Tag: jobs

How to Highlight Your Work Experience

This MBA Insider content comes from Sharon Barrett, Director of Working Professional & Executive MBA Admissions.

When evaluating your application, our MBA Admissions Committee aims for a complete picture of your qualifications and fit with the program. It’s all about perspective. We look  at your application as if we are holding a scale, balancing all the parts.

When considering the specific experience on your resume, on one side there’s a raw number of years (Quantity), and on the other is your job experience (Quality).

Quantity

Say that you are the CEO of a mid-size corporation. Wonderful!  Oh, you just started in this position? That’s an amazing accomplishment, but perhaps you’d still admit that your knowledge and expertise in such a new position wouldn’t be as developed as someone who’s been doing it for a few years.

Or maybe you have been in the same job for 10 years.  Wow!  No doubt you are a go-to person when it comes to that role, but could it mean that perhaps you didn’t take as much initiative or demonstrate the leadership qualities required to launch you to the next level? Or perhaps you have only had a project manager role for a year, but in that time you’ve produced measurable results and demonstrated leadership.  In these cases, the quality of your work experience matters more.

Quality

A general job title like “Project Manager” may seem lackluster, but could actually be pretty exciting.  Don’t let us make assumptions. Take every opportunity on your application to illustrate just WHAT about your job made your experience rich and rewarding.

On the flip side, a Chief Operating Office title sounds impressive, but what kind of company did you work for and how extensive were your duties?  An impressive title with naught to back it up won’t move the needle in your favor when it comes to work experience.

The take-away on work experience:  Years, titles, and accomplishments are not, by themselves deciding factors. To help you provide us with a clear picture, here are our top tips for highlighting the quality and quantity of your work experience on your resume:

Blue graphic that reads 7 Tips for a Better Resume

  1. Tailor Content – You may have heard the adage that your resume should be tailored to your audience, which is true. But customizing your resume may simply entail reordering or swapping out bullet points. Remember, a resume is a summary of your relevant experience, not necessarily all of it.
  2. Emphasize Results – We don’t just want a summary. We want to know whether you generated results from your work.  If the person replacing you could copy and paste your resume bullet points into their resume, that’s probably a sign your bullet points need to better emphasize your individual contributions in the role.
  3. Avoid Redundancy – Think of each line on your resume as a valuable piece of real estate. Consider the incremental value that each line on your resume provides for you as a candidate. If you have performed the same task in multiple roles, is it necessary to list that same task more than once on your resume? Likely not.
  4. Show Balance – We want to see a “balanced” candidate – someone who has been strong in the classroom and in the workplace while participating in extracurricular activities and having unique interests outside of work. Consider creating an “Additional” section to detail your activities and interests for use as a potential conversation starter.
  5. Utilize White Space – Great resume content can only be great if a reader can easily access it. That’s where resume readability comes into play. Don’t forget to use your white space effectively. A resume is not about cramming as much you can onto the page. Rather, give your content some space to breathe.
  6. Enlist Proofreaders– Perhaps the most important element of a resume is that it is free of errors. A single spelling, grammatical, or formatting error can hurt even the most impressive resume. Have multiple individuals proofread your resume.
  7. Convey Personal Brand – What do you think of when you think of great global brands like Apple, Nike, or Google? What words come to mind? Now, when we read your resume, what words do you want to come to mind about you? Have a peer give your resume a 30-second review and see if the words you want to pop for a reader, actually do.

Remember, your resume is important, but it’s only one data point for you as a candidate. Years of work experience give only one sense of you as a candidate, so use your resume to make the quality of those years really stand out.


Visit Texas McCombs MBA to find out more about all our programs, submitting your application, and upcoming events. Hook ’em!

Hands-On MBA: Fall Marketing Trek

This past October, the Graduate Marketing Network at Texas McCombs hosted their annual Marketing Trek with the MBA Career Management team. 19 first-year students traveled to New York City and visited the offices of Samsung, Google, Pinterest, Adobe, and ZX Ventures!

Career Treks give Full-Time MBAs the opportunity to learn about their industry to become more familiar with the culture of the companies in a real-world context. The companies provide presentations, Q&A sessions, and opportunities to network with alumni and executive management.

MBA students take New York

New York City holds many business opportunities in hundreds of different markets. We caught up with MBA ’20 students Alicia Mercolino, Xingpin Liu, and Saransh Gupta to hear about their experiences and takeaways from the trek–  Saransh is drawn to the city for tech, Xingpin for marketing opportunities, and Alicia wanted to explore the options with a goal to move to NYC in the future.

