International Management

The first class of International Management went well. Now the classis much bigger than before and we are having the class in another room. Not as ideal as before, but still good chairs, good desks and a good projector. What else do you need? No power sockets for lap tops, though, and I believe that the students are concentrating more, now.

And the main reason is certainly the professor. Dr. Dr. Perlitz is a very dynamic professor with great experience, both academic and as a consultant, and even lectured for 6 months at COPEAD, in Rio de Janeiro. I have enjoyed the first class and believe that this is going to be a great course. But now I have to read a case and answer the questions below.

Pre-exam lunch on Friday

This was my study room for the Cross-cultural Management exam on Friday. The weather was nice, but not as warm as I had wished, so I retreated to the class room after a few minutes.

The university building

 

This is the building where we have our classes at the Mannheim University. It is truly a castle (or maybe, more adequately, a palace) and is gigantic. The feeling of crossing the main court at midnight is something. A completely different feeling, but also quite interesting, is walking around in the castle during the day, crossing with many students and bicycles.
I am off to Heidelberg today. Later I will pick up another exchange colleague who is arriving for the International Management course next week.
The picture is a stitch of 7 individual photos.

"Graduation Talks Accentuate the Positive"

A BusinessWeek article for you. I didn't figure out if the writer is of the opinion that the time is good or bad for MBAs. I think the author didn't want to commit. But somewhat interesting, anyway.

The topics of the commencement addresses range from detailed tips for grads about managing their new careers to discussions of economic ideologies and life philosophies to finding the ever-elusive work-life balance.

Busy

Great news, I am busy again. So, just to make a bit of peace with my publishing conscience, I}ll upload a nice photo of the group chilling last week.


But it has been a good week, so far. The course is OK, the new exchange colleagues really nice, as is the weather, and I have been talking to some recruiter, including a feedback talk with McKinsey, an interview appointment settlement in Frankfurt and a headhunter from overseas.
But now I have to go, pre-class meeting with the presentation group.
Ah, the picture is a stitch of 3 individual images.

The first week of classes in Mannheim

Tomorrow we are going to see how these weekly course are going to work out. Startin with Cross-Cultural Management, the electives in Mannheim are going to be taught in 5 days, only one week. We will have classes in the mornings and afternoons, the evenings being reserved for readings and team work.
I am a bit anxious about the whole thing. Having courses in only two weeks at Queen's University was already pretty tough, especially when we had double classes in the afternoon, for six long hours in a row. In the Mannheim case, this will be the rule, with the difference that we will have a lunch break inbetween.
Another characteristic of these courses is that you start the course on Monday and write an exam on Friday. I am sure that this will be the perfect system for some people and the worst nightmare possible for others. I hope that I belong to the former grou ;-)

Tomorrow we will also meet several of our colleagues from the partner schools. Today I meet the Queen's group, all are staying here at my apartment building. Three of them are going to take the course tomorrow, plus two ladies from Warwick Business School, who have already arrived also. This will certainly be fun!

Oh yes, and the weather was great today, finally!

MBA Career Fair 2008 - Berlin

The MBA Career Fair is an event organized by top Business Schools in the German speaking region to present their students to select companies every year. This year we had the participation of Mannheim Business School, HHL, WHU, GISMA and Sankt Gallen, from Switzerland.

As you have read before, we traveled to Berlin one day in advance, last Sunday. We used the afternoon for the very nice visit to the Reichstag building (Parliament) and had a monotonous but very funny and informative lecture on the building itself and the Parliament (Bundestag).

The first picture shows some of the Mannheimers at the dinner we had with all other schools on Sunday evening. It was a pleasant event and the food was nice. I had much fun choosing a random table with people I didn't know and inviting myself to sit. This way I was able to meet some people from the GISMA and Sankt Gallen schools, while most MBAs stayed in tables with their own colleagues.
Another interesting observation I made was that people were eager to find people either from their own country or, at least, speaking the same language. Two groups quickly formed: Russian speakers and Spanish speakers, and I even met Massimo, an Italian who spoke Portuguese very well, surprisingly.

