How MBA Students Can Make The Most of Business School During COVID-19

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It’s been a crazy few weeks, but as dark and as challenging as things have gotten, as the saying goes, life is not what happens but how you respond to it. And while it’s easy to get wrapped or overwhelmed by the fear and uncertainty, the flip side of challenge is always opportunity.

The good news is that what you have in front of you, while not ideal, is still a great opportunity. The MBA Experience is a once in a lifetime opportunity and the value and ROI of a degree over the course of your career is still very high. Furthermore, you attended your school at least partially for the network it was going to give you. Now is the time to take advantage of it. While the conditions aren’t ideal, I do very much believe there are things even in these circumstances that if you focus on them, will yield to helping you build the skills you want, achieve the goals you set for yourself, and ultimately, help you make the most of your MBA Experience. It will be different perhaps than what you imagined, but when you look back on it, you’ll realize what you learned, and feel proud for making the best of it.

This year, I wrote and published MBA Insider, to help MBA students understand how they can use their time in business school to achieve their goals. I did my best to do my research to produce as holistic of a book as possible, but unfortunately a global pandemic never made it into my list! With that in mind, I wanted to do a post to share some of my thoughts, and provide some tips and best practices for current MBA students.

With this post, I wanted to do 3 things:
1) Offer some suggestions on what to focus on over the next few months
2) Provide resources and links for relevant information
3) Share tips and ideas that you can put into place to make the most of your MBA Experience, even in these challenging times.

How to Conduct a Job Search During COVID-19: A Guide for MBA Students

RECRUITING AND CAREERS
1st Year Students Looking For Internships

There is a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity right now. Many companies right now are still trying to figure out what they are going to do about hiring. Things change daily as the situation evolves. It’s totally normal to be anxious and unsettled about the prospects of the job market in the coming weeks. Furthermore, it’s more or less impossible for anyone to make a statement with 100% confidence. That said, we do know a few things. First, the things that were important before all of this are still important. You still need to:

  • Build relationships and network effectively with alum and people in your network → Here
  • Target the right roles and apply with a referral when you can → Here
  • Follow best practices for networking and informational interviews → Here and Here
  • Prepare for an interview by doing the right company research → Here
  • Follow up with thank you notes – Kindness and empathy are always important but even more so in times of uncertainty and change

The main differences right now are 1) the availability of internship postings and 2) the move to pretty much all virtual interviews.

  • For targeting the right roles, check out this link for industries that are hiring
  • For virtual interviews, check this out these tips for how to get accustomed to them

Other Actions

  • Stay in touch with your Career Center – They are on the phone everyday with recruiters and hiring managers trying to understand what is going on. Companies right now are taking care of their customers and employees, and then figuring out what to do about hiring after that. As things evolve, decision will be made in real-time, so stay close.
  • Take advantage of the time to network – This is a great time to network and build relationships with people. There’s a lot of people who are working from home right now who might be willing to entertain a phone call or video conference. Plenty of people are posting about their availability and willingness to help others out, so take advantage of it
  • Set Job Alerts On Every Platform – Setup alerts on key terms you’re looking for across all the key platforms.
  • Use LinkedIn – A lot of people use LinkedIn only when they need a job or internship, but the reality is that there is so much more to be gained from it when you are using it proactively. Take the time to engage more frequently on LinkedIn. Whether that is sharing articles, commenting on others who post or share, or updating your profile to accurately reflect your experiences and skills. Here are some tips to get started

If you’re a First-Year with an Offer

  • Confirm that it’s still there – Each company is approaching this differently of what they do about their summer internship offers that they have already extended. Some will honor them. Some will rescind them. Some will consider virtual internships. Make sure to stay close to your recruiter/hiring manager as well as your career center
  • Help your classmates – During this time of the year normally many students are stressing to get their summer internship offers in. This is often when students who don’t have internships look up, realize many of their classmates do, and begin to panic. As someone who got their summer internship on May 1st I can relate to this feeling. But add a global pandemic to the this and we’ve only exacerbated the situation! Here are some ways in which you can help your classmates
    • Help them prepare for an interview
    • Help them hone in on what roles to apply for or spend some time searching for roles on their behalf
    • Look in your network to see who you might be able to connect a classmate with and help with an introduction
    • Review their resume or cover letter
    • Celebrate with them when they land their offer (virtually)

