What to wear to your business school interview

I recently sat down with Earl Raehsler to get some practical advice for prospective students who have made it to the next phase of the admissions process. Earl is the Assistant Director of Admissions for the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, so this advice is coming straight from the source! He’s shared some sound advice on how to prepare for your big interview at the GSM, which I have summarized for you here.

Before I dive in to specifics about wardrobe, however, I thought I’d share an extremely important piece of insight I got from Earl – if you take anything away from this blog post, it should be this: the admissions team is looking first and foremost for candidates who can tell their story in an engaging and authentic manner. Ultimately, Earl and his team are looking at the person you will become two years down the road if you are accepted. They are evaluating you today, but also what you will look like to job recruiters when you graduate. Savvy candidates will keep this in mind every step of the way!

And now, on to the fashion! Read on to learn specific tips that came up in our conversation.

Job interview outfits can be fun!

I'm going on a visit to the headquarters of one of my favorite online retailers next week and I have to say it's been pretty fun trying to figure out what to wear. Those of you that have been reading my blog since the beginning might remember how tortured I used to be about getting dressed for job interviews, business school events and business life in general. I had this strange notion going into business school that I would be forced to conform to the kind of corporate culture that I'm allergic to. Since then I've realized that is not the case at all!

I should say this is mostly due to the fact that I'm interested in fashion and other creative industries, where wearing a suit is not required. In fact, at many companies, particularly in the tech world, showing up wearing a suit will actually make the WRONG impression. The career website at Amazon actually states "A suit and tie won't impress anyone here." So, yeah, I'm not exactly trying to work on Wall Street. But I think there is definitely a bit more leeway in how people dress in general for job interviews and professional life than there used to be. And that makes me happy!

Anyway, that was the impetus for this post. The photos in the collage above are all from Stockholm Street Style. I think these looks are polished and interesting. They have character, which I find to be the best part of dressing for any occasion. 

xoChr


Images via here. 

Adventures in Digital Marketing: Nike+ FuelBand Infographic

My friends Julia, Rachel and I are all taking a course on Digital Marketing this quarter, and I thought it would be interesting to do a group post on a project we just completed. 

The technical part: the assignment was to manually “listen in” on the online chatter about a product or brand through a variety of channels. We chose to follow the Nike+ FuelBand using IceRocket, Twinitor and Google Alert emails. We then coded the qualitative data based on themes we observed in order to perform a quantitative assessment.

The fun part: the final part of the project was to create an infographic to visually convey our findings. The goal was to keep it simple and tell just a few stories rather than describe everything we found in all of the data. 

Below are some thoughts/ideas/reflections we came up with as a group a few days after the project was turned in. Let us know what you think!

Graphic Design is a Powerful Tool for Communication

Christine: I come from a graphic design background, so this project was really fun for me! It was the first time since arriving at UC Davis that I was able to flex my creative muscles on a school project. We wanted to convey several simple points with our graphic: that women were posting much more often about the FuelBand than men, that the majority of the content was technical talk, BUT that men were posting much more content about the technical aspects of the product, whereas women discussed personal use situations. I think our infographic was one of the best in the class, especially in terms of Tufte’s data-to-ink ratio.

Julia: While I consider myself a fan of graphic design, I have never had the opportunity to work on a project like this. Thank goodness we had Christine on our team! We definitely relied on her skill in this area. Our professor stressed the importance of keeping our infographic simple for maximum impact. Infographics are ubiquitous in media today and I appreciated the challenge of creating our own. They can be such a powerful tool. I am already thinking of ways I can use infographics in my summer internship project! That’s b-school education paying off.

Rachel: This was definitely a fun assignment, but also challenging for me because I am not very creative.  I look at infographics all the time but I’ve never really thought about the work that goes into making one, or the qualities that make up a good infographic or a bad one.

“Scientific” View of Social Media

Julia: Given that we are all ardent social media consumers, I found it particularly interesting to take a more scientific approach to gauging sentiments about particular brands or products. While we may have some vague idea about how certain topics are trending online, seeing how stories emerge, data point by data point, was enlightening. While most large-scale sentiment analysis and data coding is done by computer algorithms, we manually coded our data. While this would not be feasible for most real life situations, I feel as though we were able to capture the nuance in the various mentions across our channels.