But Monday was the day. It was the day of the fair, the workshops and the interviews. And it all started with a workshop by Johnson & Johnson.
Their workshop was an interesting way of bringing the company's values and culture closer to the candidates. The first part was a short introduction of Johnson & Johnson and a longer explanation about their credo and the 4 pillars it is based on: customers, employees, communities and shareholders. The moderator told us that the order isn't important, but I read employee accounts where they actually think this order, if it were a priority, would be a great way to prioritize the company's values.
After this presentation we were divided into two groups to analyze the decision of a particular manager to close or not to close a particular plant. It was a very short case, only one page and, as expected, very little hard data, which made the groups struggle a bit with coming to a final answer. But it was exactly this lack of data which made the discussion afterwards very interesting, and I found the task of defending the group's conclusion, even though it differed a bit from my own, interesting and actually fun.


The interviews were also mostly quite interesting. The companies had received the CVs of all students of the participating schools for review and invited those they were most interested in for formal interviews.
I was lucky and got 3 interviews. A curious one, and interesting one and an odd one.
The curious one was for a sales role for a manufacturer of vertical transportation solutions. I can certainly see myself as a sales person, although I am not actively looking for such positions. But I certainly will consider the chance, if the interview bears fruit.

The interesting one was for a leadership development program for a fast growing consumer product catalog and on line sales organization. I can see good opportunities for growth and professional development in the company, so am hoping for a contact.

And the odd interview was with a major IT consultancy. Well, I do work with computers and believe that I understand IT technology quite well, but I certainly don't have a background in the area and was very surprised to see myself in their interview list. I went to the interview with an open mind, they might have been seeking people for non-IT areas of their huge company.
It started well: the interviewer told me from the beginning that he had not been able to read my CV in advance and asked me to deliver my pitch. Not knowing what job I was being considered for, I gave him a very generic version of my vita. He quickly came to the conclusion that I didn't have the content he was looking for, and politely told me so. That didn't surprise me, so I took the opportunity to ask for some feedback about the story I delivered.
I have to say that I was amused to hear that he had expected a structured approach focused on his business area and a consulting position. Well, if he had told me such details beforehand, I would have... So I almost had the feeling that, because they were mightily unprepared, we both had lost time. But practice is always good and his feedback was valuable, so I left the room in a good mood.


The last aspect of the fair were the stands in the exhibition space of the hotel. There we had the opportunity to visit the companies' booths, talk to recruiting personnel and get company literature and goodies. Like a normal career fair but, this time, the recruiters were actively interested in MBAs.
The companies also had the possibility to deliver presentations in two different auditoriums and the one I saw, by J&J, was quite good.
So, all in all, it was a good event. It certainly was tiring, especially the travel back to Mannheim - we left Berlin at 21:00 and arrived in Mannheim at 04:30 - but really worthwhile. I did make good contacts with companies and students and had very good opportunities to practice my interview skills, so I am quite content and looking forward to another event in early May.

Berlin

We went to Berlin on a class trip on Sunday and visited the Reichstag building, where the German parliament, the Bundestag, meets.
It was an interesting visit, followed by a dinner with students from 4 other German MBAs, as a preparation for the Career Fair on Monday, which was quite interesting. More on all that and other pictures later.

Some extra pictures from Mannheim

I went out today to do some more shopping, this time food and cleaning utensils. I also wanted to take advantage of the weather, which was very nice, sunny at around 15°C. So I walked around the city center and across the bridge to a flea market, 5 km away. It was time well spent.

