Oh, my God, one year passed so fast!

I just got chance to come to my blog and found that one year has passed since my last blog. What a surprise that time flies so fast! I guess many Yale MBA applicants read my blog and wonder what happened to me since the financial crisis. I feel that I should continue my blog and finish my survial story, so that more MBA mom can feel encouraged to continue at Bschool.

Just a quick brief what happened to me since last summer 2008. I did three months summer internship at GE Capital Corp, Energy Financial Services at Stamford. I drove from New Haven to Stamford everyday, three hours on the way since I had to leave my kids and parents in New Haven. It was an interesting and intense work experience in the private equity firm, a lot of due dilligence, modeling, and meetings. I worked long hours, sometimes to midnight and one night to 3AM, although I was not required to. But I learned a lot and felt excited about the company and the learning experience. I was in Debt Finance Group and particiated in a few debt deals. One $100 million USD deal I worked from the start to the end was approved. I was very excited about it since it was difficult to get deals approved within 3 months. I thought we could get the full time job offer as GE agreed to if we performed well. At that time, there was some signals about the financial crisis. You can tell how fast GE sensed about it and immediately freezed hiring. At the end, they only took 1 out of 7 non previoius GEs. In the past years, they always took almost everyone if managers recommended. I was frustrated as I received high recomendations from different groups. But they said it was nothing to do with performance, just a number game. That was August 2008, the worst crisis did not happen yet. I immediately feel pressured and started a full time job search from the fall. I still can remembered how disappointed I was after I did not get an offer. However, that turned out to be a good experience for me to learn more during my later job search.

Fewer companies came to campus for recruiting in the fall, but still a lot companies to me. While I was a little nervous, I was surprised that many of my classmates were not worried at all even no job offer from summer. There was only about 33% obtained the offer from summer. CDO worked very hard to bring companies, but many were just not interested in at all. Maybe because they are too young to worry and they are selective. I am very open as I have diversified background. I submited resumes for almost every on campus job. I noticed that almost same persons competed with me for every job and there were only about 40 companies conducted more than 50 or 60 job interviews on campus. Thanks for GE's working experience, which allowed me to pass by 98% first round interview screening. In Chinese, there is an old saying, "knowing your weakness and competitors' strengthes will make you win." I knew I have English language barrier compared with fluent native speakers. How can I make myself more competitive? I took a hard way that I decided to try all industries to practice my interview skills and sharpen my language. This was the only way I can do better.

I did more than 40 first rounds interviews on campus and more than 10 second round interviews on site within two months, more than anyone in my class. Sometimes, I had 4 round interviews on one day and had to skip class. Yale SOM Career center laughed at me that it seemed I live in the interview center as they saw me in the morning and I was the last one to leave in the afternoon. I formed a team to practice consulting cases, also practiced finance questions, marketing cases, and conducted company due dilligences. I took 4 classes only, and went home to play with two boys until 9pm, and then went back to school to look up the company information for interview until 2 or 3AM, almost same everyday. Preparing for different industries was extreamly time consuming. I did not know how I did this, but I did it. Fewer companies showed up after October financial collaps, and many companies canceled the second rounds and stopped hiring. I did not hear from a few second rounds where sometimes I was the only one from Yale. I hold my cellphone all the time and was afraid that I would miss some offer call. I was frustrated, but cannot afford to give it up.

When I was in class the day before thanksgiving, two days after my last interview with IBM, my phone was ringing with the number from New York. I knew it was a good one. I ran out of the class and took the call anyway. Ya...it is from IBM. An offer of IBM Finance. You could imagine how happy I was after taking so much effort. You cannot believe that I got my most favour job from my last interview out of mroe than 40s. That was crazy! There was no company coming to compus anymore after Thanksgiving. My husband later said he already gave it up and thought I would not find one. But the good thing about him is that he alwasy told me "I knew you will find a good one. I am confident in you." Family and friends gave me a lot of support during this time. Yale SOM's career center was very helpful and dedicated. Some people might find less usefulness from CDO if they do not know what they want or they are not open enough. My boss told me that I am the only direct hire this year at IBM Treasury in its headquarter. There are a few 5 or 6 MBAs hired for the finance rotational program at IBM. I still do not know why they picked me among many top MBA candidates. Who cares why!

I was famous about working too hard in my class, but my story did encourage others that hard working will pay off. Some people might be lucky and take easy path. But that is not me. I alwasy know that dedication is the only way I can achieve my dream. As for this week, my class have about 30% still looking for jobs. I feel so much blessed under the current economic environment.

So, within a month, I will start my new job as Financial Analyst in the foreign exchange hedging group within the IBM Treasury department in New York. It is a new job to me and I am excited to start a new life soon with my two growing up boys.

Time flies so fast. So many things happened in the world, in school and in my personl life. My MBA boy already speaks and walks everywhere and fights with his elder brother. He almost 1.5 years old now. I guess by now, I could say I almost survive my MBA journey. But not yet, still one month to go, especially I am taking six classes that keeps me so busy each day. I really feel so many good classes at Yale that I might not have chance to take after graduate. I will talk about this in my later blog.