What Marriott School Academy Can Do For You

A little known resource for undergraduates students interested in a graduate business program at BYU is the Marriott School Academy (listed as MBA Academy on the Marriott School of Management’s website). Many of you have probably never heard of the Academy. You aren’t alone. When I was first approached about heading the Academy, I wondered why I hadn’t heard of this program during the two years I was in MBA school and quickly discovered that the Academy was only started three years ago.

What is the purpose of the Academy? To quote the Marriott School’s website, “The MBA Academy is a structured program designed to assist prospective graduate students with the MBA application process, GMAT preparation, and the post undergraduate job search. Its purpose is to attract talented college juniors and seniors who can offer a diverse perspective to the Marriott School MBA program.” The program includes a three-day retreat before school starts and a student development class during Fall Semester.

Now that we have gotten through all the formality, let me give me you the inside scoop. Andrew Woo already had taken the GMAT and applied for Harvard’s 2+2 program when he joined the Academy, but realized an opportunity existed that would help him pursue his goal of an MBA. Little did he know where it would lead him.

Since September and October are big recruiting months on campus, I focused the student development class on resume building, networking, and interviewing. Andrew reworked his resume using the guidelines discussed in class then contacted me for another review. We spent over an hour reworking every line of his resume to reflect MBA principles of action verbs and quantifiable results.

In class we talked about elevator speeches and how to use these to begin conversations with recruiters. Andrew had a chance to use his elevator speech at multiple Academy networking events with such companies as Intel, Ford, Goldman Sachs, and Union Pacific. For one event, the Academy partnered with the ALPFA club (Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting) for the Minority Summit which had such companies as KPMG, Ernst & Young, PWC, AMEX, Cisco, AFLAC, and others. Once again, Andrew continued to hone his networking skills and found himself invited to company information sessions.

During this time, I introduced behavioral based interview questions to the Academy. The student development class focused on creating STAR stories from their resumes and Andrew was no exception. Current MBA students came to class and conducted mock interviews with the students and provided valuable feedback. Andrew took that opportunity to learn and refined his stories. He recognized the need for more practice. He reached out to me as the Academy coordinator, and I was able to help him improve his stories in multiple mock interviews.

All this work and diligent effort paid off. Andrew applied for a position with Bain and was invited for an interview. The day finally came that he had been waiting for. Bain called and offered him a full-time position. Andrew approached me at the end of class one day to share the good news. He explained why Bain offered him the position. “You interviewed like an MBA not an undergrad.”

That is what the Marriott School Academy is all about. We help students prepare and find valuable full-time employment which gives them the work experience necessary to succeed in an MBA program. Each student in the Academy has a story. Andrew’s is only one of many. If you are interested in applying for the Academy’s Fall 2011 class, email me at thamina@byu.edu. I’ll help you as you begin your own story.

Thamina Christensen, Class of 2010, Marketing

Marriott School Academy Program Coordinator

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Wake Forest MBA Case Competition 2011

Some of our students put together this video to apply for the Wake Forest Case Competition. We thought we would share it with you.

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Career Choices in Human Resources

While students may be tired of hearing about career options after months of discussion, my own career search has uncovered some interesting information about the two most common career paths for BYU OBHR students: Consulting and Corporate HR.

Consulting:
BYU is continually gaining a reputation in Human Capital consulting. Many students have deep interests in Organizational Behavior theory, and find consulting to be a strong match for this interest.

• Benefits: Consulting boasts a fast-paced, intense learning experience that is challenging and exciting. As a consultant, you have the opportunity to work in multiple industries and on multiple projects each year. You can increase your exposure to HR challenges, exponentially increasing your learning and potential.

• Drawbacks: Consulting usually requires regular travel, and most students value a strong work/life balance in a career. While it is possible to have time for both, it can be difficult. The culture of consulting is high energy and high performance, and one is rewarded for what is accomplished. With increased intensity, ambiguity, and change, a self-awareness of your own work style is necessary.

