I had begun my second year of business school in high spirits, but recruiting began to rain on my parade almost immediately when I returned to campus. Apparently, the fact that I didn’t receive an offer at the end of my summer internships was considered a huge black mark against me, even though the company hired exclusively on an as-needed basis. Why didn’t anyone tell me that I would be penalized for interning at a company that didn't have a formal MBA recruiting program?
Fortunately, business school had equipped me with the ability to handle just such an issue, even though I may not have realized it at the time. At first, I broke into a cold sweat every time that a professor looked in my direction during class, certain that a cold call was headed my way. It usually was as business school professors seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect fear. One minute I’d be minding my own business, flipping through the case and trying to look like I was really busy taking notes on all of the professor’s brilliant insights, and the next minute the professor would swivel his head in slow motion to where I was sitting, locking in on his next cold call target. At that moment, I had to make a critical decision: should I boldly make eye contact in the hopes that my confidence would persuade the professor to move on and seek out the true weak gazelle or should I double down my efforts to concentrate on my notes, just daring the professor to interrupt my learning? The scientific method confirmed that it actually didn’t matter what I did; in general, once a professor had made the decision to cold call a certain student, that student was getting called on period.
As much as I may have dreaded cold calls, I must admit that they prepared me to think on my feet. In other words, cold calls forced me to learn the fine art of bullshitting. Didn’t read beyond the first paragraph of the case? Randomly select one of Porter’s Five Forces and expound upon why supplier power is important in a particular industry. Came up with a number that’s not remotely close to the professor’s solution? Identify an input that you are positive is correct and explain how you calculated it.
Business school had taught me how to be resourceful and creative. Reality was irrelevant; all that truly mattered was how you spun it.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
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Please allow me to clarify: cold calling refers to when a professor calls on a student who has not volunteered to contribute to the class discussion. A professor puts a student on the spot to answer a question during an academic cold call. I was not referring to cold calling in the sales sense. Thanks for playing.
ReplyDeleteI'm just graduating in May of 2011 with my MBA. I had a business degree and many years of experience prior to starting my graduate degree. I was just talking to another friend who is graduating in my class and we couldn't think of a single new skill we'd learned in our MBA studies that we didn't already know from either experience or the bachelor level business school. My firm opinion now is that unless you are in one of the top 5 MBA programs you might as well save the money and invest elsewhere. The job offers I'm getting now are the same ones I used to get prior to my MBA. I know part of that is the economy, but part of it is not having attended a top 5 school. I could get into one, I just couldn't drop everything in my life to attend. Take advantage in your 20s I say or it won't make a huge difference.
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This comment from Jeff Stevenson is not an actual comment on the blog. Follow his blogger link -- he is a self-described "cold calling professional". My guess is that he is employed by jigsaw and part of his job is to find web pages with any mention of "cold calling" and put a link to his employer there. The comment could even be generated by some automated system that puts links to jigsaw anywhere "cold calling" is mentioned and a comment option is available. I have seen similar situations before.
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