Some more undergrad on steroids

The main part of our marketing course this semester was doing the “markstrat” simulation. If any of you guys took upper-year marketing classes in undergrad you probably know what it is and can skip the below paragraph.

For those who don’t: the class was divided into 6 teams. All of the teams operate in a fictional wold competing against each other and each team represents a company in that fictional world (well the marketing dept of that company to be precise). Markstrat is essentially a brand management simulation game. So if you love brand management like me, you will enjoy this! You compete against the other teams on all of the marketing 4Ps (products, pricing, promotion and place). On day x all teams input their marketing mix into the simulation for your 1^st “year” of business (i.e. what products you will include, at what prices, how much to produce, etc). After you input that info, the simulation runs against everyone else’s inputs and spits out your results for your 1^st “year” of business. Based on those results, you plan for yr 2 and so on.

Whoever has the highest share price by the end of the game, (sort of) wins. I’ll get to why I say “sort of” in a minute.

Anyways, so in undergrad I did the exact same simulation. However because you are playing a game against other people, a lot depends not on experience playing the game but on how the other players play too. The big difference between now and undergrad was I think in undergrad the decision-making timeline was something like this:

-On Monday we’d get the results from “year 1”

-On Friday we would have to input our plan for “year 2”

-On the following Monday, our results were made available for “year 2” and the cycle continued for the whole semester

In MBA school the timeline is this:

-At 11:15am on Tuesday you get the results from “year 1”

-At 1:15pm (that same day) you have to input your results for year 2

-On the following Tuesday 11:15am you get your year 2 results and continue

So the decision making timeline has gone from 5 days to 2 hours!! So this was another of the many learning experiences we’ve had about:

-Time management

-Analyzing and interpreting market trends

-Making $$ ;-)

Also while in undergrad we were evaluated based entirely on our outcome by the end of the game, in this case we were evaluated not just in the context of the game, but long-term as well, even after we finished playing “officially”. What was really interesting about this was as we played, a certain team was absolutely murdering every other team in the market. So one might figure they were set for the long term given how well they are doing now. Well after we finished playing, our prof showed us the results if we played 1 more “year” and this team was on a nosedive.

This demonstrated a few good lessons:

-Why it is important not to rest for too long on your laurels..there is always someone else (or in this case 6 others) ready to take you down

-You need to think long-term for business success!! (even if shareholders don’t always think that way…haha)

Evaluating the U of T Athletic Facilities

Not too much exciting going on in school as of late (same spiel every day- class, job search, class, job search, etc) so I figured I’d take some time to write about another aspect of the Rotman experience that people might be wondering about (I know I was before arriving!): athletic facilities.

As a Rotman student you are basically a U of T student meaning full access to all U of T athletic facilities. There are 2 gyms on campus: one at hart house, one at the athletic centre.

You guys can go to their websites:

Hart House
Athletic Centre

To see what classes and such that they offer. I want to tell you about the stuff you won’t learn from the websites.

Hart House
This building is OLD. Like really old (built in 1919). As such, the ventilation sucks and the layout of the building sucks. It feels like each room in the building used to be used for some other purposes and one year they decided to put exercise equipment into a bunch of random rooms in the building and leave it at that.

If you are only going to exercise for 1 specific purpose (i.e. JUST going for a run, JUST doing free weight exercises, JUST doing a dance class) it is fine. Besides the fact that the building is super old, you’ll get what you need. But as soon as you want to mix things up (i.e. for me in 1 session I like to do some free weights, some exercise on machines, some matwork, etc) things get super annoying. From having to do matwork in the tiny hallway outside the freeweight room to having exercise machines in a completely different part of the building from the free weights, one’s exercise session becomes way longer than it needs to be. The hart house exercise facilities are basically always open to students though so there are never scheduling conflicts which is good!

Athletic Centre (the AC)
This I would say is more like the Goodlife fitnesses of the world and such. The gym (weight room) is huge with tons of varied equipment (free weights, machines, mats etc). Although there are only like 3 exercise bikes here so if you want to mix cardio machines exercise with weights, forget about it here. You’ll have to go to one of the studios in the AC or back to Hart House. There is also a huge pool in the building though, which is cool for swimmers.

This building also has some quirks- It has a “field house” which is the top floor of the building and should just be a track with the various track & field pieces of equipment. However, the field house also has a super random set of exercise machines (different from those in the weight room in some cases) placed in seemingly random spots that should probably be in the weight room instead.

While this building is more of an athletic centre than hart house is, ironically, hart house has newer weights and machines. It is not to say that the AC’s machines suck- because they don't- I just thought it was kind of ironic. Put your best equipment in your best gym, no?

The HUGE bummer about the AC is that the gym closes itself off at random hours of the day for:
-“Programming Hours” – which I guess is when kinesiology students need to use the gym for their studies or something
-Women-only hours- which you girls will probably love but is an inconvenience for us guys!
-Being at capacity- A few times upon leaving the weight room, I noticed a few people weren’t being allowed in as there was a sign saying something like “we are at capacity…please wait.” I’ve NEVER seen that in a fitness facility EVER. That being said, I only noticed it like 4 times ever (and I am in the gym at least 3 times a week every week) so the odds of you running into this problem are super low but it was something I thought would be worth to note anyways.

