One last week for summer internship

This will be the last blog that I post for the summer. It’s hard to realize that my internship with Citibank is just one week from completion and new semester is about three weeks away. Looking back to the past 9 weeks with CitiMortgage in Ann Arbor, I think it’s been a really great learning experience for me and I had some really good time during summer as well. I think for this last post, it’d be a good idea to pause for a moment by looking back this summer and to reflect on new things that I learned.

I started my summer internship on the second day that I came back from holidays after travelling half dozen countries. So I was still jet legged when I was sitting in Citibank’s conference room with other 35 summer associates for the orientation week in New York. However, it was so exciting to meet and know many new friends and colleagues from other business schools around the country. People in Citibank really made us feel welcoming to the summer internship program and we are all looking forward to it. After getting back to Ann Arbor office, I was assigned to a new project, which involves interviewing and hiring new staff for an operation center in Danville, IL. The process was tiring and I spent lot of time working on this project. But the experience was valuable to me not only because of the satisfactory results that we achieved in Danville, but also because of the exposure to recruitment and coaching process. I am sure that some of great takeaways that I learned will be of help for my future career. The final highlights for the summer were the two week group project in New York with other associates. As I mentioned in my previous blog, it was a difficult and stressful assignment for us. Luckily, all team members worked very hard on this project together and senior managers made themselves accessible to the questions that we had and provided great feedbacks on our projects. Life outside of work in New York was always exciting. I went to over a dozen nice restaurants and bars with friends during the restaurant week. It had been a great dining and social experiences and we had lot of fun.

The internship is about to finish but the learning process will never end. There will be new business challenges every day. What kind of banking products shall we offer to customers to make their life easier? How can we capture more market share from competitors in US and globally? What shall we do to be a responsible lender and make profits to shareholders at the same time? As a MBA graduate and future business leader, we should keep asking ourselves those challenging questions, work harder and smarter in an increasingly competitive market so as to make companies not only survive but also thrive in the market. Good luck everyone and see you all back in Ross soon.

Final thoughts- Never stop learning

-Hi everyone, I am one week away  to finish my internship, so this last blog may reflect some mixed feelings. Of course, I want to go back to business school, but as I’ve been saying before, my internship has been a great experience.  First, I had relevant and very interesting projects, second I have a great work-life balance that allows me to take advantage of NYC and third, New York itself, which is a great city to be in the summer with tons of free activities.

To wrap up my blog series, I am going to talk about the final presentation. During my last post I talked about a group project, do you remember that? Well, once we submitted the project, we needed to present to the top senior leaders of the organization, our managers and the rest of summer interns. Basically the auditorium was filled with around 50 people. The combination of the quantity and quality of the audience were factors that created a very stressful, and busy week. I am not the type of person who likes practicing presentations, but given the context, we practiced 6 times. The good thing, is that the official presentation wen very well. We were able to convey a heavy-data-driven project, and all our international accents with some fun examples, which helped to engage the audience and make the presentation more interesting.  Two big take aways of this final presentation: Again, a group works in which is important to establish roles and identify peoples’ strengths to divide better the presentation and set a positive tone, or simply manage the flow.

 Also, as international student, I would say that I had to step back and be humble to asses this US professional landscape, learn more things and be very open to feedback. Back in Mexico, I was so used to give presentations to big audiences and important people that I hadn’t had feedback for a long time ago, but in this context, I did, and it made me change my mindset for good, as I realized that there are always ways to improve. This conclusion was a constant during my internship. I got 6 years of work experience before coming to the MBA, and, at least for our group project, I was the one with more experience. I can say that this professional experience definitely  helped me to navigate Citi as a big organization, create good networks, solve business problems and approach the things that I was asked to do.

However, sometimes experience may cause less willingness to learn or take feedback. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the things that I learned from many people, as I’ve been saying, Citi is a very diverse organization, in every sense.  I found that I always had something to learn. Yes, I know, an MBA candidate has to be open to learn always new things, but the truth is that many times it is more a mantra than something that people take into practice. So, this summer I really practiced doing this, learning by doing and being very open to feedback with a true willingness to improve. Which in the end, may turn to be a good impression when feedback is internalized and put in practices. Not only for the summer, but also in general for a good professional life.  Finally, I think that by keeping this mindset, I am going to leverage more on my Ross classmates and learn the most during my last MBA year.