2nd Year Students

2nd Year Students Looking For Jobs

There’s still a lot we are finding out and it’s evolving everyday Here is some data that LinkedIn published, and here is some that Indeed published. Take these for what they are, but regardless, here are some things that were true a few weeks ago and still are true:

  • Build relationships and network effectively with alum and people in your network → Here
  • Target the right roles and apply with a referral when you can → Here
  • Prepare for an interview by doing the right company research → Here
  • Follow up with thank you notes – Kindness and empathy are always important but even more in times of uncertainty and change.
  • Use LinkedIn – A lot of people use LinkedIn only when they need a job or internship, but the reality is that there is so much more to be gained from it when you are using it proactively. Take the time to engage more frequently on LinkedIn. Whether that is sharing articles, commenting on others who post or share, or updating your profile to accurately reflect your experiences and skills. Here are some tips to get started
  • Take on a Project to Build Your Skills and Expertise – Now is a great time to build up the skills and experiences you need to demonstrate that you have the expertise for a role that you hope to get. Take on a side project, a volunteer project with a non-profit or a business, or start your own to A) show recruiters and hiring managers you have the skills and B) talk about it in future interviews. Also, if possible, make sure that you can showcase it in some way, shape or form, whether that’s a slide deck that you can put on Slideshare or put on your LinkedIn profile, or even a blogpost you can write (if you are interested in writing about your MBA Experience, please contact me and I can feature you on MBASchooled)

What’s different, is the following:

  • Some companies are scaling back or freezing their hiring – Either because they are anticipating a downturn or simply facing it right now.
  • As a result of there being less opportunities, there is more competition for those opportunities – It’s a law of averages game. I would encourage you to be a bit more open to the roles you consider. It may mean applying to a higher volume of jobs than you were accustomed to.
  • We still don’t know a lot, and this will evolve – These are the early stages and things are still evolving quickly.
  • Exclusively Virtual Interviewing – It looks like we’ll be doing virtual interviews for the foreseeable future. If you’re not up to speed on how to do this, check out these tips.

What this means for you

  • Re-evaluate your focus – Things are very uncertain right now. It you’re graduating in a few months, there’s a strong chance we’ll know more at that point than we do at this moment, so putting the search on hold if you have that privilege is a good chance to take a deep breath and reset, either to focus on other activities, or to clear your head to gear back up in a few months.
  • Networking is even more important – Finding jobs and opportunities happens through networking, and in times like this networking is even more important. Make sure if you are searching for a job this is a big component of your job search strategy. Also, consider other ways to network, such as Slack groups (Ex: Check out Product Manager HQ’s Slack Group)
  • Find other ways to beef up your experience – Can you partner with a professor on research or a project? Can you partner with a various school office (ex: career management center) on a project? Can you take on a freelance gig to put your skills to use? A few places to turn to: Catalant, Upwork, and Freelancer are a good place to start.
  • Be Ready – Employers make make decisions and act quickly. Things may start and stop once a decision is made. That said, be ready once a recruiter or hiring manager pings you. If you’ve built relationships with recruiters or hiring managers, stay in touch, as things can change.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Many of you have already had trips, vacations, or events cancelled due to COVID-19. While we are still figuring out how long this will last, now is also a good time to assess what activities, clubs or organizations you want to devote some of your time to, and then how you can start engaging with that given the new circumstances that you are in.

  • Consider Virtual Events – If you are a student organization or club leader, you probably are already thinking about conferences and other events that your club puts on to engage your members and the greater community. In addition to Virtual Webinars, there are a number of other great virtual event platforms out there that you can evaluate and consider for virtual events. Here are a few you can check out
  • Tackle Club Initiatives and Priorities – With everyone being virtual and many other things you would have spent time on cancelled, now is a time to pitch in and take care of those initiatives for clubs and organizations that are important but sometimes get overlooked. Can you update your club’s website? Can you create content that you can share externally with prospective students? One big challenge with clubs is succession planning and knowledge transfer – can you setup a program to ensure that you have a smooth transition
  • Pro-Bono Volunteer Work – There are many organizations, small businesses, non-profits in the community that you are in that are struggling right now – are there ways in which your club can “adopt” one of these and work with them to support them during these times?
  • Leadership Development – One of the best parts of extracurricular activities is getting the chance to develop yourself and build your leadership and management skills. While some of that will be difficult because you can’t do it in person, now is a good time to find virtual or personal ways to do this. Can you read some leadership development books? Can you schedule 1:1’s with professors or administrators to talk through various topics? What about a book club with your friends about a specific leadership book?