“My goal is to move back to New York with a full-time offer in hand. I was interested in learning more about and meeting people at companies with MBA opportunities and McCombs alumni.” – Alicia Mercolino

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Landing Your Dream Job with Texas MBA Career Management

A big part of your MBA journey begins after you graduate– You’ll move up in your industry, transition into a different industry, or leverage your strong McCombs network to establish your own business ventures.

At the Texas MBA Program, our Career Management & Employment Services teams are devoted to making sure that no matter where your career takes you next, you”ll be successful.

salary stats Texas MBA. 93% accepted jobs for 2016. average salary $113.481.

Your Texas MBA degree starts paying dividends immediately. In 2015, Forbes named us the 3rd-highest return on investment (ROI) among all public MBA programs in the U.S.

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Texas MBA Career Treks

Each year, the Texas MBA Career Management team leads Treks to various cities to visit the main offices of different companies, giving Texas Full-Time MBA students a great opportunity to learn more about their industry of interest and allowing them to become more familiar with the culture at these companies. Visits typically consist of presentations, Q&A sessions, and numerous opportunities for networking with alumni and executive management.

One of the biggest trends our Employer Relations and Career Management teams have seen has been an enormous increase in student career interest in the West Coast.

In 2010, 9% of Texas MBA graduates landed jobs on the West Coast — that percentage has nearly doubled with the class of 2016! Interest in technology companies has exploded, making it a large area of focus for our annual Treks.

Complementing those two trends, West Coast tech companies have been opening offices and/or growing their corporate presence in Austin i.e., Facebook, Google, Apple, Cisco Systems, eBay, PayPal, VMware and Electronic Arts just to name a few. We continue to build our relationships with these firms, as well as seeking new opportunities.

We have also seen every facet of student interest in entrepreneurship increase, from coming into the program already running a firm, or founding a company in business school, to working at a startup or fast growing company post-graduation.

In response, the Texas MBA Program has created many unique opportunities for MBA students to network with and connect to the startup community. We now host a biannual McCombs Entrepreneurship Night, which showcases startups founded by McCombs MBA students and/or alumni.

That event is held in conjunction with Austin Startup Week in the fall and during SXSW Interactive in the spring. The contacts made during these events are invited to our Entrepreneur Society (ES) events during the school year, such as the Pitch Party in the Fall and ES Connex in the spring, a networking night for local startups looking to hire interns or full-time candidates.

2016-2017 Career Treks 

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Texas MBA students at the Boston Consulting Group offices in Dallas, TX

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Texas MBA students at the Chevron offices in Houston, TX

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Texas MBA students at the A.T. Kearney office in Dallas, TX

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Texas MBA students at the Bain & Company office in Dallas, TX

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Texas MBA students at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch office in New York City

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Texas MBA students at AT&T headquarters in Dallas, TX

 

McCombs Career Management: Texas MBAs are in Demand!

MBA Career Management at McCombs works with the most discerning employers seeking innovative talent to fill their emerging leadership roles. With a student-focused Employer Relations team, we are working to create unique recruiting opportunities at global organizations throughout the year for companies that range from multinational organizations to start-ups, across the technology, finance, consulting and consumer segments. From preparing you for a summer internship to watching you land your ideal post-MBA position, we provide career resources every step of the way.

Dow - Texas MBA Students

 

The Class of 2015 had 90% job placement after graduation! The Financial Times gave McCombs its highest Global Ranking in over a decade for 2015, calling out the strength of Job Placement Success with a rank that jumped 10 spots globally to #18, making McCombs #1 in the state of Texas. Check out our full Career Statistics Report.

Our career advisors are professionally trained to help you assess and refine your post-graduate career goals through one-on-one guidance with additional support from Peer Advisors and specialized coaching resources. We work with you throughout your McCombs experience to create a customized strategy and timeline for your recruiting journey. We work to ensure our coaching services are student-focused and relevant, providing:

  • Resources, coaching and events for students interested in entrepreneurship, startups, corporate social responsibility, and nonprofit sectors.
  • Assessment and one-on-one advising to clarify the interests, motivators, and skills to craft a career plan that combines passion with talent.
  • Recruiting and networking events that leverage our students, our brand, and our geography:
    – Major career fairs on campus in the fall and spring.
    – 1st year career treks from coast to coast (New York, Seattle, and San Francisco) and in our own backyard (Austin, Dallas and Houston).
  • McCombs Entrepreneurship Night is a bi-annual event which highlights successful McCombs entrepreneurs from the Texas MBA Program while giving students a chance to network with Texas MBAs, alumni, local entrepreneurs, and either Austin Startup Week attendees in the fall, or SXSWi attendees in the spring.

    daniel goldberg“With the broad alumni base at both Texas and the MBA program, it’s been incredibly easy to get warm introductions at firms that I previously would have had no access to. Furthermore, I find the skills I learned at school are giving me the credibility needed to jump into more senior management roles as well. Finally, with my summer internship at Adobe, I’m confident McCombs played an intricate role at helping me to achieve my future career goals.”

