Tippie recently celebrated the commencement of MBA students, and these new graduates are ready for the next stage in their careers. Rob Rossiter, Finance MBA, applied lessons from his first-year internship search to maximize his full-time job search success.
During my first year, I did not focus on my internship search until the second semester, which I now regret. I attended NSHMBA my first semester and attended the Tippie Table Talks networking event with alumni during our Milwaukee career discovery trip in the spring. The networking event actually led to an internship interview, and I had a couple opportunities to interview with on-campus companies as well. I ended up accepting a summer position as a Business Management Intern with a Boston construction firm.
After starting later in the game for my internship search, I decided to begin the full-time job search right away my second year. I decided to attend the NBMBAA Career Fair in Atlanta during the fall semester, and I applied for almost every finance-related job on the conference website. I was contacted by a couple participating companies, including Ford, to set up interviews at the conference. After the fair, I was fortunate enough to make it to the final round of interviews with Ford at their world headquarters.
I did a lot of prep work for my interviews with Ford. I utilized as many people as I could within Career Services for mock interviews. I also worked with the Finance Academy director and the Henry Fund advisor to improve my technical finance interview skills. Overall, I probably did eight mock interviews to prep for the final round.
I also connected with Tippie alumnus Jared Marks, now at Ford, for his advice and insight on the company and the interview process. After a full day of interviews and case studies during the final round, I received a full-time offer to join Ford’s Career Foundation Program as a Financial Analyst.
For the incoming first-year MBAs about to embark on this journey, start early. It takes so much pressure off if you can land an internship early in the year. Apply to as many jobs as possible, even if it is not your ideal opportunity. Initially, Detroit was not high on my list of locations when I first applied to Ford. But after researching the company, meeting with employees, visiting the Ford campus and speaking with alumni who work there, I realized it was a great fit for me.
Get involved. Companies like to see good grades, but what they like more than good grades is seeing that you were involved. I was fortunate enough to be a student organization leader. Since I did not have a lot of leadership experience coming into the MBA program, my role as a student organization president was an important talking point for me during interviews.
There are so many opportunities at Tippie. Whether it is leading a student organization, working on real-world consulting projects, managing a multi-million dollar investment fund, or organizing community service events, there is an opportunity for every student to get involved.
