An Exciting Internship Coming Soon

I am Tim, an MBA student from Ross School of Business. I worked at different roles in a multinational company and gained experiences in general management. After coming to the business school, I thought about my interests and strengths, and decided that general management would be ideal for my future career after graduation. I worked hard during last several months and secured the internship in a medical device company. I will work in their strategy and marketing function and the project will be focusing on marketing research and potential identifying in the emerging market. I would expect to leverage my experience in business development and marketing knowledge learned in class to solve real business issues. I will also have opportunities to discuss development strategies with the people in the company and learn their methodology and approach to decide potential business opportunity in a new market and build models to quantify the financial estimates. These learning experiences would greatly enhance my business skills for future career and satisfy my economic curiosity. I am also very excited to meet the team members from other schools and look forward to learning from them. However, I am a little concerned about the possibility that what I learned in class might be different from what the people in real business world actually implement. I would keep my eyes open and adapt to the environment.

Much to learn

Hi everyone! I'm Priscilla, a BBA junior and I'll be interning at Deutsche bank this summer in the corporate finance division. I will be a summer analyst doing investment banking work. Currently, I'm still waiting to hear back from Deutsche about which group in corporate finance I will be joining. I'm really excited for this internship and really hope to be selected to join my favorite group :)

There's quite a lot I'm expecting from this internship actually. I'm expecting to be pushed to my limits - challenging deals and tasks and long hours. Hard work aside, I'm also looking forward to meeting and working with the many great people that I've been talking to from recruiting till now.
A little background about myself, I came to Michigan from Singapore hoping to join the business school. But when I came here, I decided to try Actuarial Mathematics. I realized I didn't quite like actuarial jobs, and really wanted to give banking a try instead. After many months of hard work, I manage to get this internship with Deutsche and I'm extremely grateful to all the people that have helped me. So naturally, I'm very excited about the internship. I can't wait to finally get to understand life as a banker, work with the amazing people I've met, and learn so much more about the financial industry and the companies that Deutsche works with. And of course, I'm nervous as well. The grueling hours are well known, and I'm worried about burning out. Being international, I'm worried I might misunderstand the culture.
Worries aside, I'm excited for this opportunity and I truly believe this will be a great experience. Thanks for reading and I'll update on my progress at work soon!

Excited about my first internship here

Hi all, I am Claire Cui from Shanghai, China and I am a BBA junior. I mainly focus on accounting and finance. This summer I will intern at Lear Corporation in Southfield, MI and work in the Taylor facility as a financial analyst. I will help analyze the distribution costs for various divisions; classifies labor, material, and overhead costs to compute unit cost of products; compile data for budget and assist in the budget process. 

I am very excited about this internship. It will be my first internship in an American company. I expect to learn about the office environment and cultural work style here. I am also excited that I can apply what I learned in class to real life.  Practice is always the best way to learn. Additionally, I can certainly learn a lot from the experienced coworkers there.

Meanwhile, I am also a little nervous. From the job description, I will apply a lot what I learned from ACC 315. It has been a while since I took that class. Hopefully I can still remember all the essential knowledge. 

My internship will start pretty soon. I believe that I will learn a lot from this internship and enjoy this summer.

A Crash Course in Banking

At the start of this year, I had no idea what investment banking meant. ECM, DCM, M&A, TMT? It sounded more like TV stations to me. I guess that's pretty standard for a student beginning his first year in the Ross BBA program. Well, I made sure to learn all about these areas (and more) throughout the year. Now I have a summer internship as an analyst in Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions, and as the summer is approaching, I realize I don't know how any of this works in the real world. I guess the steepness learning curve is what gets me most nervous about working for Four Wood Capital Partners.

 

Four Wood Capital Partners is an independent financial services firm focused on delivering unique investment solutions to the market. Through both organic growth, as well as partnerships with boutique managers, the firm seeks to deliver a diverse range of investment products across traditional asset management, real estate and private equity platforms. The goal is to provide investors with wealth preservation and current income strategies to meet their liability-driven needs. FWCP and its subsidiaries serve institutions, high net worth and individual investors.

 

Like I said, there is going to be a very steep learning curve. As an independent firm (with far fewer employees than the bulge banks), I am going to be working closely with clients and senior members of the firm. While this raises some concerns, I think I am more excited about the opportunities that I will get to learn the business inside out. It will be really valuable to learn the technical side of the business, and even more valuable to take part in interpersonal business at high levels. Ultimately, this should be a tremendous experience.

