The importance of being practical

First of all, because I have received a lot of comments from my friends on my previous post, I would like to say that when I was writing about Enron and Mr. Vayner I by no means was supporting their actions. However, I was impressed by the fact that society very often prompts this kind of behavior and sometimes you need to be REALLY strong to resist the pressure.
Somehow I understood that my posts lack the practical information and will try to divide them into 2 parts: practical (that you probably wanna read) and personal (that you probably wanna skip if you don’t like my stile).
The practical side today is about how you can prepare better for the course, if you’re admitted already.

• As you know LBS has quite strong reputation in finance, so a lot of people select this area as their concentration. But unfortunately visualizing yourself as a financial guru is not enough. And if quantitative side is not one of your best, you need to study in advance. Finance 1 is the most dreaded exam in the first term (though 2/3 of the boys are desperately in love with our brilliant finance professor – Francesca Cornelli). Our main text book is Corporate Finance by Richard A. Brealey, Stewart C. Myers, Franklin Allen and I strongly recommend you to have at least a look prior the beginning of the studies, especially if English is not your native language and you are not familiar with basic concepts in finance.

You need to be able to manage your time and set priorities, otherwise you will be buried under endless number of home tasks and articles (that’s what happened to me - it is 12.45 a.m. and I am still half done with my homework). It may sound pretty obvious, but believe me it’s hard. Though prior my MBA I had senior managerial position and was responsible for multi-functional activities, somehow it doesn’t work here.

You need to do at least preliminary research about industry you wanna walk in after the school. Opportunities and consequently number of activities associated with them are almost endless here, but as it’s mentioned in the second bullet – you only have 24 hours per day. Milk round (i.e job hunting season) starts in January and it is only 4 months since you began your studies. And if in previous life you are sometimes used to calm yourself with the fact that you are one of the brightest people to select from, here it will not work – you will compete with the very talented and diverse students. So, try to select max. 2 major areas you are interested in. The useful resources are: Vault and Wetfeet , which both have excellent industry guides as well as interview guides for consulting and finance. The book What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Guide for Job-Hunters and Career Changers will help you to have systematic approach to your job hunt, it will also help you not to lose the sense of humor.

And finally, as you probably know investment banking and consulting are differentiated from other industries not only by the nature of the job but also by a very specific interview process. So, if your interests lay in one of those fields a little preparation will not harmJ. The book Case in Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation will give your good understanding about case interview process for consulting and the book Heard on the Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviewswill familiarize you with the problems you might expect to encounter at the banking interview.

No personal part today - I'm half asleep already, so sweat dreams boys and girls.

The importance of being honest

It's been a long time since I was able to write something here... Meanwhile life is going on and a lot of things happened, which I wish I could share with you. But unfortunately there are only 24 hours in 1 day, though lately I'm doing my best to make it slightly more.
We have tremendously many things at school - it seems like our professors are having internal competition on whose home task is bigger and how many group projects is it possible to squeeze into one class. The classes are mostly fun, especially microeconomics (all the girls are already members of professors fun club) and finance (the same story but with boys). But my poor brain is struggling with the amount of information it needs to absorb. Career services are also part of this internal competition and they definitely want to win - we have career events almost every night - companies' representatives come on campus and try to tempt us with different career options... In my case, for last 2 days investment banking is the winner.
You can ask what it all has to do with the caption? It's a long and complicated story, but on one of the Ethics classes we discussed Enron and Andersen case and their ethical standards. Which somehow, made me very curios about the subject and I spent several hours searching the net for Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Parmalat etc. Buy the way, their websites at the moment are like monuments to the past, only week echo of their power (they still have the sites, but the only information you can find there is what investors should expect in future).
I read all those articles and thought - it's amazing how persistent the corporate culture is today in encouraging people for governance abuse, at the same time if somebody's got caught how persistent it is in condemning them. Companies are expected to deliver higher and higher results every year, the pressure to succeed is enormous, and somehow honesty in business is completely devalued. People can receive awards today for the same things that will be considered criminal later.
The other interesting thing is how this environment changes individuals. All the guys, who managed those companies, were smart and creative, but the border between acceptable and criminal actions just stopped to exist for them at certain point of time. Which makes me believe that at some level of career development people always have to do trade offs- their soul for the power. Which basically sets boundaries for my career progress (not that I am that smart though)... Today, former Enron CEO is sentenced to 24 years of prison
- what a miserable end of universal ambitions...
But my hero of the day is definitely Aleksey Vayner, the guy who made movie "Legally blond" look like a poor parody. And he was rewarded for the creativity - he is everywhere in the web, The New York times and Forbes are writing articles on him; even Fox included him into news of the day.

