Future Rotman students are in for some real awesomeness!!

One of the directors of the full-time MBA program, Kevin Frey, opened up time slots over the next few weeks to meet with us students to address any concerns we have about the program, hear from us how we can make the program even better, etc.

I really like Rotman and want it to maximize its awesomeness even when I am gone so I decided to attend one of Kevin’s sessions. SO fantastic!!  While I feel like I have gotten a lot out of Rotman, I am jealous of the class of 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. You guys are going to be SO set. Here are some cool things I learned:

--Recruitment--

The recruitment process will have changed COMPLETELY going forward. Rotman will be placing much more importance on employability upon graduation. This means in part, an emphasis on admitting candidates with sufficiently strong verbal and written communication skills and these skills will be explicitly evaluated in the application process. I am SO happy to hear this as this helps in so many ways:

-Group work becomes less stressful as ALL members of the team can pull their weight equally

-Class discussions become more enriching with more students able to clearly express their viewpoints

-The pool of viable candidates to employers becomes larger which increases the prestige of Rotman students on the whole

The interview process is also becoming much more rigorous. This means applicants can expect to be pushed a bit in their interviews. Also, each Rotman recruiter is assigned to and is responsible for specific applicants. So if, for example, X is interviewed by Y and upon admission, X turns out to be an all-star, Y will be recognized for their good job spotting an excellent candidate. Conversely, if X is a real dud, Y will be held directly accountable for admitting a dud. As a result, you can be sure awesomeness per capita at Rotman will increase.

Something that I didn’t realize until I spoke with Kevin was the importance of increasing the class size from about 280 (what it is now) to 400+. It turns out the big and most prestigious US schools have AT LEAST 400 students in the class (i.e. MIT). Many have about 1000 (i.e. Kellogg). Back when I first heard that the class size was increasing, I was worried about the talent pool diluting. But apparently MBA applicants don’t think that way. What tends to happen with a small class size is that they think “the class is so small I won’t apply because I won’t get in.” In reality, by admitting more students, you give more confidence to the all-star people of the world that if they apply they can actually get in and therefore more all-stars end up applying to (and getting in) the school. Increasing class size is also important from a recruitment standpoint which was the other big thing touched on by Kevin....

--Careers--

Turns out that the HQ’s of multinationals will only recruit at a campus if that campus has a big enough talent pool. Having a student body of 400+ makes Rotman more attractive to such companies which means more global companies’  HQ’s will be recruiting at Rotman going forward because of our larger class size. 

I have spoken a bit about how I was a bit disappointed with the career centre when I 1^st started at Rotman and how pleased I was with the changes that have been made in my 2 years here. Turns out Kevin was a big part of that. So nice one, Kevin! When we met he talked a lot about all of the gaps he found in the Career Centre and fixes that have since been instituted and I agreed with all of them. I think Rotman is on a really good track going forward for bringing the best companies in the world to recruit at Rotman.

What’s especially great is that Rotman positions itself not against Ivey, Queens, etc, but Kellogg, MIT, Stanford, etc. As a result, the school is able to market itself even better to US (and international) companies to come recruit at Rotman.

Early in 1^st yr, the career centre puts on a career week where they do a bunch of workshops for students where they teach you how to write good cover  letters, present well for interviews, etc. However these workshops were all optional. Also, I have heard from my peers that many students have a lot of challenges writing good cover letters, being sufficiently presentable in interviews, etc. So going forward, career week will be mandatory for all students. I am super happy about this. Even if you are an all-star at job applications, this will do so much for the class on the whole: if EVERYONE is able to rock job applications (on account of mandatory career workshop attendance), the Rotman brand becomes so much better which benefits you in the end as well.

I should note that this is NOT to say that Rotman at the moment is not a good school. The school is very, VERY good (there is a reason why it is #1 in the country). The above points are meant to say that rather than Rotman resting on its laurels while other schools catch up and surpass it, it is being proactive to find new ways to stay ahead of the competition and continue to get better even when it is at the top of its game. I think that's a pretty good trait to have...Never get complacent! :-)

So yeah, if you guys are considering coming to Rotman, know you will be in VERY good hands.