In summary, I’d say if you are only doing one specific exercise activity, AC and Hart House are about the same in what they offer. If you want to mix things up at all, the AC wins hands down. (although remember to check the schedule so you don’t arrive only to find out it is “programming hours”!).

To those looking to do exchange here at Rotman…

Prior to the start of our 1st semester we of course had orientation camp which everyone was invited to- including all of the exchange students. So this was a great way for everyone to get to know each other and our school. However this semester with no camp, I was wondering, “how do the international exchange students here know us non-exchange students and all the fun and exciting stuff we have going on?” Turns out they didn’t.

To my surprise, we have no one in the student body who helps integrate the exchange students into Rotman and Toronto. Nor were there any events to this end either. I love helping out newbies to Canada and making sure they have an awesome time here so I figured I’d just take this responsibility on myself!

This semester we have apprx 8 students here from all over the world. I met one of them the other day and here are some things she told me:
-“Besides the people in our classes and the other people on exchange we haven’t met any of the other Rotman students”
-“It seems like all you guys ever do is study”
-“You have a club for Asian students and another club for sports fans?”
I was shocked….SHOCKED! For those who have read my blog, you can probably appreciate the above perceptions couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So the big lesson here is our school has a loooooooooooooooooong way to go in integrating exchange students into the Rotman community. Apparently other schools do an even worse job than us too. That is bad. If students go back to their home institution feeling like Rotman sucks, how could we ever hope to improve our relationship with those other institutions? So, I am trying to fix this, getting our exchange students connected to our facebook community, events eblasts, etc so they know more about what’s going on and can get involved and have some fun. When they get back home, I want them to tell their friends: “ROTMAN AND TORONTO ARE AWESOME!!!!” I know the 1st semester exchange people thought so and sincerely hope the above is a 1st step to getting our current and future exchange students feeling the same way.

Inside info beyond what you might have heard at the Rotman Open House

Sorry for no post last week. It’s been a pretty standard routine as of late so not much new to add as of late. Today was the Rotman Open House where prospective students come to the school and learn about Rotman. So I wanted to share with you some of the things I’ve learned about Rotman since I started:
- I was told all corporate recruiting for us MBAs is completely separate from the undergrads. However in several corporate info sessions, there have been several undergrads present. From the recruiter’s standpoint, I understand why they prefer this since they only need to come to campus once. However admissions people, get your facts straight, please.
-I was told if Rotman doesn’t have a relationship with a specific company that you are interested in, the Corporate Connections Centre (CCC) will go and create that relationship to help you get a job. No chance. I’m not really sure how the CCC builds its corporate network but if you want to work at Nike for example (which the CCC has no relationship with), you have to do all of the networking work yourself.
-Expect very variable service from the CCC. Each student is assigned a CCC staff member to act as basically their career coach to help with everything from figuring out what you want to do with your life to writing cover letters. Depending on who your coach is, you might have the best experience in the world or the worst.
-There is a good reason why if you did an undergrad in commerce you don’t get credit for any of the classes you took. I have a B.Comm and maybe 90% (or more) of what I have learned thus far at Rotman is all-new. So you are definitely getting your money’s worth academically speaking.

If I can think of anything else, I’ll add it to this post. Or you can always feel free to post any questions on comments below in the comment box.

Weird start to the third quarter

This week was the start of our 3rd quarter (Q3) of classes and it is definitely a weird feeling. Since I wrote my last Q2 exam, until this past Monday I was in class for 1 week (our Negotiations intensive week- we did a whole class in 1 week and then wrote a huge essay at the end of it) out of the last 4. Anyways, because recruiting season has heated up (mostly for the aspiring investment bankers and consultants right now, anyways) not too many of us have a lot of time for actual school. So it feels like we are unemployed and applying for jobs, with the inconvenience of spending a few hrs in a classroom every day instead of the other way around.

Thankfully Q3 is VERY forgiving. We only have 3 final exams this qtr and the nature of the assignments we have during the qtr aren’t nearly as intense as those of Q2. The school definitely does a really good job setting it up such that we have less work to do in class so that we have more free time to go to interviews and such. But as a result it really doesn’t feel like we are in school right now! Although given how time consuming it is to write good cover letters, I would almost rather do more finance assignments than write cover letters…Almost.

Once the job placements start to get finalized in a week or 2 I’ll have more to share with you about the full process that goes on in the fun and exciting world of MBA recruitment. Stay tuned.

Adventures at the 2012 MBA Games

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be a part of the Rotman delegation at the MBA Games. What are these MBA Games I speak of, you may ask? Well it is a weekend of competitions between the various MBA schools across Canada. This year there were 19 schools. You can check out the website for the Games here.


The winner of the Games hosts the event the next year (although I think if there is a repeat winner in back-to-back years, the event goes elsewhere the next year). This year the Games were hosted by the University of Alberta which meant we were off to Edmonton! I had never been there before so it was fun to check out a new city.