Group project in New York

An important part of our summer internship program at Citi is this two-week group project in New York. All associates working for different business functions in commercial banking are pre-assigned to groups of 6 to 8 people to solve a real business case, come up with recommendations and present them to senior leaders at the end. It’s essentially a five-day internal consulting project designed to evaluate our performance in leadership, business acumen and teamwork spirits. It was an intense and highly pressured project, which covers five markets in three different continents, serving over 10 million potential customers.

After this group project, my internship has only two weeks left. Apart from saying time flies, all of the interns that I met in New York, including myself are anxiously waiting to see if we will get return offers with Citibank. Therefore, every team member is working really hard together, trying to come up with some brilliant business ideas that can solve the real business cases for the bank. In earlier this week, summer interns from all business functions and all study programs were gathered at the Bank’s New York headquarter for the speech delivered by Vikrum Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup. In his speech, Mr Pandit talked about the importance of integrity in the world of finance and Citi’s transition to more transparent and responsible lending since he took the helm during the global financial crisis. The conference room was filled with over 600 summer interns, both undergraduate and graduate students from all the top business schools around the country. It was a great event in the summer.

Besides work, New York is always a great place to be in terms of social life and nice food. Talking about food, I arrived just in time for the New York restaurant week, which lasts for three weeks with about 100 participating restaurants. I went out several times with my fellow summer classmate to some nice restaurants in New York and had some really good time there. Lastly, I just hope that our team presentation in front of some very senior people in Citi goes well next week. Fingers crossed.

Diversity, Exposure, Cooperation and Work-life balance.. Loving NYC

Hello friends. This was my 7^th week , one more week down in my internship at Citibank., so I have 3 more to go. This was a veeeeeery busy week, for me that I really care about work life balance, I can say that the past days were the only in which I really had to stay late. This week was about working in a group project, which basically is solving a business issue for a division that is not familiar to the team, and working with 7 people. It may sound easy but it wasn’t. The big challenge was to deal with so many people in this team, so I had to go back to my MO classes and take many useful tips. 

Another thing that happened this week, was our speaker series with Vikram Pandit Citi’s CEO. Needless to say that it was great, very smart guy who was born in India, and very down to earth, even charismatic. Which takes me to the first topic of today, the company culture. Which has three major components.  First, diversity across divisions and business units. It is very natural to see people from everywhere interacting with each other. Which make sense as they are know as the global bank. Citi is not the biggest bank in US, nor in the world, but is the only bank that has presence in more than 180 countries. Hence, diversity plays a critical role and you see this in all different levels. A CEO who is from India, another who is from Mexico,  directors from UK, Venezuela, Italy,  China, and you name it. For me it has worked very well, as being international student, you feel that you are in a very open space where they are willing to promote and develop people from outside of US. 

Another important component of Citi’s culture, is it openness with senior management.  This speaker series with our CEO is only a good example, but we’ve had had this type of thing with other very senior leaders along the summer internship. Twice per week to be more precise.  This exposure not only has helped to understand other areas of the organization, but also to get worthwhile tips about personal and professional development. I found this very relevant, as in my previous work someone told me once. “In a company it is not only about delivering and working hard, you have to develop leadership behaviors and get exposure from senior levels” The latter helps not only to learn, but sometimes it may connect you with someone who share your background.  Another aspect that I have enjoyed so far, is the cooperative culture. It is important to note that I work in consumer banking, whose culture may vary from Investment Banking and Sales & Trading. Departments that are also part of Citi, but that require more daily hours, which changes the dynamic of the work. 

Well, as I was saying, in consumer banking it is very common to work in cross-functional teams, and being evaluated by your pers. This two things push the cooperation among team-members, as you know that everyone needs from everyone, and that your rating or the decision of hire or not hire will depend on the evaluation of your teammates. I enjoy working and interacting with people, so it works for me. However, it may be people who like more the individual work. But as I said, there is no good or bad, the only important thing is to understand, and look for the right fit. 

So far, I have had a great experience at Citi, and I love that they foster these three things on Citi’s culture: Diversity, openness with senior leaders, and cooperative teamwork. And probably, I will add another component that creates a good environment, good work-life balance. Here In NYC I ‘ve had the opportunity to read, work out, work, and go out on a daily basis. Which at least for me, is a great experience. This is it for now; I hope you have enjoyed my stories so far; I will be posting soon my last one. See you until then.