 

I am very excited to start my career in finance, and I hope to hit the ground running.

Looking Forward...

The first year of my MBA journey at Ross has been an historic journey.  The internship search experience for me proved to be a short but very rewarding experience. As an Australian who has lived in four countries Nigeria, Kenya, India and Australia I was able to highlight my breadth of international experience and skillsets to secure a finance position in the Technology Industry in the Bay Area.

Coming from an accounting background, I look forward to enhancing finance skills and exploring if finance is indeed my true calling over the summer.  While I am still not aware of the project I will be working on or the managers I shall be working with, I have met several individuals who will be on the team in the company sell day and they are indeed an exciting bunch of individuals from some of the top business schools within the US.

The summer internship also allows me to develop networks in the Bay area. This will be helpful as I look at working on the west coast post MBA. While I will not be travelling as my peers in consulting do, I look forward to exploring California over the weekends – Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, Alcatraz come to my mind….and Vegas looms in the distance.

I am very excited about my summer and look forward to keeping everyone posted about my internship, my life experiences and my adventures in California.

Automotive industry

Hi all,

My name is Clive Ramsey and I’m a first year MBA. From my MAP experience, I received an offer to intern for an Italian company named Magneti Marelli, which is part of the Fiat group. The company is one of the most renowned organizations worldwide in the auto parts world. Among other things, Magneti Marelli is an official supplier for several teams in world competitions such as Formula 1, World Rally Championship. Because of the joint venture that occurred between Fiat and Chrysler, several opportunities have appeared for Magneti Marelli worldwide. One of their biggest priorities at the moment is to expand internationally, and there is where I come in. My role during the summer is to prepare what are the best ways to cooperate between Magneti Marelli and its par for Chrysler (Mopar) for three countries: Canada, Mexico and Argentina.

As you can see, my internship would be a very exciting experience with a lot of learning opportunities. I will be working directly with the leaders of each country, including the one in the US and the CEO of the aftermarket division worldwide. Also, there is a lot of responsibility, which is scary and exciting at the same time.

Destination: Austin!

In the aftermath of recruiting, exams, and the great social experiment known as MAP, I am preparing to pack my bags and leave Ann Arbor for my next big adventure: Austin, TX.

There is that internship thing, yes. I'll be interning with Dell, which is appealing to me since I'll probably be doing pretty much the opposite of what I've been doing in tech space so far! Marketing hardware in a big corporation vs. software consulting/engineering in start-ups and small firms. I am excited about seeing what kind of value I can bring to a company like Dell, and I do spend quite a lot of time reading and thinking about the change that Dell is undergoing and where the company is headed. Yet the internship experience is about more than who you work for and what you do. It is another opportunity to experience a different culture, a different atmosphere, a different vibe.

Austin is weird. And very cool, with the exception of the hellish weather during the summer. I was in town once in late 2009 for a few days, and really can't wait to go back and figure out whether I see myself living there post-MBA. Good tacos and electric guitars soaring through the night is heaven for me.

From Consumer Goods to Banking

Hi, this is Miguel Martinez, mexican MBA at Ross.  This summer I will intern at Citibank, within the Consumer Banking division. Although specific projects have not been released yet, I know that I will be working for Credit Cards in New York City.

I am very excited as this opportunity represents a change in industry. I come from the CPG industry, where I  developed experience/skills during 6 years at Procter & Gamble. I did  sales, business development, strategy, in-store marketing, and category management. Now, I will have to leverage on  those experiences and the soft skills to have a successful internship.

Coming from CPG helped me to being able to try another industry, as currently, many companies are focusing on the final consumer to deliver a superior "experience" that engages current consumers (create loyalty) and attracts new ones (bring more consumers) by matching the benefits of the product with the needs of the specific segment. Something very common in CPG, but not very adopted in the rest of industries. Specifically in my internship, I know that I will have to understand the consumer and propose specific actions/changes in the value proposition of a given category of cards segment, while understanding the dynamics of banking industry. The idea of the program, is to start in this credit cards track for the internship, and then rotate or have different assignments as a full time. The  program objective (internship +2 years of full time) is that in the end, the person has a well rounded picture of Consumer Banking industry, and takes more important roles.