What did he do? Just applied for a job at UBS. What's so special about it? The way he did it. He is finishing his undergraduate studies in History!!! at the Yale university and he has eternal ambition to become investment banker. So he sent to UBS 11 pages resume together with the clip on himself, called "Impossible is nothing". In the clip he does power lifting, plays tennis, dances with a beautiful girl and by the way he already wrote a book, founded charitable organization and investment fund.
Please, see the video - it's worth seeing. Basically, he does everything that is expected from an achiever, everything which is valued by investment banks and management consultancies - he just takes it to extreme a bit. And what is the result? He is the common joke for many people. Again society punishes him for the things it encourages...
Ouch, today it's too philosophical - you must be tired of me by now

I wish cloning was an option

The time passes by so fast that I can't keep up with it. Finally it happened - now we have so many different classes and home works, I almost don't sleep at night. Sometimes, I feel like Hermione from books about Harry Potter (it's funny I first wrote Porter instead of Potter, though I'm much more attracted by the fairy tales, then by the Porter's five forces). There are some major differences from the book though. I'm not that smart and I don't have the Time turner, but some subjects seem as difficult as Devination to me. (You see I'm a big fan of Joanne Rowling).

This week end I was in Moscow, visiting my friends and family and it was great. It's funny that very often you understand how much you need somebody, only when you are far from each other. But anyway, it's so nice to feel loved and looked after, when you don't have to make important decisions every second and can just be yourself. Actually, this trip made me to understand that I miss myself a lot. Where is the funny girl, always ready for new adventures? And what is this pale, fidgeting and constantly embarrassed creature doing here? Have no idea.

Last week, I told you I don't know where I want to work, so I decided that I need to find out a little bit more about every industry and then try to concentrate on something. As a result, I signed up practically for every club that exists at school (apart from rugby maybe). And this week all those clubs have meetings - so my schedule is pretty full. I think that the clubs are one of the best things at school and really appreciate the opportunity to be involved in so many industries at the same time. I even signed up for the "wine and cheese" club, though I don't think it would be a wise choice for the career. Most of the clubs are very active and professional - they organize educational classes, CV coaching, meetings with prominent people in the industry and so on. This week we have consulting, finance (I signed up for optional valuation course), marketing (it was today and I'm very excited), media and retail. So I will probably post the report by the end of the week.
Today we had yet another very interesting event, organized by the "Women in business" club. It was called "Life after LBS" (yes, there's life after!!) and they invited some very successful women to share their ideas about careers and family with us. I was especially inspired by one lady, who started her own coffee shop, while studying at the LBS and then eventually this coffee shop was transformed into very progressive and successful business. The reason why she started it was pure curiosity and she succeeded! Which actually made me think that I need to sign up for entrepreneurship club as well....

And now I'm forced to leave you, because I have a very important meeting with my book of managerial economics …

How to get a perfect CV

I can tell you from my experience that to write a good CV is almost as difficult as to write a good novel. And basically you have the same goal: to catch attention of your reader, but you need to fit your wonderful story into one page. And the more experience you have the more difficult it is to exclude some of your achievements from the resume; you always think that each of them is equally important.
In my life I had to rework my resume many times – I’m very curious so I tried different things in my life and for some years was in permanent job search. I spent many hours, reading job postings and tailoring my CV and my efforts were normally rewarded – at least I was always invited for the interview.
So here are my pieces of advice:

Don’t think about what you want to put in – think about what employer wants to see there. Different jobs require different skills and you need to rework you resume, depending on position. It doesn’t mean you need to invent tasks you accomplished to suit the job announcement. It’s very risky – most probably you’ll be asked about those tasks and you will need to be plausible and consistent, so unless you’re not a good actor – it will be hard for you. So, basically you need to rephrase the same accomplishments in different words. For example, our career coach told me that consulting implies analytical abilities, strategic thinking, problem solving, teamwork, whereas investment banking will require usage of mathematical modeling, knowledge of finance and long hours. And those things should be visible in your resume via your achievements.

