Managing Your Career

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Managing Your Career
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Agenda

• Interviewing
• Consulting career path
• Key Success Factors
• 5 tips for any entry-level job
• Assorted tips from corporate bigwigs

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Interviews

• Typical criteria includes
• Problem solving skills
• Analytical skills (disaggregate problems..)
• Quantitative skills
• Conceptual Skills (breadth of thought)
• Technical skills
• Domain expertise
• Papers, patents, presentations, advisor, school,
  grades, classes
• Personal Effectiveness skills
• Relationship building ability
• Ability to influence others
• Poise, presence
• Intangible skills
• Confidence, professionalism, manners, tone, body
  language
• The general feel the interviewer gets about you
  incredibly subjective, yet remarkably
  justifiable using seemingly objective criteria

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Vocation Avocation

• Vocation
• An occupation, esp. one for which a person is
  particularly suited
• Avocation
• An activity taken up in addition to ones regular
  work, usually for enjoyment
• Goal Vocation Avocation

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Consulting Careers

• Some leave, often for big company staff positions
• Opportunities within industry
• Acquired skills and work habits
• Project orientation
• Industry focus
• Analysis versus implementation
• Income trap
• Upside logical, rigorous thinking, network

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Key Success Factors

• Problem solving analytics, intelligence, 80/20,
  speed
• Communication
• Stakeholder relationships
• Teamwork
• Judgment and integrity
• Other keeping senior people happy (upward
  management), low-error tolerance
  (self-critical), make it happen
  (accountability), perception management
• Alignment with company values, e.g.,
• Client first consulting, banking
• Passion for technology high tech
• Individual excellence / big challenges /
  teamwork typical fortune 500
• Show me the money HF, PE, VC

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Tip 1 Your Goals

• Is there a clear deliverable for each goal?
• Do you understand what you need to know in order
  to accomplish your goal?
• Are your goals appropriate for your position?
• Do your goals challenge you at a level you are
  comfortable with?
• Are your goals Specific, Measurable, Realistic

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Tip 2 Communication

• Do you and your mentor have a plan for how you
  are going to communicate with each other?
• What happens if there isnt clear and consistent
  communication.
• Communicate early and often (e.g., weekly 11s)
• Write a brief summary of your meetings with clear
  action items
• Send status report emails on a regular basis
  (weekly or biweekly)

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Tip 3 Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Highly valued at most firms
• Enables you to learn where you need to grow and
  help others identify areas where they need to
  grow
• Ask for feedback proactively
• Tell people when they are doing a good job
• Be specific and use examples.

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Tip 4 Use Your Resources

• Mentor
• Manager
• Others in your group
• Recruiter
• Alums
• Friends, former mentors
• Dont underestimate the power of your network

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Tip 5 Be Conscientious With Time

• It is ok not to know, but be wise about finding
  out
• Try to balance the amount of time an answer takes
  to find, and the completeness of the answer
• Provide concise description of the problem
• Highlight how you tried to solve the problem
• Identify where you think the problem is now and
  possible solutions
• Determine what follow-up is necessary

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Assorted tips

• Choose the company not the job view the glass
  as half-full, keep ambition hidden, underpromise
  and overdeliver Jack Welch
• Overdeliver, keep an ear to the ground for new
  ideas, surround yourself with effective people
  Microsoft VP
• Use your currency Keith Ferrazzi, CMO
  Starwood
• Passion, Humility, Kindness Dennis Bakke, CEO
  AES
• The qualities I look for in my successor are not
  very different from those I would look in a
  prospective son-in-law Warren Buffet
• The most important person is the person in front
  of you focus on the here and now Alex
  Mamishev