Having to transfer my skills not only to a new industry, but also to a different country, are the things that I see as the biggest challenges. Also, transferring skills is what makes me excited and at the same time makes me a little nervous, as I know that the culture in banking is very different than in CPG, not sure to what extent, but definitely I am anticipating to face different networking styles, and probably  different politic issues. On the other hand, I think that my knowledge about consumer behavior, and business acumen  will help me to navigate and have solid proposals. Besides, I already have a great test of transferring skills with my MAP (Enjoy, Chile), so I think that it will also help me to have a safe landing with Citibank.

Excited about my internship!

I am an MBA1 student at Michigan Ross School of Business. I will intern at Deloitte Consulting LLP San Francisco office as Summer Associate. Even though I don't know which project I will work on yet, it will be a typical consulting project. We will work with clients to solve an issue they have together.

Consulting is completely new to me, so I am really excited about it. I will have a chance to travel to many different places, meet people from different industries and solving all kinds of interesting problems. From those exciting experiences, I want to learn how to engage with clients, communicate professionally and project management.

Even though there are a lot of fun and excitement, I am a bit nervous about it too. It is totally different from my previous job which is software development. In the internship, I will do a lot of relationship management and business communications, which I don't have many experiences with. Luckily, my MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) project is very similar to a consulting project. We have a team of 6 Ross MBA1, and work onsite with our sponsors at Madrid, Spain to propose a new product launching strategy. I learned a lot from the project and my teammates, who are from very diversified industries, such as consulting, CPG, banking. It is a really good preparation for my internship. 

This is just a quick overview about my internship. I will post some more exciting experiences in the near future. 

OCD - An International Student's Best Friend

OCD...Let's be honest, not exactly the greatest acronym, but definitely one of the best and key resources to finding an internship, particularly if you are an International student. (OCD = Office of Career Development) Not only do they offer up customized services for International students to allow them to, for example, get comfortable with networking scenarios typical of the US, or partner with embassies that provide guidance on employment authorization (and the general immigration strategies / futures of that particular country), but, they also involve the students. I have the pleasure of sitting in as the Canadian representative on the OCD International Student Committee. On this committee, we have the opportunity to provide feedback to OCD on the challenges and needs of our peers from our home country, work with OCD to address these issues, but also serve as a conduit for information back out the students. As a Canadian, I am particularly excited about working with fellow International students as many of them are looking to potentially locate, full-time, in Canada (particularly because of the differing immigration policies to that of the US).

That's not all! Do you want to learn how to make your LinkedIn profile sizzle? How about participating in a couple group mock interviews before the big interview? Ever thought of how you would pitch an internship to your dream employer? Just need an extra set of eyes on your resume? Well, you've come to the right place. OCD offers all of that. And, let's be honest, some people do not take as much advantage of these resources as they should. They are really your best advocate, support and partner in your internship search!

AND, she'll probably blush for me mentioning her name, but Leslie Mulder is a god-send. Not only is she fully dedicated to a large group of international students like myself, but is also all about helping non-traditional students like myself develop a vision for our internship search and clearly articulate what we bring to the table (whether we're an on-campus or off-campus "explorer").

I *heart* OCD......the Office of Career Development that is.

Getting Off the Ground

Taking longer than normal. Work authorization required. "Some" on-campus opportunities. Worried?

It is important that these expectations are set with International students. No, you won't have all of the same options as a US citizen, but that doesn't mean all is lost. Just check out the OCD Intl Student Career Resources to begin to see the vast list of companies that hired international students for US positions. Although, there are some work authorization hurdles to jump through when it comes to full-time positions, International students do bring different perspectives to any position, which consulting and finance companies (e.g., investment banks) recognize and respect. (That is probably why they hire the most International students of all the on-campus industries that visit our campus.)

However, what if you are not looking to rely on on-campus recruiting? Or, looking for more non-traditional internships and careers, like those in the field of sustainability (my personal interest)? Here are some helpful hints that seem to have worked out. Yes, it may have taken a bit more time than simply reacting to on-campus postings, the world seemed to open with just a bit of soul-searching and relatinoship building.

