One of the first and most important parts of the MBA career planning process is the MBA internship between the first and second year of the full-time MBA program. 

Year after year, thousands of first-year MBA students throughout the world compete with one other for the top summer internship opportunities: however, while there are numerous job search engines and job posting websites, as well as countless off and online guides on resumes, cover letters and job interviews, there are few, if any, that truly focus on MBA students and centralize all of these opportunities and informational resources in one easy-to-navigate location.

After making this discovery this past year as a first-year MBA student myself, I decided to start InternshipGPS, an innovative online MBA internship resource center specially designed to facilitate the MBA internship search and overall application process for first-year graduate business students worldwide seeking opportunities in the United States. 

At InternshipGPS.com, graduate business students can quickly view, search and link to the latest pre-screened MBA internship opportunities posted by employers and recruiters from all across the web.  In addition, interested employers and recruiters can contact InternshipGPS directly to post and/or promote their unique internship opportunities. Lastly, InternshipGPS also provides guides and resources on resume and cover letter building, as well as on best practices and strategies for internship interviews.

InternshipGPS is committed to serving the needs of MBA students in their career path planning and navigation. Students are encouraged to contact InternshipGPS with ideas, suggestions and concerns regarding how the organization can serve them more effectively.

While currently up and running, InternshipGPS.com is slated to officially launch this coming fall for the 2008-2009 internship search season.  Please pass the word along to any fellow MBA student or employer to whom you believe InternshipGPS might be useful or helpful.

For more information about InternshipGPS, please visit http://www.internshipgps.com/.

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Have you heard that business school students are the best predictors of impending cycle busts? Wherever bschoolers flock, you can be sure the peak has already passed. We love to follow the money, but unfortunately, the money never stays in one place long enough for MBA students to find it. Think technology bust in the late 90’s –that’s where all the smart kids were going from about the summer of 98 to 2000. Remember the real estate bubble of a couple of years past? Funny, that was the hottest career goals for bschooler students.

Why do I bring this all up? Because a couple of weeks ago Harvard Business School had a presentation on Private Equity and about 700 out of 900 first years showed up. I am not exaggerating, the place was packed. Yes, PE has been a huge money machine the past few years, but I figured that MBA students would realize that past performance isn’t an indicator for the future…but I guess, we don’t learn from our mistakes, because there I was sitting in the 7^th row among 699 others eating up every word.

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A friend of mine sent me this very interesting email chain conversation he had with some of his buddies regarding the issues they are grappling with as they decide whether or not to attend business school. I imagine this discussion is very relevant to lots of bschooler readers. (Please note we have removed all of the participant names and instead use WWWWW, XXXXX, YYYYY, and ZZZZZ to represent the four people involved in this chain).

For additional reading on this topic, check out these other relevant bschooler postings:
The MBA, is it really worth it ; How worthwhile is an MBA

The Email Chain:

On 10/4/07, XXXXX <XXXXX@yahoo.com > wrote:

so whats up with us taking a class?

On 10/4/07, YYYYY <YYYYY@yahoo.com > wrote:

I am game. But I was actually talking to WWWWW about it, because he wants to take it with us - maybe we should wait until Jan or so, because with all the holidays (TG, x-mas, etc) coming up I don’t want to miss any classes….

Your thoughts?

On 10/4/07, XXXXX < XXXXX@yahoo.com > wrote:

works fine for me. love all these articles, i was getting mentally prepared to do the mba thing now am totally unsure again. uggh. might as well take the test though

On 10/4/07, YYYYY < YYYYY@gmail.com> wrote:

Yea that’s how i feel. But notice how are the articles are all $ centric… if your only goal is to make a ton of $ then MBA may not be right thing…But hopefully if you get into a good school then education and networking should mean something, right?

On 10/4/07, ZZZZZ <ZZZZZ@yahoo.com > wrote:

YYYYY, while I agree a lot of these are $ centric, I am not 100% convinced that an MBA is the only route even for networking. It’s just food for thought… it will certainly be one of the best times of your life. I’m in the same position as you guys, don’t get me wrong… might as well try, but might also try to get a gig that will lead me to the gig i’d have out of school as well. Food for thought… everyone has differing opinions. You can always take a work sabbatical as well… I have to think it through just like ya’ll

On 10/4/07, WWWWW <WWWWW@wwww.com> wrote:

You need to figure that getting an MBA and not getting paid at work probably costs almost half a million dollars depending on your job.

It’s a touch choice to leave that much money on the table for a degree that might not help you that much. I know that people I work with are tending to skip it.

If you are good and the market is good – you get promoted…and once you are promoted its almost pointless to go for the MBA

On 10/4/07, YYYYY < YYYYY@gmail.com> wrote:

Don’t disagree with you… However, I think for those like myself who are not 100% convinced that a career in high finance is what I ultimately want, an MBA can give you the opportunity to step back, try out different things, get different people’s perspectives, and then make a calculated decision about where you want to end up.