Corporate HR:
BYU has a strong reputation in Corporate HR, with over a dozen companies recruiting students and interns annually. Our program seems to uniquely prepare us for Corporate HR roles, and many students find success here.

• Benefits: The businesses that recruit at BYU are looking for truly strategic HR partners. You can work in a variety of areas, including leadership development, compensation, and employee relations, or you can bring them all together as a generalist. You regularly work with the same teams and you see projects through from start to finish. There is usually less travel and more stability in your daily schedule, creating a feeling of more control over work/life balance.

• Drawbacks: Corporate HR may not provide as fast a pace or an environment as innovative as consulting does. While you certainly have opportunities to be creative, you may find it difficult to move forward with so many stakeholders. In supporting the company’s goals and objectives, you have to move through the proper channels to get things done. Because of the variety of tasks you perform in Corporate HR, you may have times in your career where you have to perform tasks you don’t enjoy. Whatever you choose to do, the future is bright for the OBHR students of the MBA program.

—Kelsey Harris, Class of 2011, OB/HR

Interned at: GE at NBC Universal

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When You're a BYU MBA, What Happens in Vegas...

... can be readily posted on the internet without anyone getting embarrassed. Recently a group of MBATS (MBA Tech Society) members took a trip down to Las Vegas for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). In addition to enjoying a brief escape from pure cold into just a mild chill, the venture was a very memorable experience.

CES is hard to summarize. 140,000 participants walk around for 2-4 days to see as many as they can of the 2,700 technology exhibitors. It's really difficult to give a sense of the scope of the place if you haven't been there. Needless to say, by the end of our second day, my feet were sore and the exhibitors with massage chairs became very popular. You'll never see more large LCD displays in one place in your life. You'll likely never be able to practically afford most of the cars. You'll possibly even see a good number of products you couldn't imagine using. If it's shiny, gadgety, or over-the-top, you'll find it at CES.

My personal top picks during the trip were:

1 - Nvidia's tent which featured their Tegra chip used in the new Tesla Model S. The display that the Tegra drove was nice and all, but I was personally attracted more to the car itself. I'm a huge fan of the move to electric vehicles and Tesla just makes a pretty car. It's well worth checking out when you get a chance.

2 - Glasses-free 3D. I'm pretty opinionated on the 3D fad right now. I'm all for progress in entertainment technology, but I don't like having to wear uncomfortable glasses for the minor value-add of watching something in 3D. That said, LG, among other companies, was displaying some early prototypes of working glasses-free 3D TV. The viewing range is limited, but the effect was awesome. LG expects the technology to be consumer-ready in 3-5 years and I'll seriously consider upgrading at that point.

And, of course, the greatest takeaway of the whole experience was getting to know my fellow MBAs better. I learned about Barney's adventures as a pop star on his LDS mission in Thailand and Mike's experience as a walk-on for BYU's football team. We survived smoking heaters in a cheap motel and a less-than-exciting continental breakfast. We clinked glasses with the president of HTC in Caesar's Palace on HTC's dime (and were the only ones drinking seltzer water with lime). Most importantly, though, we formed memories that will last much longer than the gadgets we went down to Vegas to see.

-Lewis Gunter, Class 2012, Marketing

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Innovation in Social Entrepreneurship Case Competition

On February 10^th and 11^th, 2011, Brigham Young University will host its first national graduate case competition. The first annual Innovation in Social Entrepreneurship (ISE) Case Competition will be held on the BYU campus and will host teams from The University of Michigan, George Washington University Ohio State University, and The University of Washington. As the name denotes, the competition will be centered around social entrepreneurship and each year a case will be written focusing on a problem of the chosen, target, organization for the year. This year’s target organization is Fundación Paraguaya. Fundación Paraguaya is an established organization that focuses on the eradication of poverty in Paraguay. It has operations in microfinance, education, and research and is making significant headway in providing needed assistance to the people of Paraguay who suffer in poverty.