Bros Before Hos: The Controversy

Julia: I expected a reaction to our tagline. We certainly were going for a provocative and cheeky phrase. However, I didn’t expect quite the intensity of reaction that our piece received based on these few words alone. I suppose this proves the importance of considering audience in your word choice. (I know….duh, right?) Looking back I think people either loved it or hated it. If generating discussion was the goal of this assignment, I think we definitely accomplished that aim. What do you think?

Christine: This was definitely a very interesting aspect, and I think one of the benefits of learning about social media and digital marketing in a business school setting. By doing things by hand for a class project (much like manual calculations in stats class!) we are learning the deeper meanings of limits and tradeoffs of technologies like Google Analytics or even Excel, which is very useful.

Rachel: As an analytical person,  I really enjoyed being able to look a all of the chatter about the product and extract useful insights from it. Data is used so often in business these days and I think it’s really important to learn how to present the data in a way that is easy for people to understand.

Rachel: We suspected that the Bros before hos line in our infographic might not sit well with everyone in the room but we didn’t realize that people would be so offended by it. I was really surprised. I felt like people were ignoring the overall quality of the infographic because of one tiny part of it.  

Christine: I was a bit surprised too -- I think it’s easy to forget that not everyone will view something you find funny or trivial in the same way. I have to admit that looking back on it, I feel like we probably should have thought this through more, presented ourselves as more professional. Just because it’s a classroom setting doesn’t mean we should assume everyone is in on the joke. It did get a laugh at first, but then the backlash kicked in -- I think this would happen similarly in a “real world” situation. For me it was a lesson learned.

We're curious to know what you think! Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

xoChristine + Rachel + Julia

PS Click below to see the full infographic in all its glory.

8 Realities Facing Every First Year MBA

In the tradition of BuzzFeed and other funny list sites (my personal favorite being Whilst in SF), I present to you a list of the first-year MBA experience! 

DECIDING WHAT TO WEAR ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS: 

FINDING OUT ONE OF YOUR CLASSES HAS GROUP WORK. YAY, FRIENDS!

FINDING OUT EVERY CLASS HAS GROUP WORK: 

REALIZING YOU'RE THE OLD GRADUATE STUDENT IN A SEA OF UNDERGRADS: 

EXPLAINING FINANCE TO YOUR FRIENDS...

…what you THINK you sound like: 

 …what you ACTUALLY sound like: 

AFTER THE 100th TIME YOU'VE BEEN ASSIGNED A CASE ON APPLE:

AND THAT UNSHAKEABLE FEELING THAT FINALS ARE LOOMING...EVEN THOUGH IT'S ONLY WEEK 3:

BTW: This post was originally created for the UC Davis Graduate School of Management Ambassadors blog. The student Ambassadors program is a group that I'm heavily involved in and very much believe in. Our mission is to provide prospective students with real-life perspectives on what it's like to be an MBA student at UC Davis. Visit the Ambassadors blog here to learn more!

xoChr



Credits: 

All images via http://giphy.com/

Concept inspired by Leia Kazoo

6 tips for MBAs on how to break into the fashion business

I came across a nice little post over at Business of Fashion the other day where in BoF's editor-in-chief Imran Amed shares advice for MBAs trying to break into the fashion industry. I thought would be useful to share here.

Amed shares some classic advice (e.g. build relationships) as well as some industry-specific thoughts. Definitely worth a read through whether or not you're an MBA or interested in the fashion industry!

(image via Carven resort 2014)

Why marketing?

Marketing is all about storytelling. It’s where creativity and strategy meet.

To me, a company’s brand is among its most treasured assets. Too often, companies dilute the sanctity of their brand to reach more consumers in search of higher profits. Marketers are the guardians of brand, we are the champions of legacy. I love this element. I love the romance of history, of backstory, of origin. Marketers have the unique opportunity to translate a brand's story to reach everyday people in ways that are meaningful. 

Of course marketing isn’t all about this romance. It’s also about strategy. It's about understanding who the customer is on the most basic level and then reaching that person in a way that is natural to them. It's much easier than it sounds, of course, but I enjoy a challenge.  

One of the reasons I decided to get an MBA is to make an official switch from marketing in the architecture industry to the retail world. Through working on Fancy French Cologne, I found that retail marketing was a space where innovation is truly valued. The architecture industry on the other hand is much more rooted in the old way of doing things, much slower (understandably) to adapt to new forms of reaching clients. Perhaps because the old ways still work. In contrast, retail consumers by nature want to see the novel. They want to be delighted. They dare us to impress them.