Be unique. Yesterday, at the finance club, I met very interesting girl – she did undergraduate in poetry and ended up with internship in one of the major investment banks. How did she manage it? The point is that she understood unique advantage that differentiated her from the other applicants with background in finance. Bank was looking a person to work with emerging markets and she has been working in Russia for some time and speaks Russian very well. So she wrote her CV in a way her experience in Russia was dominant. And they invited her for an interview. Of cause then she had to prove that she has all these quantitative abilities and stamina, needed for investment banking, but employer opened the door for her. And sometimes the first step is the most difficult one. Reviewing 10s of 100s of CV employer looks for key words and you need to be sure you understand what those key words are.
Be precise and concise. OK, I love those words, but I put them here not only because of that. CV is not a novel, you want your potential employer to be impressed by it, but you don’t want him to be bored. So, you need to speak about projects you fulfilled, savings you achieved etc, but you must avoid generic phrases that probably look very impressive and stylish to you, but are completely useless. Our career coaches told us, that when writing our resumes we need to speak in terms of accomplishments and not in terms of responsibilities. This is quote true for me. OK - this was about being precise. And now let’s talk about being concise. As I said before your accomplishments need to grab attention of the reader, but there’s no need to tell the whole story in the resume. Leave something to be asked during the interview. You just need to outline each point, you can always give more detailed report when you’re asked.
Be human. I think every employer (though I have some doubts about investment bankers) want to see real people and not bio-robots working for them. That’s why it’s extremely important to put personal touch into your resume. It must contain a part which will show your hobbies and interests. And though people in business school tend to put in such exotic hobbies as taming snakes and saving tourists in mounting, I think anything you are passionate about will be very good.

Oomph, it’s late and I’m flying home for the week-end tomorrow, so I need to go to bed.

The choices we make

Angie has already written a bit about the core courses that have finally started. We are in the different groups, so I had Accounting and Finance. Those classes are less exciting and controversial than business ethics, but I liked professors a lot. I studied finance before and so far it’s quite straight forward, we’ll see what will happen later…
I had CV coaching in the morning, which defined topic of my post today. Career choices we need to make. You can say that we’re in the very beginning and it’s probably too early to make any choices, but the official job hunt (which is called milk round here) will begin in January and we’re strongly recommended to start networking now. Tremendous number of opportunities in the London Business School (which is good of cause) is driving me crazy – I want to try everything, at the same time I understand that in this case I may end up with nothing (I wish cloning was an option…). So, now I’m doing my own social research – today I was asking everybody, if they know what they want to do for the summer internship, to my great surprise I’m not the only one who is completely lost. As far as my friends are trying to escape when they see me – for some strange reasons they do not want to listen to my dilemma for 1000–th time and I’ m quite tired of discussing this with myself, I decided that you might be so kind to listen to me..
Here are my options:
Strategy consulting. One of the most popular options here and the one which I was thinking to pursue, when I was writing my application to the school. There are a lot of opportunities here with large and boutique consultancies and though I don’t have prior experience in the area, CV coach encouraged me to apply.
Investment banking. The only thing I was sure of, when I was applying to the school was that I don’t want to do IB and now I see that everybody wants to do it and I started to think: “Maybe it’s not a bad idea after all”. The problem is I don’t know anything about it – so now I’m a member of finance, IB and private equity clubs and half of the books on finance moved to my place from the library (so far I managed just to look them through, but I’m planning to read them all J). Again I don’t have experience in the area, but math was one of my majors at the university and CV coach told me I have a chance. Life style (which is basically no life, just work) is not very attractive to me, but compensation is very tempting. I wonder will we study this type of trade offs in the ethics class?
Industry. That’s the area where I have much experience and where I can succeed (otherwise they will not admit me to the school I suppose). By the way – industry is everything that is not included to IB and consulting – very wide area as you see. According to the school’s statistics, increasing number of people chooses industry for their summer internship. And for me opportunities in marketing, internal consulting and energy are very attractive. Guess what I’m a member of marketing and industry clubs as well.
Apart from this I have a well hidden dream to work either in media or in charitable organization, which is harder to find, but is definitely possible.
Now, do you see my dilemma? I’ll be happy to hear advise from you in this regard.
And finally, I wanted to make this blog as useful for you as it’s for me, so tomorrow I’ll post some CV writing tips from our career services

Some Dos and Don'ts in application process

My friend from Russia, who was admitted to several schools and now is struggling with the choice came to visit me for this week-end, which reminded me that not a long time ago I was in the same situation. So I decided to tell you about the things I have done wrong.
Do not overemphasize the GMAT score. I remember myself dreading the day, I needed to take GMAT. I read tons of posts in different forums, discussed GMAT with my friends, with agency helping to prepare for the exam, I knew average GMAT score for different schools by heart. Then I passed the exam, received pretty decent score and became even more unsure about it – should I retake it or not? Summing up, I lost a lot of time on improving my GMAT score, when in reality it’s just one part of the application package. Now, I know a lot of people, who got into top 10 schools with the score, which is not very high by any means. So, don’t be obsessed with the GMAT – you just need to have good balance between verbal and quant part and the score, which is around average for the school. 760 or higher score from the other side doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get in. Which of cause doesn't mean you need not to prepare :))

