Do you like networking? Then going to business school might be for you!!

After “Week of Stressful Exam Hell Part 1” we got a week free of classes. However don’t think it was a time to just site on your ass and do nothing. It was time for “Career Discovery Week”! This was a series of presentations from the Corporate Connections Centre (basically the Rotman careers centre) about how to go about the job search and panel discussions with Rotman MBA alum from various industries (finance, marketing, healthcare, tech, consulting, etc) about what it’s like to work in various fields.

Because I am somewhat unique amongst my peers in that I know exactly what I want to do after I graduate, some of the info was definitely skippable for me. But if you are on a quest of self-discovery for what you want to do with your life, everything that happens in the week will definitely help you out a ton.

One constant theme that was rammed down our throats hard is NETWORKING. Because I want to work in big corporations, I used to think it wasn’t that necessary because to apply for a job in a big company you have to apply though some anonymous job application tool online, get filtered through HR, then meet the hiring managers, etc. If things were so bureaucratic, what difference would it make if you knew anyone at the company? Apparently say you meet some random guy that works at Kraft and he likes you, then when you apply for a job at Kraft, he’ll tell HR to keep an eye out for my resume. So I guess when HR is doing their filtering of applicants they must have a filtering option: “Did someone internally mention this candidates name? If so, interview” ;-)

Anyways, me being Mr. Proactive, I already a) worked with the Rotman resume experts to get my resume ready for distribution weeks ago and b) set up meetings for networking purposes at the companies and industries I am interested in. I also needed to get away from Toronto for a bit to maximize my break before I get back into the swing of things with school. So this weekend I killed a whopping 4 birds with one stone!

1. Went to Vancouver- my favourite city in Canada- for 4 days

2. Got to see one of my really good friends who I hadn’t seen in a few months, and chilled with her

3. Visited my family on the west coast

4. Met with some of the main companies I am interested in working for in the future

Very productive weekend but I am VERY tired now. I feel like I could sleep for a week. But that’s impossible because tomorrow it’s back to school!!