally the time to take a deep breath and enjoy being done (for a while at least). For the ones that don’t make it, it is the time to recover, and keep fighting the battle. Like my father told me: “You will not miss what is meant for you!”.  For all of us, it is time to reflect, and to celebrate the learnings and friendships that were made through the process! But the thing that I am most looking forward to, is having a real winter break next year when I am an MBA2, 6 weeks of “freedom” that I will hopefully use to travel 😉

Have a great week,

Michaella