1. Informational Interviews: The role of "student" is like magic when you want to find something our about a company or position. Use it! I spoke to companies and people who would have passed over my e-mail or phone call when I was working.
2. Club Involvement: From Net Impact, to Revitalization & Business, to Design & Business, all of these clubs not only focused on my areas of interest but allowed me the opportunity to directly liaise with companies that were interested in connecting with students that were looking to find a career in areas like sustainabiltiy and design thinking. Find a club that aligns with your interests and helps build your skills to be marketable in the industry / position you want to work in, and the doors may quickly open!
3. Faculty relationships: Many think of professors and instructors as simply academics, but they know and work a lot with industry. Flex your academic muscle enough, take opportunities to participate and suppor their work / research, and you never know who the faculty might connect you with. My internship came directly from a faculty connection!
4. Support others and they'll support you: There is an incredible network among your fellow students. Understand your peers' goals / career aspirations, let them know yours, and you can work together in your job search that best aligns with your passions and values.
5. Capitalize on your resources: From the Office of Career Development's online website, their staff, and student counselors, these resources are there for you. Utilize these assets! They are free and the more you use them, the better off you are.

It is important that you focus on the positive as you kick-off and persist through your full-time / intern search. I have and am incredibly excited about the summer ahead!

Introducing Sabrina - The Canadian, Non-Traditional Career Pather

My name is Sabrina Sullivan. I am a recovering strategy consultant from Canada that has returned to the world of academic to challenge my thinking, spend time absorbing the thoughts and perspectives of faculty and fellow students, learning from great thought leaders and fellow students, but also finding a job that merges my interests in business, sustainability, design thinking and innovation. Being all about new ideas and striving to have "polymath" on my business card one day, I am all about innovation & ideas, design thinking, foresight (can't get enough of scenario planning and futurism), and a sustainable world and future for us and generations to come. Currently, I am pursuing a dual degree (MBA / MS) in Global Sustainable Enterprise and Complex Systems at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and hope to either stay in the US or return to Canada to kick off my post-graduate career.

Coming into the program as a Canadian student, and one that is looking to pursue a more non-traditional career path, I recognized that there would be to securing an internship in the US. However, I believe that a more challenging search can often be more rewarding. It requires one to truly uncover what they’re passionate about and find the company that fits their values, wants and desires. As such, I wanted to share the ups and downs of my search, and how, even amidst the trials as an non-traditional International student, I have found a fulfilling and challenging internship. For now, I won’t reveal what I will pursue for the summer, but stay tuned…

Great Summer!

Finally, after 10-week internship in IBM GBS, I went back to unemployed status last Friday. It has been a great internship experience in IBM, including the people I had met, the projects I had been involved, the roles I took in projects, and most importantly, the learnings I took away from my experience.

In my last post, I would like to share with you what I have learned in IBM GBS as an MBA intern consultant.

How to structure thinking: we have practiced so many cases in business school, but still, when facing a real problem, I am still struggling to come up with a right approach to solve the issue. I know I am talking cliché, but anyway, I listed below the most steps I learned during the summer.

• Clarify (Always ask questions to ensure understanding, then LISTEN carefully regarding what is the problem!)
• Breakdown problem with framework (each firm may have preferred ones.)
• Test with MECE

How to build presentation deck: We are always talking about strategy. However, as a junior consultant, it is our job to put the thoughts on a PPT deck. And there is so much to learn in order to put forward a satisfying deck. In one of the proposal I worked on, we had created 77 versions of deck.

• All good writing is about rewriting
• Bad formatting may kill good content
• Always check, check and check before presentation to clients
• When you lay out a framework at the beginning of a deck, all the following slides should be tied back to it
• Headline summarizes the key takeaways of a slide, and all headlines of a deck linked together should read like an article and tell the story

How to model (Not on a runway): Business students are talking about modeling all the time, but what on the earth is modeling? In terms financial modeling, I have learned the following.

• Determine the purpose of the model
• Make educated assumptions, and build an assumptions page
• Build input page, make model easy to configure
• Add checks to make sure everything ties

Summer is over... Ross here I come again!

This is my last post for the summer, and I am glad to say that yesterday I had the best day of my life. I received a full time offer from Citibank, to return next year as a full time associate in the M&A Group. After all my efforts, energy and time dedicated to achieve such a goal, I felt extremely satisfied of what I accomplished. It’s a tough process and competition is fierce. Out of 5000 resumes received, the bank chooses only few of them and I realized that the opportunity I got was extremely unique.