 

What Activities Can MBA Students Do During COVID-19?

I’ve crowdsourced some ideas of how you can make the most of your MBA Experience with respect to being virtual. Here are some of the best ideas:

  • Offer to Teach other people something – The folks at Stanford GSB have hosted over 40 events in a short week.
  • Hold Virtual Game Nights – If you’re not doing this already, definitely give it a try. Check out Steam and Jackbox as well
  • MTV Cribs – People are now doing MTV Cribs style videos of their homes. Give it a try and share it with your friends
  • Offer to virtually teach lessons to your classmates’ children – If you have classmates who are playing teacher, offer to put together a lesson or do a live lesson via Zoom
  • Netflix Party – Watch Netflix with your friends!
  • Start a side project – always had a project you wanted to do? Now is the time to do it. Feel free to enlist your classmates as beta testers or MVP candidates. How about helping out a non-profit? Check out these resources for how to help non-profits
  • Have a 1:1 virtual chat with a professor or administrator – Professors and Administrators offer unique insights and expertise. While a virtual chat isn’t the same as an in person meeting, its a great chance to get valuable insight and build a relationship with someone associated with the school
  • Read a book – I just read The Ride of The Lifetime by Bob Iger and it was fantastic. Also, if you’re in the mood for a book about business school, check out MBA Insider
  • Start listening to a new podcast – Now is a great time to listen to podcasts. I’m starting one soon, so make sure to check it out!
  • Help out your clubs and organizations – Now is a great time to put in the work for your student clubs and organizations. Whether it’s helping focus on initiatives for next year or taking on some of the work for speaking with prospective MBA students, there’s plenty of time to set your club up for success for the following year.
  • Try an new exercise routine – Starting an internship or job in a new city forces you into a new routine, often with limited options for exercise. Practice keeping your body and mind healthy by trying out a new workout routine.
  • Check on your mentors and old work colleagues – Now is a good time to check in on them to see how they are doing, who knows, they might be able to help you in your search
  • Volunteer to speak to prospective MBA students – With many schools cancelling their admitted students weekend, speak to your admissions office about how you can help out prospective students.
  • Do a reflection on your MBA Experience – Having the chance to pause gives you an opportunity to assess where you are and learn from the experience. Take some time to reflect on your experience so far, you might be surprised on what you learned
  • Journal – This is a great way to write down and process some of the thoughts and feelings that you have either about the world, or about your MBA experience

BUSINESS RELATED BOOKS AND PODCASTS

JOB AND CAREER RELATED RESOURCES FOR COVID-19
The following are some additional resources that can be helpful to you as you manage your MBA Experience during COVID-19.

MBA Related resources

Job and Career Podcasts

Managing Stress and Anxiety in a Job Searching – This is real. Make sure to take care of yourself and your own personal health and well being. These are stressful times, so please do what you need to do in order to feel healthy and stress free.

Managing Anxiety. Period.

Networking and Building Relationships – You’ve probably gotten this already, but here are some great resources in case you need a refresher

COVID-19 Job Hunting Resources – Here are some great resources specific to job searching during COVID-19.

Monitoring the job market

Remote/Online Learning Resources

CONCLUSION
Over the past few weeks, as bad as things have gotten, one silver lining I have seen is the power of communities and coming together. There have been numerous stories of communities banding together to help one another in this time of challenge and uncertainty. One of the great things about MBA programs are that they are built in communities of people who while they are diverse, share some commonalities, namely the school they are affiliated with.

With that in mind, even with the uncertainty that exists in the world at the moment, being in a community like an MBA program is a great place to be where you have the support of so many other incredible classmates, professors, administrators and alum. Reach out to your classmates, alum, administrators, professors, and other community members as you go on this journey. Whether it’s to get a referral for a job, get a warm introduction to a hiring manager, or even just to get a pick me up when you’re having a tough day, this is the time to lean on others. Furthermore, I would also encourage you to do the same for others. I’ve often found that when I am anxious or fearful, sometimes helping others helps calm my fears or concerns, so don’t hesitate to return the favor.

Even in these times, you have the resources, skills, and network to make the most of your MBA Experience to achieve your career goals. My hope is that this post gives you some ideas for how you can do that. Best of luck, and reach out if you have questions, thoughts or ideas. You got this!

 

Special thanks to Ben, Jessi, Jasmine, and Alli for your inputs in writing this!