I couldn't ask for a more fulfilling challenge.

xoChr

Business School Attire: Dressed for Classes

Hi guys! I took a few minutes to put together an example of a look I'd wear for class days now that I'm in business school. I didn't really have to adapt my wardrobe at all since most of us aren't too worried about looking business-y in class. We're just there to absorb knowledge from our professors and get through the many to-do's of our day.

I plan to do a lot more of these posts to share how I have been dressing (or plan to dress) for various events related to business school. Let me know if you have any questions/thoughts/ideas about how to approach dressing for certain events. I feel like I overcomplicate this stuff sometimes, but I guess that's the whole point of this blog!

xoChr

Zara peter pan collar dress / Topshop shoes / Topshop black satchel bag / Karen Walker Eyewear sunglasses / Tom Ford plum lipstick / Butter London gold nail polish

Major Misconception

I had an interesting experience last night that I've been mulling over today and I thought I'd share it with all of you.

Short story: a few of my classmates and I were at a bar griping about one of our assignments when a guy playing pool near us interjected, "are you guys grad students too?" We assumed he'd overheard something he could relate to and wanted to contribute to our grousing. So we invited him into our conversation, asked what he was studying (political science) and told him we were MBA students. As soon as he heard this, he started ranting angrily about what douchebags we are and how pathetic our choice of study is. He even went so far as to ask what our program is ranked, scoffing at UC Davis' "low ranking". (Actually it's top 40, and why would you make fun of the university that you are also attending?!) Anyway, we were a bit shell-shocked and eventually just shut him out of our conversation.

Of course none of us really care what this psycho thinks about our life choices, but it got me thinking. What would cause someone that knows nothing about any of us jump to so many conclusions about our character? Obviously there is a misconception out there about what business school is and the type of people that choose to pursue an MBA. I will be the first to admit that I had my own set of misconceptions about MBA students, even after I'd decided to attend business school. For one, I thought everyone in my classes would be exactly the same: type A, aggressive, competitive. I imagined myself struggling to conform to some pervasive corporate culture that we would all be groomed for. I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG.

Here is what I have learned: MBAs want to innovate and to effect positive social, environmental and economic change. We are ambitious and goal-oriented, but also humble and grounded. We want to make the world a better place. Of course, that means something different for everyone, but I have yet to meet anyone whose sole objective from the program is to get filthy rich. Maybe it's unique to the program I'm in, I can't speak to what it's like at Harvard or Stanford. What I do know is that my classmates come from such varied backgrounds that there is no such thing as a typical MBA student in our class. I've already learned so much through this diversity -- and we've only been in school for 2 weeks!

Classmates, what do you guys think? Did you have misperceptions that have been shattered? Let me know what you think! I'd also love to hear what any of you non-MBAs out there think of us :)

I have more to add on this topic in terms of my personal goals and how I feel about business as a mechanism for empowerment, but I'll save it for another time. I also promise to write more about b-school fashion soon, promise!!

xoChr

Class is in Session

 

Classes have begun and my first quarter as an MBA student is in full swing! In fact, I'm writing this from a Starbucks in Woodland where some of my lovely classmates and I have met up to study. (Yes, I'm already slacking, but only for a few minutes!)

 

So now that I know the lay of the land, there are a few things I wish I had done differently with my summer. One in particular is that I wish I hadn't been so worried about preparing for school! I spent a lot of time fretting over my lack of quantitative skills and experience with Excel. I signed up for additional pre-MBA prep classes online to help compensate for these shortcomings, and frankly I didn't need to. This quarter is all about fundamentals: accounting, microeconomics, statistics, and so on. But everyone is from such different backgrounds that our professors don't assume any prior knowledge of the material. Not that I have delusions that any of my classes will be easy, but the extra prep classes didn't really give me much of an edge.

 

So, my advice to you if you are reading this as a recently admitted MBA student some time in the future: forget studying in the summer! Spend extra time with your friends and family, take that trip to Hawaii, be lazy and watch all of RHOBH. Do whatever you want, just don't study! You'll be hitting the books for the next two years, take a deep breath and enjoy summer while you still can.

 

All that said, it feels really great to be a student again and couldn't be happier about my decision to go back to school. I consider myself a lifelong learner so it's nice to be in an official learning environment. For the next two years, it's my job just to learn things.

 

More updates to come, stay tuned!

 

xochr

 

 Image via Zara