International Students’ Organization Speaker Event

By Stacey Small-Post

On Wednesday, April 4^th, 2012, Rutgers Business School’s International Students’ Organization, in partnership with RAMS and the Global Business Club, hosted an event called Strategies for Advancing Your Career in a Global Economy. Expert guest panelists from Prudential’s International Insurance Division, Alexandra Durbak (Market Development Manager), Maneesh Chadha-(Director of Strategy and Development), and Lin Pan (Vice President and Actuary) shared their decades of collective professional experience to provide practical real-world action steps to succeed in the many facets of international business.

One 2^nd year MBA, Lisa Podhayny, said that "one of the most important takeaways for me underscored the fact that we must market ourselves as people who add value to organizations in irreplaceable ways. As such, we will set ourselves apart in today's increasingly globalized business environment by providing unique perspectives through international experiences and multicultural understanding.”  These insights will certainly be useful as Lisa joins Bayer Consumer Care  as an Assistant Brand Manager upon graduation.

Ms. Durbak directed students to reinvent themselves every two years so as to remain relevant. “Consequently,” she said, “You will position yourself to be an indispensable contributor to your company.”  Building on this point, Mr. Chadha encouraged student s to remain aware and sensitive to what the market wants and values. He also cautioned students to network strategically, noting that, “Opportunities come from people who you have worked with and know what you can deliver. Reach out to those people because they are the ones who can really vouch for you.”

Ms. Pan’s personal account of how she overcame obstacles unique to international students however was arguably the piece that resonated most with the audience, over 65% of which were RBS international M.B.A Candidates. She attested to the importance of focusing on and marketing competitive advantages, while remaining authentic: “Research and then make a convincing case for yourself to show that you have what it takes,” she advised, “You have a Rutgers M.B.A so employers know you have the credentials; but, in the interview process, they want to get to know you as a person.”

All in all, this was another great event at RBS and it could not have been such a success without the cooperation of all the clubs involved. RBS MBA student organizations remain committed to offering events, such as this, to serve the needs of its students and to ensure that they remain among the top-tier of M.B.A Candidates in the United States and indeed the world today.

VIDEO BLOG! A Day in the Life...

Check out this awesome video blog/music video of a day in the life of a Rutgers MBA by first-year Racquel Clarke.


Thanks for the sweet vid, Racquel!

What's Your Strategy?

By Matthew Lyman

We’re in the home stretch of the spring semester, and like the pitter-patter of pre-campaign politics, the words ringing in everyone’s ears at RBS are “jobs, jobsss JOBBSSSS!”

“Jobs” is the word on everyone’s lips as we pass through the RBS era of our lives, both as applicant/candidate (when we’re impressed with RBS’ placement record) and student (when we try to make good on our MBA’s for real). Students from the class of 2012 have been assured of their future since the academic year started (hello, Tarak Shah), while others have heard the words “HIRED” in the months since then. As for the class of 2013, over 50% of us have obtained summer internships (as of today).

My posts tend to be confessional, so with that in mind, I admit that I arrived at RBS with a broad view of what doors an MBA opens, but no month-by-month plan of attack. I’ve been lucky in obtaining an exciting summer position (literally – I’ll be working on the brand team at Trojan condoms), but I’m floored at how damn impressive my fellow first year friends have been in planning their careers. They have been prepared, primped (in business formal, of course), passionate and, most importantly, strategic. One of my personal favourites is Rina Mehta. Her story shows the benefit of using broad strategy concepts to our own career tracks; strategy scholars such as Porter, Barney, Christensen, et al, are good resources for C-level executives, but they are also good resources for us, current RBS students, as we survey the career landscape.

Rina, who spent the better part of a decade working on her PharmD, looked to an RBS MBA to broaden her career opportunities. After experiencing pharmacy work up-close in the pursuit of her doctorate, she found that her real passion lay in managed care, and a PharmD+MBA was the best vehicle to get there. Although pursuing an MBA immediately after a long PhD program carried the risk of having sparse non-academic work experience, Rina has thoroughly considered her options. Her analysis would make strategy scholars proud.

As I mentioned, I find Rina impressive, but I’m not the only one: she was offered three internships at large Pharma companies. But, as a relatively inexperienced candidate, she had to consider each one based on the likelihood of converting her summer internship into a full time job. Doing so forced her to look at each firms’ respective strengths and weaknesses, but she went beyond writing a quick SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats, for all your non-MBA lurkers); she went on a deep dive into each company. She contacted alumni, heavily researched each company’s core competencies, and uncovered intangible assets.

The company she eventually decided upon has a good R&D pipeline (a soothsayer of future success in the pharma industry), a stable executive team, and a healthy balance sheet. She discovered that her target company possessed tangible and intangible assets that are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable, which, wouldn’t you know, is Barney’s definition of a scary-good firm. Her rejected companies had question marks along the way in each metric.

Given that those who read this blog are likely affiliated with RBS, these are important lessons in the MBA phase of your career. But Rina’s thoughtful analysis shows that it is always important to keep you eyes and ears open about the firm you work for, and that an honest assessment of both your options and your employers’ options will be immeasurably helpful at your next career crossroad, and the one after that (and the one after that).

Gearing Up For a Summer in Austin with Dell

By Jennifer Du

This summer, four interns and two full-time hires will be headed to Dell to begin a new path in our careers. I'm lucky and proud to be one of those going. The six of us met up for lunch this week at Rutgers' local spot Martini 494, so that the 2nd years could share their experiences and answer all the questions we curious and eager 1st years had, like: "Does it really get THAT hot there?" "How's the Mexican food?"

We aim to strengthen and continue the great relationship RBS has with Dell and it's awesome to have such support from our predecessors. I've noticed it's one of the great qualities of Rutgers and of having smaller class sizes. It's always easy to reach out to 2nd years who were in our shoes last year but moreover, they are always excited to help.

Austin here we come!

The Usual Suspects (from left to right): Barak Epstein (2nd year),

Jennifer Meekel, Jonas StoeckerJennifer Du (me!), Ling Lan and Zona Chen (2nd year)