BYU MBA Students, Jasmine Palmer and Ray Kearney visited the organization in the preceding summer and have been working with Professor Paul Godfrey in writing the case that will be used in the competition. The ISE case competition will be held in conjunction with the Peery Social Entrepreneurship Launch, consisting of a Social Entrepreneurship Film Premier, Recognition Banquet, and a TEDx Conference. The competition and launch are intended to serve a three-fold purpose: 1) Create awareness of the field of social entrepreneurship and establish a name for BYU in this space, 2) Host a venue where students and practitioners can come together to network and collaborate and 3) Provide sophisticated and professional assistance to a deserving organization.

The competition, film premiere, and TEDx conference will be open to the public and all are invited to attend. Tickets for the TEDx conference are free but seating is limited so the must be reserved in advance through tedxbyu.com. Times and locations for these events are follows:

• Social Entrepreneurship Film Premiere: Thursday, February 10, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, HBLL Auditorium
• Competition Finalists Present: Friday, February 11, 9am – 11am, W408/W410
• TEDx Conference: Friday, February 11, 1pm – 5pm, HBLL Auditorium

Ray Kearney, Class 2011, General Management

Interned at: US Embassy in Beijing China

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B-School v. Law School

Which is better, law school or business school? I get asked that question (or a variation thereof) from most MBA students I meet. Surprisingly, few law students bother asking. Why? … probably because many law students already assume nothing could be worse. This post is a sequel to my post about the pros and cons of a JD/MBA. My purpose here is to outline some of the major similarities and differences between the two programs.

Competition

The Princeton Review currently ranks both the Marriott School and J. Reuben Clark Law School as #4 in “most competitive students” in their respective ratings. Having lived in both environments, I believe the meaning of “competitive” is very different at each school. In the MBA program there is an intense competitive spirit when it comes to representing the school and trying to make BYU’s MBA program respected and top-notch. There is direct competition when it comes to vying for individual internships and full-time placement. Yet, come winter semester, most every BYU MBA voluntarily unites to combine their collective networks to ensure every student has a job or internship by the end of April. BYU MBAs compete much like a team: doing their personal best and assisting their teammates to achieve peak performance.

Competitive at the law school has a very different feel. To a competitive law student, GPA is everything. This makes law school inherently cutthroat. Your GPA determines your class rank, which determines which law firms or clerkships will even look past the first line of your resume. Rank/GPA opens or closes doors. This single element makes law school an atmosphere of comparison and aggressive learning. Don’t get me wrong—this is not unique to BYU law school. Nor are BYU law students bloodthirsty pirates stooping to dishonesty and cruelty to move to the top. Quite the opposite. There are many top-quality people in the law school. But you won’t find students creating an internship “war room” at J Reuben Clark like you will at Marriott.

Age and Experience

I was 29 when I began law school. I was an Air Force Captain, held a Top Secret clearance, and had lived and traveled in Asia for most of the time between undergrad and law school. In law school I was surrounded by students predominantly under 25 and fresh from undergrad. I believe my age and experience disadvantaged me when it came to studying and test-taking because I had been away from school for nearly five years. My experience in organizations, decision-making, and working in various cultures did not help me understand torts, contracts, or civil procedure. Eventually I bridged the gap, but it took a lot of effort. Contrast that to b-school, where I was 30 years old and relatively average in my age and experience. Guess where I felt more at home.

Classroom Environment

The famed “Socratic Method” is used in both schools, but its intensity is several notches higher as a 1L than as a first-year MBA. B-school is geared toward collaboration and creativity in approaching problems. Professors want you to insert experience and supposition into your answers. In law school there is a ‘right answer,’ and chances are, the professor is the only one who knows it. Law students are given 15-30 pages of small-print, picture-less, text to read prior to each class. During class a professor will randomly call on 2-3 students to engage throughout the class period. Socratic Method in law school means you are on the hook to engage in a one-on-one discussion with the professor for 10-15 minutes. This can be extremely intimidating and daunting to a 1L who wants to look intelligent in front of classmates. But here’s the clincher: usually no more than 2% of a law school grade will be based on class participation. Experienced law students know that class preparation will have a de minimus effect on their overall performance. Thus, after the 1L year, many law students learn how to minimalize class preparation and focus on what is all-important—the final exam.