Miguel

First impression matters

If I have an appointment with some human resource people to ask for their expert advice and skills for interview, one thing they won’t forget mentioning is that “First impression matters!” Some of them will even tell you that an experienced interviewer will know whether to hire you or not within the first 30 seconds or less. Honestly, I am always skeptical about statement like this from HRs until my very recent project experiences with CitiMortgage.

As I written previously that my project involves with interviewing and hiring new people to an operation center in Illinois. Therefore, I had this great opportunity to sit at the side of the interview table that I am not usually used to and to interview candidates. After conducted over 50 interviews over the past three weeks, I suddenly realized that HR people’s words are true. From the meet and greet moment with candidates to the time they sit down and start to talk, in most cases, both my manager and myself have about 70% of certainty of whether to hire the person or not. The rest of the interview process is about seeking information and clues to justify the decisions that we made in our minds during that first half minute. The interview experience will be extremely valuable and relevant to me for my full time interview process later this year. I experienced the importance about the first impression as an interviewer and I learned few lessons that I should definitely avoid during the interview process from mistakes that others made.

My message to my fellow Rossers, first impression matters a lot, trust me! Every effort should be made to stand you out from others at the beginning of the interviews.

In the following two weeks, I will be in New York for the group projects that involve with all the other summer interns from different business functions in the commercial banking division of Citi. So it should be very exciting and I am definitely looking forward to the group project and good social life in New York.

Networking is actually part of the job

Hello, this is me again. This time I am going to talk about networking in the office. Has been 5 weeks already of my internship, and as we have been advised in school, networking is very important at Citi, as at any other company.

The good thing is that Citi also knows this, so they foster networking among people in the organization. Even, for my first week, I ad already a mentor assigned. Every intern has one, so this mentor may help you to answer all the questions that you cannot ask to HR, and help you introduce to new people. She, my manager, and my teammates have been the main sources to be introduce to more people. And it started naturally, since in order to understand the projects or the landscape, it is important to meet with many people, and those people will refer you to other group, and so on an so for. Also, I reached out the people who interviewed me, and they also gave me more contacts. Now I have a list of people that I cannot find the time to schedule meetings with them. I would say that in this 5 weeks I have been successful at creating networks within the organization. Part of it has to do with my genuine interest of knowing more people and understand what they are doing. Which in the end will give me a better perspective to decide in case that a job offer comes. People have always different roles, backgrounds and experiences with the companies they work for, so networking for me is helpful for both understanding the organization and gaining future sponsors within it.  Since Citi foster this, as I said, it is relatively easy that you can meet with senior people, and in the end, those are the people who can give you a better advice. Another piece that has been critical, is come prepare to those networking meetings. It is like the process that OCD gave us for recruiting. First send a short e mail explaining who are you and you motives, schedule a meeting. And come prepare for it. Understanding your objectives and of course, have clear and smart questions. That is the way  they automatically will say. “You should meet x” so there you go, you have another contact. Ok, that’ it for now. I’ll keep you posted. 

A well-rounded work plan

HI Everyone, it has been a while since my last post. And time has gone pretty fast for my internship; I cannot believe I am halfway already. This is my 5 week out of 10. Currently, after having several discussions with my manager and teammates, I came up with a defined work plan. It was not surprising for me that some thing will be ambiguous, and that I would have to step up and starts my own work plan. By saying this I don’t mean that they didn’t know what I have to do, but I am saying that they were not 100% sure about what would my contribution look like. Which doesn’t surprise me, as in my previous work at P&G things were like this, but I can say that it is a much better way to learn things and develop different skills. It is like a consultant job, without the same pay but certainly without the same working hours. Well, to make the story short, I realized that I could match my personal objectives in terms of skills/experiences to gain, and what Citi needed. So I came with 3 different projects a) Develop a competitive analysis of different potential suppliers b) Develop the template/framework of the steps to follow in order to close a deal of a new business model, with the top retailers of US c) Asses the social media landscape and come up with a strategy that differentiates Citi (and its new business model) from other companies. It took me several meetings and talking with different people to gain sponsors for my projects. Citi, as any other big organization, works a lot with this corporate dynamic of aligning different stakeholders. However I am very satisfied with the outcome, as I will build experience in strategy, business development and social media. Now, in order to get things done, I built a timeline, develop and aligned different frameworks to approach each of the projects, and committed my deliverables, in a very specific way. For example, in the social media I will deliver an executive summary in a word document, and a deck with all the insights, next steps and success criteria. This may sound logic, but when it comes to people, everyone is different. I learned in my previous job that it is better to over communicate and set the right expectations, using measurable criteria. (Similar to the START concept we revised at MO 503). It happened some times before that if these things are not stated, there may be some miscommunications. The other thing is that in big companies, that work as matrix organizations, you never know when a person working close to you moves to a different role or simply leaves the company, so it is very important to have a clear work plan.