    Daniel Goldberg, MBA ’16

A Texas MBA Degree = A Head Start to Your Dream Career

That six figure salary; The desire to travel the world; The ambition to make a difference. These are some of the reasons  that bring us to business school and we all hope to fulfill these aspirations through that dream job at the end! At McCombs, the faculty strives to help us to do exactly that through the many resources the business school has to offer.

If you see the class BA181 in the MBA curriculum and wonder what it’s about, I’m sure you are not alone. When I came to business school, I was surprised to find not only core classes in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Marketing and Operations but also one dedicated to Career Management. This unique class is perfectly designed to prevent the ever-busy MBA from losing sight of that end goal: To not just get a job, but the right job. It is led by an extremely talented Career Management team who provide you with a road map to reach your goal. Outside of class, they are always accessible to provide advice on topics ranging from career switching, networking, resume writing, interviewing, or sometimes just providing a shoulder to lean on for advice.

Besides a dedicated Career Management team we also have access to communication coaches who help up build our brand and communication skills through personal coaching sessions. Being an international student still learning the ropes of a new culture, these resources have been extremely useful to me. I am able to walk up to the team with questions that sometimes seem silly to me, but have always gotten the support I need. This has helped me greatly during networking events and career fairs. Learn More.

Our schedules are packed with information sessions and networking events with over 350 companies visiting campus! This can sometimes get stressful with homework, exams,  and networking all happening at once, but it has opened up a world of opportunities.

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           Networking Reception at McCombs Career Fair          

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 Tech Trek visit to Facebook

Career resources come in many forms and one of the most valuable is the UT network. Being part of this big network gives you access so alumni and seniors who are always willing to help the next generation of graduating MBAs. My personal experience reaching out to alumni has always been extremely pleasant. They are always willing to take time out for students from their Alma Mater no matter how busy their schedule. The collaboration that the Texas MBA program fosters stays with you long after you leave school. Alumni and staff are always there to help you succeed.

Finally, the biggest resource offered is the University of Texas and McCombs brand. Every day I learn of the many doors this brand opens up to students. With alumni spread across many industries and companies all around the world, the brand brings with it immense opportunities that I am learning more about every day.

McCombs Super Week Recap: A Head Start on Summer Internship Recruiting

Marketing and Finance are the largest employment functions for Texas MBA students, and over 35% of these jobs are in the Consulting or Technology industries. For the class of 2015, over 40% of our students pursued these functions. In order to respond to the high volume of recruiting interest from employers and students, the Texas MBA Career Management team has created an annual event: “Super Week.”

This year, Super Week was held on campus January 12-16 2015. For students, it provides a focused opportunity to conduct first round interviews with top employers for summer internship positions. For employers, it grants a streamlined and competitive process for accessing McCombs talent.

As working professional MBAs are fully employed, only Full-Time MBAs interview for summer internships. About 30-50% of working professional MBAs do elect to seek employment other than their current, and many of those participate in both fall and spring on-campus recruiting for 2nd year MBAs.

We’ve asked participating employers to reflect on their Super Week experiences. Here is what they said:

Why recruit Texas MBAs?

“We recruit at McCombs because of a history of long-term success here.”
-Associate, Barclays

“Candidates at UT fit the bill academically and technically but also socially and personally.”
-Associate, Citi

“We recruit here because McCombs consistently provides great candidates who are well prepared. You deliver year after year in terms of candidates.”
-Recruiter, Simmons and Co.

“Our firm has a focus on oil and gas. McCombs has one of the best concentrations of people interested in energy/oil and gas, which makes it a perfect place for us to recruit.”
-HR Manager, North & South America, Schlumberger Business Consulting

On January 12th & 13th, 20 investment banks or financial firms conducted more than 200 interviews with 43 unique students. Wednesday through Friday, saw 11 management consulting firms conducting around 200 interviews with 76 unique students.  On January 20, the Ford Career Center reopened for the spring recruiting season to include all other recruiting industries as well as a few additional banks and consulting firms.

For all involved, this event is the culmination of an intense recruiting process after months of networking and preparation. Many thanks to the MBA Students, Student Leadership, Alumni, MBA Program Office Management and Staff, Corporate and Foundation Relations, and the Recruitment Services Team for pulling together to make this happen and provide a competitive, aggressive yet “level playing field” recruiting environment. This high degree of collaboration led to McCombs being tied for 11th in the nation for business schools with the highest percentage of MBA job offers in 2014.

Hook ‘Em!

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