Exams

B-school exams are not differentiable from those most of us experienced as undergrads. If anything, Marriott School professors appropriately recognize the inefficacy of exams in promoting learning. More emphasis is put on deliberate practice and solving problems in a more realistic team environment. Not so in law school. Like many aspects of law school, exams are steeped in generations of tradition and few law professors are willing to recognize the futility of lumping all evaluation into a three-hour frenzy. One of my law school friends took speed typing tutorials to improve his grades … and it worked! After most law school exams I have a salt ring on my laptop from my sweaty palms (no joke!). Law exams include a scenario(s) that is packed with about every nuance to the legal subject that the professor could dream up. In three hours or less, a law student is expected to identify every issue and weave every facet of relevant law—including variations in legal jurisdictions—into a brilliant evaluation of each party’s legal case. Law students spend weeks preparing “outlines” of case law to help them study for exams. I’ve seen outlines number over 100 pages of single-space bullets.

Studying

As you might expect, studying in law school is a practice of intensive reading and documenting legal rules. Each law student is given a carrel (a private desk with drawers and cabinets). My 1L year I spent so much time at my carrel that I bought a cushion for my wooden chair because my legs and butt were developing a chronic ache. Fortunately a couple of brilliant law students invited me to join their study group my first semester. We would meet once a week until finals season—when we spent hours each day discussing, debating, and compiling outlines. A few professors try to integrate some team assignments into their curriculum, but most stick to traditional exams—where teamwork is purely optional.

The best and worst part of b-school is teams. Teams can suck away all your time. They breed unnecessary drama and force you to spend time with people you might otherwise avoid. Teams also enabled me to develop life-long friendships, learn from brilliant people, and cultivate vital skills that will help me throughout my career. My first semester MBA team struggled with two roadblocks. First, we spent too much time together and needed to carve out time for individual study. Second, it took us all semester to figure out how to communicate our expectations and appropriately divide work. One of the biggest differences between law school and business school is how you interact with your classmates. In B-school interaction is encouraged and forced. In law school the best students learn to leverage their classmates early on.

Career Prospects

I delve into this topic in my other post, but the topic should be chief on anyone’s mind who is considering either degree. If law school is generally less attractive and antiquated in its methodology, why is it so popular? I think the answer is best demonstrated in this generalized salary graph below:

The answer is in the second mode of the law school curve. Top law firms pay graduates around $160k right out of school. This lures a lot of intelligent (if not misguided) people to the law. No work experience (MBA) or elongated residencies (MD) required for a very attractive salary! Sure, the hours and lifestyle are horrendous, but $160,000 is a lot of money! One of my BYU Law friends took a job for over $180,000 in a very competitive Texas firm to pay off his six-figure student loan debt in 2-3 years. He will be working 70-90 hours/week for the next three years of his life.

Unfortunately many of us were attracted to law school believing those $160k salaries would be easily attainable. Cue market collapse and sudden death to big corporate deals. Corporate lawyers, in particular, live and die by the economy. This downturn created a perfect storm for many big firms. First, they were paying attorneys too much (a cost passed on to clients). Second, there were too many attorneys. Third, there was not enough business. BYU Law School is respectable, but when push came to shove, even many of the top 15% of my law school class struggled to get the high-paying jobs. Many were given one-year deferments on their job offers. Others had to settle for jobs in the lower salary brackets. This left the bottom half of the class to eat the remaining crumbs. Imagine earning $40k after three years of law school. Sad, but true … at least for many of my classmates.

Even though times have been tough for MBA students, my observation is that they are much better off than our law school compatriots. Companies can live without certain litigation or deals for a few years, but most corporate leaders realize they can’t stop the stream of talented MBA recruits. The law school still hasn’t published it stats for the class of 2010, but my guess is that the median and mean salaries will be much lower than that of the MBA program this year. Traditionally they have been within a few thousand of each other.