Spend more time on essays. Now I see that essays are really the only thing that differentiates you from the crowd. Admissions committee reads endless number of applications and yours should be special. When I was applying, I had a lot of things to do at my work and quality of my applications was really worsened by that. So, I’m bagging you – find some time, think, structure, write and rewrite- it’s really important. The other thing that is worth to consider (and which came to my mind only when the whole process was over), is that your essays will also be used for granting you scholarships. There are certain scholarships in every school which are given solemnly based on your application package. Do you want somebody to pay for your very expensive education? Think well when you’re writing essays.


Speak early to recommenders. Selection process for recommenders is the whole separate story, but do start to think early. Usually, those are people, who have higher position in the company then you have, so you can’t just send them an e-mail with instructions and set the dead-line. You need to give them some time to read the questions, you need to give them some time to understand that the fact that you are on very friendly terms with their dog, can’t be used as the main topic of the recommendation. You need to be polite but persistent and regularly remind them about “those questions we discussed before”, you need to supply them with new copies of the question list because they will definitely loose several of them, hoping to escape this terrible task. I had quite a tough time with recommenders – one of them lives in the other country, but he was very disciplined and tried to do everything on time (not very successfully though). But the real problem I had with my direct boss, I spent 2 months in inventing different ways to say the same thing and was pretty desperate at the end. So, start early.


Do not apply at the very last moment. That what has happened to me – I’m not very organized person and my application process reflects that to the full extent. Can you imagine, that I applied exactly 1 hour before the deadline to one of the Universities (where somehow I was admitted). I finished my application at 5 a.m., moreover when I was uploading my last essay, I found out that I didn’t understand the question properly and my answer was completely irrelevant. So, I had to re-write the whole thing in 50 minutes …. Electronic systems of application encourage very comfortable illusion, that you have plenty of time and what you need to do is one click. Please, please, don’t think so and don’t leave everything till the very last hour, especially if it’s the school of your dreams.

Do select schools you’re applying to carefully. I didn’t apply to many schools (only 4), but the schools were very different and I really didn’t analyze much what my priorities in terms of this list were. You never think you will be admitted to all of them. And then you suffer from terrible torments of choice. Not only you, but your friends, your relatives, your colleagues and even your cat doesn’t want to listen to you anymore. I have been through this and now I see how my friend is suffering from the same tortures. So, please, spend some time on prioritizing your choices and please don’t be very emotional in your reasons (girls I’m talking to you now). By the way, I just found out, that the most growing category of MBA applicants in Russia, are young girls – so this comment should be especially relevant.



When you’re admitted do not work till the very last day. That’s what I did. I stopped to work one week before the classes started and now I feel like I don’t have any strength left at all. I feel very sleepy half of the day and my mates from the study group fear that I’m starting to hibernate. They seriously think this is connected to the Russian winter and expect to see me in spring.
Of cause I had the reason for working for so long. Unfortunately, I am very good at spending money and very bad at retaining them. So, when I figured out all my potential expenses (which in reality was only 2/3 of them), I understood that it would be nice to work for 24 hours a day for the last months (though I didn’t manage to persuade my boss I can really do this). This leads us straight to the next point.


Save money. Or at least know your expenses in advance. There is no way you’ll be able to spend only 10 quid per day in London, you will spend more, so, please don’t hide from the problem – you need to make realistic evaluation of total costs as early as possible. That’s what I didn’t do, so now, when I want to go to the theater, I need to calculate for how many days I will not be able to eat.

Do apply for scholarships. Even if you work till the very last moment and don’t have much spare time, find some. For 2 reasons: there’s a probably you’ll get the scholarship and even if you don’t have one it’s useful experience.

Don’t think that loan application is easy. I always thought that the main task is to be admitted and then everything would go nice and smoothly. I was wrong… I spent a lot of time preparing documents for the loan, then translating them, then having endless e-mail exchange with the bank, explaining them what are those documents, after which I had to begin all over again. 2 times. So be prepared to spend much time and efforts on loan application (especially if you’re from Eastern Europe).

There are probably some more dos and don’ts but I’m tired and I’m afraid that you’re pretty bored already – so good night.