I think if you want to stay in finance then the CFA is probably the way to go. Unless, like me again, you’d rather drink beer on the weekend then study your ass off for 3 years!

What’s key is that some of these articles assume that everyone wants to stay put on their current career track - what they fail to mention is that most people don’t have a fuckin clue about what makes them tick… That’s where the real value of going back to school is in my opinion - because we all work too hard to do any real thinking about career goals and all that shit.

On 10/4/07, ZZZZZ <ZZZZZ@yahoo.com > wrote:

WWWWW, speaking of which, I owe you a resume… coming soon.

YYYYY - good point. We aren’t educated enough about what each career entails. What happens is you start a job and then you’re like, this isn’t what I wanted. If they held seminars and we can really see what it’s like (which b-school provides) that is very valuable in the long-term. However, you can probably find this out even without b-school (network and eat out with people), and also meet people without the degree.

Also, once in b-school, what I hear is that you have a few weeks to make a decision about where you want to intern, and then you ultimately receive that full time offer the next year. I doubt you’d have a clue within a few weeks what you want to do…

On 10/4/07, XXXXX <XXXXX@yahoo.com > wrote:

mmmmm beer. do you need an mba to become gm of the yankees? thats the only thing i know id like to do.

On 10/4/07, WWWWW <WWWWW@yahoo.com > wrote:

I’m going to try and convince my company to buy them when Steinbrenner sells…

I’ll see what I can do for you

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Check out this very insightful blog posting on Guy Kawasaki’s blog detailing the projected and actual costs associated with launching the startup company Redfin. This is critical reading for any tech entrepreneur.

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Fortune magazine had a very interesting cover story this past weekend on the best companies for developing leadership talent. Most interesting to me was the discussion on the various tactics used to develop leaders. For those interested in becoming a leader in any capacity (startup, general management, non-for-profit, etc.), this is a great read…

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A friend of mine at school passed this WSJ article around our class. I figured the bschoolers readership would fine it interesting, and maybe, useful.

Must reads for M.B.A.s eying Wall Street jobs

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The Forté Foundation is an organization dedicated to encouraging women to pursue careers in business leadership by providing access to information, scholarships and
networking opportunities. Obviously this is an important topic for everyone in business to be aware of. The vast majority of b-schoolers are still men, and that quite simply means that the business school experience is not as well rounded as it should be.

This fall, Forté is coming to cities across the country with its Forum
series, featuring top women business leaders sharing candid advice drawn
from their own career experiences.

They’ll be joined by admissions officers from the top MBA schools, who will
answer questions and give advice about the admissions process.

The event includes plenty of time to mingle with corporate and school
representatives for one-on-one networking opportunities.

The schedule of events is as follows:
Boston, September 17th (register by September 13th)
Washington DC, September 18th (register by September 13th)
Chicago, September 19th (register by September 13th)
New York, September 20th (registration is closed)
Atlanta, September 24th (register by September 20th)
Houston, September 25th (register by September 20th)
San Francisco, September 26th (register by September 20th)
Los Angeles, September 27th (register by September 20th)
New York, October 1st (register by September 24th)
London, October 9th (register by October 1)

To register for any of these events, visit
http://www.fortefoundation.org/forum

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It’s incredible, school hasn’t even started but we are already laser focused on finding our next job. Last week, Columbia hosted a five hours session called “career day” preparing incoming students for the mad rush that is about to consume the lives of first year bschoolers.

The sessions were interesting: a general overview of the recruiting process, a resume workshop, a career assessment seminar, and a Q&A with second year students. I definitely walked away with some interesting perspective.

First and foremost, a thought on the process – it is going to be crazy! Immediately upon getting to school, students are encouraged to meet with career service advisors to discuss everything and anything career-related: resumes, interests, plans of action, scheduling, networking, etc. Already in September, the presentations begin. We have been warned that we will need to make choices on which presentations to attend since there will simply be too many (as well overlapping scheduling) to attend them all. By October/November we will need to perfect our resume and cover letters to apply for all of our target positions. By December we learn where we have been invited to interview. Our winter break will be spent preparing for interviews. Interviews actually begin in early January (even before break ends!) and can continue throughout the month. Finally, by the end of January or early February most will have secured their coveted summer position.

Clearly, these next few months will be a sprint of meeting people, learning about companies, networking and developing relationships all with the singular goal of landing that dream summer job. Amazingly enough, somehow through it all we are supposed to excel at our coursework, socialize with our peers, and take full advantage of all the ancillary school offerings (clubs, events, speakers, etc.). I don’t know about everyone else, but I anticipate becoming one heck of a Google/Outlook Calender user!

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