Parting Thoughts

I have chosen a career in management and my MBA experience has far exceeded that of my life as a law student. Others out there will have the opposite opinion. I continue to believe the JD/MBA will enhance and benefit my career. Certainly the legal training I now have will help me evaluate decisions, argue my perspective, and communicate my thoughts. Law school isn’t all bad. There are frequent free lunches, dozens of clubs and activities, and some amazing people. If I had to choose between the two, I would still rather invest my time and money into an MBA.

-Tim Young, Class of 2011, 4th Year JD/MBA

Interned at: Cisco

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Adobe Web Analytics Competition

The Adobe Web Analytics Competition was a pretty unique opportunity for me and my teammate Alex. We entered with little more than a general understanding of what web analytics is and a diehard commitment to win if at all possible. At the start of the competition, we received some basic training on how to use Adobe’s analytics software, and then they left us on our own to figure out how to find business opportunities within the client's site traffic data.

The client was dogfunk.com, a prominent online snowboard retailer. We found it easy to become immersed in the analytics tools and the client’s website as we spent hour after hour combing through reports, searching for ways to add value.

We were lucky enough to have a great team dynamic. As we found opportunities on the site, we discussed and debated them endlessly to ensure our ideas were well vetted and that we had a compelling story to tell. After all, if we couldn’t convince each other, how could we ever convince a panel of seasoned judges that we knew what we were talking about?

We also brought in outside research to support our recommendations. This paid off big in the end. We embedded a quote in our presentation on analytics best practices written by an Adobe consultant. It turned out that the author was one of our judges. We couldn’t have asked for better validation of our work.

After solidifying our recommendations for the site, we went to work building a presentation we thought would wow people. We considered our audience beyond the panel of expert judges and thought about the client showing our presentation to executives from their company. This strategic move really impacted the way we structured things and even led us to create executive summary booklets – something I think helped us stand out from the other competitors.

And after all this, we practiced fanatically in front of audiences as small as our wives and as large as a classroom full of students. We may have gone overboard in terms of the amount of time we put in, but we were determined to test the theory that there is a correlation between effort and success. Luckily for us, this test turned out positive.

At the end of the day, Alex and I felt confident that we could take the skills we acquired and find meaningful work in the burgeoning industry of web analytics. It seems that the competition has even opened some doors with Adobe and we’re excited to explore job opportunities with a renowned leader and a terrific company.

I would recommend this competition to anyone interested in web analytics, Adobe, or even just $15,000. Only one caveat: winning came at a big cost in time for us. We had to set other things aside and sometimes forget them altogether. But it was worth it.

Team Name: Check Plus Plus

Alex Sakaguchi, Marketing, Class of 2011

-Merritt Aho, Marketing, Class of 2011

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SHERPA Advice

We asked the MBA Sherpa’s (2^nd year MBA’s who mentor and coach 1^st years through their internship search) to give some advice to the 1^st years entering their second semester of business school. We thought we would share their advice with you:

The Sherpa program has been a lot of fun. I have become friends with several students that I would normally not have much contact with. You are amazing...

“Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is so high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is so great that you cannot weather it. You are not destined to be a scrub. You are a child of God, of infinite capacity. Believe that you can do it - whatever it is that you set your heart on. Opportunities will unfold and open before you. The skies will clear when they have been dark with portent.” – Gordon B. Hinckley“

If you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute.

You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, but dog-gone it, make people like you.

Your focus needs more focus.

My Mama always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you‘re gonna get.”

1st or 2nd years taking the Heaton Beatin‘ next semester, do not be afraid. All you need to do to ace the class is simply ask Prof. Heaton, “You worked at BCG?“ That is sufficient for an A-.

Advice to those searching for jobs: Your future depends on your dreams, so make sure you‘re getting some sleep.

Interviewing for internships is like seeing a proctologist.... it‘s uncomfortable, it‘s awkward, you feel exposed, and when everyone asks you about it later, you‘re just glad they weren‘t there to watch.

It‘ll work out. It always does.

My Mama always said, “Stupid is as stupid does.“

Getting internships is like being water boarded...it feels like you‘re going to die and you keep asking yourself, “How can what they‘re doing to me be legal?”