You guys can read what our itinerary was on the Games website so I won’t repeat that here. Instead I want to give you a sense of the challenge and fun involved (for me anyways). A common theme across our whole team (and everyone at the games) was energy, enthusiasm, athleticism and brains which made every event extremely fun and intense. (so if you are a quiet person this competition is unfortunately definitely not for you)

The scavenger hunt was essentially a photo-taking contest across the city (i.e. find the famous wayne gretzky statue). I was kind of jealous of my teammates who got to do this event since they basically got to do a tour of the city for free.

The case competitions were crazy:
-8:30am- the teams were given the case
-8:30-11:30am- the teams had to develop a deck with recommendations for a case solution and support for those recommendations (an especially big challenge on 4 hrs sleep).
-11:30-12:30- lunch breach
-12:30-2pm (I believe)- each team was required to do a 15 minute presentation of their deck to a judging panel along with Q&A
-2:30-4pm (I believe)- finalists present again and a winner is announced
My team was unlucky and drew the 1st presentation in round 1. So I experienced something I never experienced before- going into a presentation without having practiced even once. However, me and my teammates are all all-star presenters so we actually did quite well!

The athletic competitions were also pretty intense. While I did not compete in them, me and the rest of those not competing cheered non-stop…I never thought I’d get so emotionally invested in my classmates’ innertube water polo performance… haha The picture I posted is from us cheering on our inner-tube water polo team.

It was really DeGroote at McMaster University’s year this year…Despite our best efforts, DeGroote won almost every award (athletics, spirit, academic, etc). So next year, off to Hamilton we go.

The weekend was completely exhausting- I am still recovering today- but it was absolutely worth it. A great bonding experience, great opportunity to practice your skills from school and a chance to get some laryngitis in (on account of all the cheering).

Demystifying Recruiting Season

Happy new year, readers! The upcoming 4 months is when the majority of employers do their hiring for MBAs for the summer and because the 1st few weeks back at school are pretty light on the coursework front, it means it is time to prepare for job applications! Acting as a ticket to an awesome job was the main reason why I am in my MBA so I’ll give you guys a bit of a rundown of how things for work us as I know I was very curious about this upon starting my MBA.

The majority of recruiting is done through the Corporate Connections Centre (CCC). Something I only discovered once I started school which had me a bit concerned though was many of the full-time CCC staff are on mat leave. As a result there are a lot of newbies to the team and in some cases, newbies to recruitment on the campus side. (i.e. until now they worked for companies that came to campuses to recruit) The good news for prospective MBAs is by the time you start school, the mat leave people will be back in the office so you will be all set!

Besides the 1-on-1 advice, resume reviews, etc, the CCC has some REALLY cool other resources that I sorely wish I had in undergrad. Some of the fun and useful things we get access to:
-Free access to Vault guides for most industries you can think of
-Profiles of the “ideal candidate” by profession i.e. if you are interested in becoming a portfolio manager (or brand manager, consultant, etc), what skills do you need? How important are grades? How do they tend to hire?
-If you are going into consulting, TONS and TONS of guides of practice cases you will need to be good at in interviews (consulting interviews involve doing a case analysis and giving a recommendation on a solution to that case)
-Access to where grads and recent interns worked over the last few years (really helpful if you want to work at company x, see if someone worked there and then they can help you!)
-Interview question banks sorted by industry and company
-Industry reports (i.e. who major players are, outlook on the industry, etc)
-Guides on almost every company that has recruited at Rotman containing recent articles about the firm and industry, annual reports, company analysis (i.e. SWOT)

Something important to note: Finance and Consulting jobs tend to be all filled by the end of Jan so you finance and consulting people will be set within a month. However for a marketing guy like me, marketing job hiring happens right up until the end of April (and in some cases even early May!). This is a huge bummer for me but I guess it is just the nature of the industry. So all you fellow marketing enthusiasts, get ready to sweat it out for a few months. :-)

Something that I never understood in the past about recruiting was as follows (especially for marketing jobs…I think things are a bit different in other career paths): For marketing jobs you need to almost always apply through the online application tool. So I thought the process was:
-You submit your resume for a job
-If it passes the autoscreening tool, random HR person reads it
-If random HR person likes it, you get called in for an interview and go from there
As such, I figured what good does any networking do if your resume doesn’t even pass the initial screening?

However, I was mistaken! This is what actually happens:
-Company X recruits from Rotman and therefore has a dedicated employee focused on hiring from Rotman (person Y)
-You apply for a job at company X with “rotman” of course noted as your school
-Your application therefore goes directly to person Y since she deals with the Rotman applications
-Person Y remembers meeting you somewhere and (hopefully) liked you
-Person Y tells HR to set up an interview
BOOM! Networking advantage.

However this also means if a company doesn’t have a dedicated person for your school, you’ll probably end up in the 1st scenario and have to get creative to get the interviews ;-)

These are some of the big things I was wondering about in the MBA recruitment process so I hope I have helped a bit. Good luck to those on the job hunt!