080412 Markt und Flohmarkt

Capgemini Workshop

Capgemini came to Mannheim Business School to deliver a Consulting Skills workshop this Friday. It was an invitation event, you had to submit a letter of motivation and your CV to be chosen. I am glad I was one of the 16 participants.
The Capgemini team consisted of 4 people, from all levels, from consultant to principal. They were all very open and friendly and conducted the workshop in a very professional manner, as was to be expected.
The group was divided in 4 teams and each team had one Capgemini consultant as observer and moderator. The feedback they gave us was on spot, but, as a colleague of mine said in the last portion of the event, they were too kind to us.
For example, one of the exercises consisted in proving or disproving a set of assumptions or hypotheses. I did very well in explaining the assumption with relevant data, but didn't really check if the assumption was true to begin with. I talked to one of the consultants later and he confirmed that he had noticed that, but they didn't comment on it when we presented. I guess they don't want to scare any of us away with negative feedback. After all, this was a recruiting event.
I liked the people at Capgemini and am certainly going to apply. I received some encouraging feedback in the end, let's see how it goes.
All in all, the whole day event was well planned, with a good mix of theory and practical exercises, which were well chosen. I certainly learned some, got to know the company a bit better and had fun doing it.

My apartment building in Mannheim

 

 

 

These are some views of my apartment building. I'll show you the interior after I have brought some order to the post-travel chaos.

The park across the street

The university's cafeteria. A meal costs around €5 there, without drinks.

The park with the castle, where the university is housed, in the background

I live just across the palace park next to the university. It is a 10 minutes walk and, this time of the year, quite nice. It is quite chilly in the morning, though, but sunny, at least. But I am curious to see if we will have snow again, like, surprisingly, yesterday.

Uni Mannheim Career Fair

So today was the first day of the Mannheim Career Fair. Comparing to similar events at the engineering school of the University of São Paulo, it was quite small.

In Brazil the event was organized by the junior consultancy company run by students and I helped organize its 8th edition.
The selection of companies was good, though, I must admit. At least for me, interested in Management Consulting and it was really good to do the rounds with my Russian speaking colleagues Viktoria and Tatjana, who were with me in Canada. I found it easier and nicer to talk to the companies' representatives in couples. And the good news is that they really seem interested to hire this year.
In the evening we had a Capgemini employee presenting the company to our class and I liked this activity too. I will take part in a consulting workshop with them on Friday, the whole day.

MBA turns 100 years old

That's a lot of candles to blow.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0fdb78d4-03e5-11dd-b28b-000077b07658.html

April, April, der macht, was er will

It is the first day in Mannheim, and it is certainly cold here. Actually, it is even snowing a tiny little bit. Not enough to collect on the ground but that's real snow, anyway.
It has been great meeting some of the people yesterday evening and it has been even nicer to meet everybody today for class. This week will be very busy, with activities through the whole day and even in the evenings, but I will have to figure out a time to get to the grocery store.
The apartment I am in is tiny, but big enough for my purposes and I like it. It certainly is not cheap, but it is convenient.

Finally in Mannheim

Arrived safe, sound and dead tired, after many adventures. Am writing this from my mobile, internet isn't working here in my new apartment.

That's it, au revoir, Canada!

All is packed, except for the computer and I am amazed that I could make all fit. But I am sure that the bags are too heavy, I suspect that this is going to cost me some.

In any event, John should be arriving any minute to get the van and we will go to the airport, where I will have a long wait until 5 p.m., when my flight takes off.

See you all in Mannheim!

Two new photo series

I am almost done downloading some stuff here at the business school and decided to upload the last pictures I took here in Kingston.

080403 Last impressions from campus

080403 Mannheimers' farewell

The team room

We had a small team room at our disposal here at Queen's. Each of us exchange students had a cubicle for himself, and those are 3 of my room mates I spent hours with studying for different subjects. Not bad, not bad at all, I had very dear company all the time.

Good people at co-op

Saying goodbye was harder here in Canada. But this simply from a logistics point of view. It was tough enough to say goodbye in Coventry, but, at least, we had a great farewell dinner party there, with most of the cohort present.
Here it wasn't so, as the different electives ended in different dates (there are still people studying for an exam tomorrow) and people are leaving the program in different blocks.
Added to that, here I had to say goodbye from two different groups: the MBA colleagues and my friends at the housing co-op I lived in. It makes things a bit more complicated, for sure, but it is really good to have had so many friends to say goodbye to.
In the picture above we see the German clan in the far left and two cute co-oppers on the right. The other two didn't want to appear in the picture, so will remain unmentioned.