It still amazes me that just because I‘m a BYU MBA I can reach out to any alumni in any company and get the inside scoop. Awesome!

Pay attention to relationships and don‘t sweat the grades.

Don‘t forget to include your family in your schoolwork and internship search.

The best advice I can give is to ask for help! There are so many people in this world that would love to tell you how unimpressive you really are and how to get better. Benjamin Franklin said, “The first degree of folly, is to conceit one‘s self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise counsel.“

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The Supply Chain Track

Supply Chain Overview

A supply chain is the complete sequence of companies and value-enhancing activities required to transform basic raw materials into useful products and services for customers. Successful companies effectively manage operations (quality; response time; cost; and the flow of information, materials, and people) within the walls of their own organization.

However, new competitive challenges require that companies expand strategic and operating decisions and information flows to include customers and vendors, or the entire value/supply chain. A supply chain manager works closely within the company with product design, manufacturing, marketing and sales, purchasing, logistics and distribution; but a manager also maintains strong working relationships with the same functional areas in customer and vendor organizations. Supply chain management is among the fastest growing job markets for business graduates.

Sample MBA Supply Chain Positions

Supply chain management career opportunities may begin with jobs specifically focused on information and logistics interfaces between the company and its customers or vendors, or with jobs in traditional areas of process control, purchasing and inventory management, logistics and distribution, product and process design, or forecasting.

The following are examples of positions that BYU MBA students/alumni have held, or currently hold.

Company	Job Title	Responsibilities
Amazon	MBA Operations Intern	Work at one of our large Fulfillment Centers or at one of our Customer Service sites. Examples of possible projects for this summer include: • Outbound flow optimization • Customer Service Level Agreement enhancement • Vendor lead time improvement • Capacity planning metrics
Apple	Supply / Demand Product Manager	Analyze forecasted demand, inventory, and channel sales to develop and manage supply plans. Coordinate closely with worldwide product planning to ensure supply plans are supported. Partner with logistics teams to determine and execute optimal supply chain for all product shipments. Improve product allocation and planning processes.
Walmart	Logistics Manager	Managing product group at one of our 40 Regional U.S. Distribution Centers (over 1 million square feet). Perform the heart of Walmart operations by keeping millions of products moving to customers each day of the year (24/7 operations that keep 7,200 tractors and 53,000 trailers rolling around the clock and across the country), while using the latest environmentally-sustainable practices to do it.
Lockheed Martin	Quality Analyst	Reviews, analyzes and reports on quality discrepancies related to assembly, process, mechanical, electrical and electro-mechanical systems. Investigates problems and develops disposition and corrective actions for recurring discrepancies. Interfaces with manufacturing, engineering, customer, vendor and subcontractor representatives to determine responsibilities. Recommends corrective actions, dispositions and modifications.

Online Supply Chain Industry Resources

The following is a list of valuable supply chain focused news and discussion boards on current topics in the industry:

• AMR Top 25 Supply Chain Companies
• Supply Chain Digest
• Institute of Supply Management
• Inbound Logistics
• Quality, Baldrige Award News
• Operations, Shingo Prize
• ASQ, Global Voice of Quality
• iSix Sigma
• Free Quality

Additional Career Search and Development Resources

A terrific free online resource for recommendations for best practices in preparing for career success is called Manager Tools, found here: http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/career-tools

Specific podcasts of note include the following:

Career Search

· Resume Musts

· Special Resume considerations for recent graduates

· Answering Interview questions about your Career History

· Determining if you qualify for a job application

· Being successful at Career Fairs

· Thank You notes, how and when

School and Professional Behavioral Recommendations

· Time Management

· Building a Network

· Developing Your Career Using Your Network

· Dealing with Colleagues who Don’t Pull their weight

· Effective Communication

· How to apologize after making professional mistakes

· Resolving conflict with Internal Support Providers

Past BYU MBA Supply Chain Recruiters

Click here for a link to past recruiters for MBA Supply Chain students at BYU.

-Luke Terry, Supply Chain, 2011

Interned at: SearchSino in Xi'an, China

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