That’s it for know, but I’ll keep you posted.

Project goes on

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over two weeks now since my last blog. So what’s been happening with my internship and life in Ann Arbor? There’s a lot, both at and off work. As I mentioned previously, I was heavily involved in a project, trying to set up a new operation center in Danville, IL. This new center is the product of the home affordability refinance program as part of US governments’ efforts to help home owners with their mortgage payments. Because of forecasted popularity and big increase in customers’ responses, the Bank decided to recruit more than 170 new staff in order to handle the workload. My colleague and I, however, expressed our concerns about the prospect of finding so many people locally at managers’ conference meeting because of very limited size of the talent pool. Our concerns were shared by other senior managers too. As a result of that, we decided to expand our recruiting area to Champaign, IL that is about 40 miles away from Danville. As the project’s getting bigger and more complicated, several departments, including offices in Dallas, St Louise, HR and IT are working very closely to ensure the success of the new office. I will go on a road trip again later this week to provide support and assistance needed in Danville. So how’s Danville? Some might ask. Well, we couldn’t even find a nice restaurant to spend our daily meal allowance of $70 each in town. You can imagine the rest.

Despite the challenges and pressures that I have to deal with for this project, life outside work in Ann Arbor is pretty good actually in summer. I started to play tennis in the evenings and weekends with several new friends that I met in the local tennis club. I had BBQ party with some other MBA students who also happen to be in Ann Arbor in the summer. We went to the pub to watch the Eurocup final’s match between Spain and Italy on Sunday. So my summer here has been a really good experience so far and I am really enjoyed it.

Happy July 4^th everyone and I will update you again in two weeks.

My first two weeks in New York Citi- Part 2 of "from CPG to Banking"

Hello everyone,
Has been a while since I posted my first blog. You may think that the title of this  second one is a miss spelling, however it is not. I just didn't want to be one more person talking about Citibank, as I just saw that my intern classmates have been very active.
The ver first week went by very quickly. We had a trainning during the whole week, along with some networking events and an speech of the CEO of Citibank consumer banking division, Manuel Medina Mora, who happens to be a mexican that has a long career in the banking industry. This conference, was just the cherry on the cake that confirmed the things that I am enjoying at Citibank. First. Diversity of backgrounds, and second,  approachable senior management. As I consider both relevant elements when it comes to build a strong organizational culture. Also, they come very useful when evaluating whether I see myself  working for Citi in the future, because, from an international student perspective, I would not like to be working in a place in which thediversity in background is not appreciated. Another thing that I have enjoyed from the program so far, is the caliber of the interns. I can tell that I've had interactions with people from all of the  top 15 business schools. Which has been a great opportunity not only to expand my network, but also to realize that The University of Michigan, Ross Business School, is very well positioned in the MBA market. Now, starting my second week, I have to confess that  going back to work after eleven months, is like working out, you need to keep up with your condition! It is not a big deal, but it is something that needs to be practiced again. Additionally, as it has been for other classmates, when  defining deliverables, it is not as easy as I had thought. I realized that my project is more ambiguous than I though, as it has to do with launching a new business model, which deals with increasing revenues, strategy and marketing. As a result, there are some roles that are still unclear in my team, but, the upside of this is that I am having the opportunity to work in something entrepreneurial, something very rare in a big organization like Citi. (You may have seen that also Citi just turned 200 years, and it is just  starting the 3th century of life ). The project has been great to leverage on my previous MAP experience as a team-member and on my Strategy classes. So far, I can tell that the project has exceeded my expectations, even though I still have to figure things out and develop many frameworks to deal with the unknown of a new business model.
I will keep you posted.
Miguel