Editorials – Page 4 – MBA IRISH ECHOES

5 pitfalls of terrible leadership stories

By: Jack Pelzer

Photo by Eric Santillian, via Wikimedia Commons

Can you give an example of an instance in which you demonstrated outstanding leadership? You better, because every behavioral interview is bound to include some form of this question. Employers LOVE leadership experience (even if they are filling jobs that require blind obedience to a tyrannical middle manager).

So how can you improve your answer to this inevitable prompt? Unfortunately, there aren’t any short cuts. Crafting a compelling leadership narrative is both time-consuming and difficult, but the good news is that it’s pretty easy to avoid telling terrible leadership stories. Just avoid doing these things:

Continue reading “5 pitfalls of terrible leadership stories”

So you want to be a consultant…

By: Sean Gwaltney

Photo courtesy of Douglas Paul Perkins Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Poets & Quants explores the eye-popping salary potential for new MBA grads pursuing consultant roles in a January 2017 article titled What MBAs Earn at Top Consulting Firms. The allure of a $200K+ compensation package entices prospective MBA admits with aspirations of debt free, jet-setter sexy, problem-solving, solution-oriented careers. Sign me up!

But wait, what does a consultant do again?

Continue reading “So you want to be a consultant…”

Here’s every case study that you will read in business school

By: Nitesh Srivastava

Pseudonym Inc.’s headquarters in Anytown, USA. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Many classes in the Notre Dame MBA program (as well as other MBA programs) involve reading and analyzing case studies. For those of you not familiar with case studies, they often look like this:

INTRODUCTION

John Smith, CEO of Pseudonym Inc., stared out his office window on a Friday morning. He had just gotten off the phone with someone who had conveyed a really dire business problem to him. Would Pseudonym Inc. go bankrupt? Do CEOs actually stare out the window every time they get a phone call?

BACKGROUND

Pseudonym Inc. was founded in the 1970s by Steve Gobs. It had a breakthrough product in the 1980s with the Banana II personal toaster oven. In the 2000s, it revolutionized the personal toaster oven category with the jPod and the jPhone, which fit in consumers’ pockets and allowed them to heat up individual nachos or small handfuls of chestnuts on the go. This poorly disguised company history will be of no help in solving the case. Continue reading “Here’s every case study that you will read in business school”

How much for a sandwich? An over-complicated analysis

By: Jack Pelzer

An Excel screenshot courtesy of the author

I was recently forwarded a USA Today article from my mother (which is generally how I get news of the outside world). The piece was entitled “How much for a sandwich? Try $90,000 in lost savings”. Here’s the link:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2017/06/08/small-savings-add-up/102558824/

This story grabbed my attention for a number of reasons. First, as an MBA candidate, I feel it is my duty to verify the present value of future cash flows. Second, I am a connoisseur of fine sandwiches.

Continue reading “How much for a sandwich? An over-complicated analysis”

The war for team rooms in Mendoza, part 2

By: Nitesh Srivastava

Artist’s rendering of the Battle for Team Room 143, the geopolitical repercussions of which are still being felt throughout Mendoza today. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

In the Notre Dame MBA program, students have exclusive access to team rooms in the Mendoza building where they can work on group projects together. Given the high demand for these rooms and the relatively low supply, the fight for these rooms often reduces students to their basest instincts. These are their stories.

Read Part I here.

After much politicking and the deployment of a complex pulley system, my friend Bill and I had claimed a team room so we could work on our marketing project. Unfortunately, I dozed off during my shift guarding the door. When I woke up and peeked through the window in the door, a horde of entrepreneurship students had amassed outside the room.

“Bill, I need your help!” I cried heroically.

“Just a minute. I’m close to a breakthrough,” Bill said as he entered really, really complex marketing formulas into an Excel spreadsheet. Continue reading “The war for team rooms in Mendoza, part 2”