Corporate recruiters go back to school

By Della Bradshaw - Financial Times

Published: June 4 2007 03:00 Last updated: June 4 2007 03:00

Industrial companies have traditionally favoured hiring "second-hand" MBAs - those who have cut their teeth in banking or management consultancy and want to move on. Now, this is changing.

In spite of recent concerns in the business school world that MBA degrees do not teach students skills that companies need, recruiters are increasingly giving the professional services firms a run for their money when it comes to recruiting newly minted MBAs directly from business school. These days companies such as BP, BT, Google, Pepsico, Samsung and Shell are names as familiar on the business school campus as investment banks and management consultancies.

The change came with the classes that graduated in 2002 and 2003. Following the terrorist attacks in the US and subsequent economic uncertainty, management consultancies and bankers slashed staff numbers and stayed away from business schools. Industrial companies saw their chance.

... BT is not the only company recently to commence an MBA recruitment programme. In the past two years, Ericsson and Nike have introduced MBA recruitment programmes in Europe, says Katty Ooms, director of MBA admissions and career services at IMD, where 70 per cent of the graduates enter the corporate world...

To read the full article please refer to: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7749d366-1238-11dc-b963-000b5df10621.html

Beyond Borders - chat with Nnaemeka @ Port Harcourt

What are the things that are Beyond Borders? Music, Love, Gold, Doctor, Laughter, Bird-flu...

After an in-depth chat with my future classmate Nnaemeka in Port Harcourt, i can confidently add 2 more items on the list: MSN & IMD. It's magic that two people never knew each other before started chatting online because of IMD. We've surely covered more topics than the school. Cross Continents, Beyond Borders, there're things that we share & echo with each other: personal faith, family values, career goal, visa challenge, etc.

All can i say is, though we talked through MSN, I felt so real & connected to my brother in Nigeria. "Virtual World, Real Experience". I'm sure there'll be a lot more stimulating talks like this once we were in the "Real World, Real Learning" campus @ Lausanne next year. And I'm sure it will always be heartening & inspiring!

Let me end this post by inviting you to a series of http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/imd by Dr. Martha Maznevski, professor of organisational behaviour and international management at IMD. Lecture topics include how to identify the management challenges which accompany globalisation, how to manage across geographical distances and different cultural styles and how to develop and use business networks. Sit back & Enjoy listening!

Earshot...by 2 finance experts

4 weeks ago, the IMD interview team together with some alumni held a cocktail reception at http://www.harrys.com.sg/boatquay.htm on a Thursday night. About 16 interviewees were invited, some too nervous to turn up.

4 weeks later, 3 lucky survivors from Singapore met up at Earshot Cafe @ the Arts House (old Parliament House), still on Thursday night. Since I am less busier (Chinese / Singapore PR, marketing engineer for an European electronics company in Asia), it's natural for me to write a short diary for the first meeting of IMD 2008 MBA class in Singapore:-)

Sanjay (Indian / Singapore PR, finance controller of a listed agricultural company) arrived with a nice tie but he immediately untie it even before sitting down. John (regional treasury analyst for an inventive company) came shortly after in his jersey as if the soccer game just finished. Later he explained, that's the culture of the company. Wow! Flexible working hours, casual dress code, allowing working at home, are these rules more conducive for innovation?

Since both of them are in the finance role, our small round table talk soon turned into money talks. "So besides buying & selling currencies, what else do you do?", "Well, There are xx accountants report to me and I have to review their reports every quarter..." It's interesting for me as an outsider to hear how they communicate with each other. Doesn't seem too difficult, huh? I guess that's because both of them are really experienced and they know how to simplify their talks by avoiding too many jargon. The real challenge for us non-finance students will come when we start the basic accounting classes next year. That's why now one of the hot topics on the 2008 class website is about the "MBA Survival Kit". Good to start early & get ourselves prepared.

The night is still young but the night is also short. We all have to work on Friday though it's refreshing to discuss with perspective classmates about our future life in Lausanne. As John put it, to make our life next year easier, we have to work harder now until the day we say goodbye to colleagues.

P.S. Good news! Sanjay has also confirmed his place in the 2008 class & I will upload a photo taken during their discussion soon.

for Alan - 100 days in captivity

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2007/alan_johnston/default.stm

The BBC's Gaza correspondent was abducted in Gaza City on 12 March. Wednesday 20 June marks Alan Johnston's 100th day in captivity. An online petition calling for his release has over 170,000 signatures.

We are inviting anyone who runs a blog or website to do the same to show support for Alan. It's a simple but, we hope, effective way of spreading the message.

To add the button to your blog, just copy and paste the code below into your blog's HTML. You could add it to an individual blog post, or, even better, to your blog's sidebar. Please refer to the following page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/04/how_you_can_help.html

Inspired, Motivated, Devoted - IMD 2008!

Haven't updated the blog for a while and many things have happened in the past few weeks. An eventful interview at the Mandarin Oriental Singapore with a nice cocktail reception by some alumni, Janet & Lisa beforehand. Those in the same group would understand how happening it was during our day and it actually started even before we saw the interviewers:-P

Later, I met up with an entrepreneurship professor from Instituto de Empresa (Madrid, Spain). The school gave me a half-tuition fee scholarship. That meeting gave me some more thoughts on the MBA school decision. And hurray, I got the magic call from Lisa very soon due to this burning offer I shared the good news immediately with family & friends, it was a happy night! I immediately arranged the deposit payment, got in touch with other Asian interview survivors, and my boss left for Switzerland without me:-P Today (20 June), I got the confirmation from Corinne and logged on to the 2008 website. So exciting to see many "exotic" names which will be my colleagues soon next year. Look forward to seeing you in Lausanne!

P.S. though still a lot of things to prepare: housing, loan, visa, etc. I will put them aside for a while and have a good time with John, Sanjay for dinner on Thursday.

Bonne Nuit!

Shalom