This internship went far beyond all my expectations. I met great people, I learned tremendously and every day has been different. New deals to work on, new responsibilities, a dynamic and fast pace environment that kept my mind busy all the time. If you like difficult challenges, this is definitely the place you want to be.

I can’t wait to see all my classmates again. We all spent our summer in different cities and countries and I am sure it’s going to be awesome to hear all their stories. Ross is a great school, full of talented people that are down-to-earth and ready to achieve amazing results always with a smile on their faces. I am proud of being part of such a group and I am sure that if you are reading this post you have already realized what I am writing here by going to school.

Life is a never-ending journey and Ross helped me shaping my career in the way I wanted it to be, and I will always be thankful for that. Above everything, it’s all the people I met at school that really made the difference and my experience special.

Hope I managed to give you an idea of what I lived this summer, as for me it has been the most important of my life.

All the best and good luck with your career search.

Matteo

Good bye!!

Hi all,

Well, the time has come.. this is the last week of my internship!!! This week i will do my final presentation, and we will also know if we have an offer for the full time. Regardless of the outcome, I am very happy with my internship. I have enjoyed working at Citi and I am impressed by how this company has overcome their bad times and reinvented themselves. Citi’s current strategy reflect their learning process from past mistakes, and their self-awareness capacity to take the best of what they have and only fight the battles they can win.

I think this is what we, as professional, should also do this kind of exercise to have a successful career. I think that the more conscious we are about our strengths and weakness, the better professional decision we will take. I will definitely do it after a finish the internship. Now, I want to share with you 10 pieces of advice that our last summer speaker, Citi’s Vice-president, gave to us. I think it was the best speech of the summer, as he talked what should be also keep in mind to have a successful career.

1. Know the difference between data and insight

- data is now commoditized with advent of Internet

- the way to add value is to bring out the insights from the data that are not available elsewhere

2. Learn how to focus on the big picture

- even early on in our careers it is important for us to break out of our narrow scope and understand the reasons for our work

- don’t be afraid to ask managers to explain how work fits into the puzzle

3. Learn how to prioritize

- always more things than you have time for, though many of those end up falling by the wayside anyways

- time is a valuable resource and using it effectively is an important skill (time management is crucial)

4. Learn how to be self aware

- we all have a tendency to overestimate how good we are

- need to understand core strengths and development needs

- don’t be afraid of asking for frank opinions from others

5. Need to ask for feedback real time

- feedback tends to be sugar coated because frank feedback usually is met with pushback

- does a disservice to me and the organization as I am not addressing the development areas and reaching my full potential

- feedback at 6 month or 1 year mark is based on an image that the reviewer has formed over that time, will not be as specific and actionable

- should ask for feedback after every meeting/presentation while thoughts are fresh on the mind of the reviewer

6. Learn how to take intelligent risks

- people tend to look for easy targets

- best coaches are those that push you beyond the limits of what you thought was possible

- sometimes we need to go outside of our comfort zone

7. Learn from mistakes and move on

- if we are not making mistakes, we are being risk averse and doing things that are too safe

- successful people make mistakes but thought process that led to mistakes are sound

- no one gets better by being right all the time

8. Focus on exploiting strengths, not mitigating weaknesses

- no one is perfect, successful people capitalize on what makes them distinctive and find people to complement them (need to be self aware)

- as an exercise, we should be able to easily articulate what our core strengths are

9. Need to find sponsors in life

- not the same thing as a mentor (who gives the same advice to everyone)

- sponsor believes in you, creates opportunities for you, protects you, and promotes you

- be aware of the common types of sponsors

- Care Giver (parent figures),

- Visionaries (inspire to do great things)

- Sages

- Relentless Coaches (push you to go beyond what you can do)

- Godfathers (help you as long as you help them)

- understand who are the people who will truly be your sponsors (be aware what type of sponsor they are)

10. Pass the Wall Street Journal test

- need to be very careful about what you send around in emails

- not private communication - emails are stored on company server

- will what I am about to send via email be embarrassing if put on the front of the WSJ?

Hope you enjoyed and find as much valuable as I did, and hope you enjoyed the rest of summer before going back to the school.

Best,

Shila Arias