The End of the SCP

We are finishing up our final SCP report during the next couple of days. I got back to Oxford on Sunday and have been meeting with the group daily, editing and polishing the 50-page document. In the end I think it will turn out well. We have a solid recommendation and the academic frameworks to support it.

After that's finished I'll be focusing on my job search. There are a few leads I'm still chasing but I need to spend more time applying to open positions. The problem I've run into with "networking" is that it only works if the people you talk to happen to have open positions. Particularly in this economy no one is going to randomly create a job. But those efforts may still pay off so I probably shouldn't discount them entirely. I spent most of July trying to work my way into a strategy position at American Express and I made some decent headway, but the company's poor earnings reports resulted in a handful of cancelled interviews for me. So in August I started to expand my search a bit, though I admittedly didn't look quite as hard as I will be looking after the end of summer. It seemed that many people were out of town in August and I'm hoping they'll be back after Labor Day.

The last bit of the MBA is the week-long Capstone session in mid-September. It's an intensive week of group-work and scenario analysis...I think...I need to read up on everything we have to do that week. Following its completion there is the last black tie dinner and then an end-of-course ceremony. My parents and hopefully Casey (who is also job-searching) will be in town for those events. Audra and her husband are making the trip from Houston for the end-of-course ceremony. I haven't seen them since their wedding last September so I'm really looking forward to their visit. The next couple of weeks will be fun.

The SCP

Summer has been flying. We are already halfway through our SCP project, evaluating a new area of business for an Australian company called Facilitate Digital. I've been working on it from New York with three classmates who are based in Oxford. There have been a series of early-morning phone calls with the company's London office and another with the CEO who is based in Sydney, so I suppose that part of the project is preparing me for the random hours associated with a career in international business.

Other than the SCP I have been job-searching. Unlike previous job searches I'm trying to network more than I search the internet. It may take a little longer but I'm hoping something better will come of it. It's moving along despite the sluggish economy so I'm hopeful that something will work out in the next couple of weeks. On one level I'm happy to have the job search to take up some time. The SCP requires a good bit of work but I wouldn't call it a full-time job. I'm not really sure what I'd be doing with the extra time if I already had a job lined up!

On a lighter note, this weekend there's an SBS event for those of us in New York, both alumni and current students. There are a couple of people from my class who are in town this summer and it will be nice to see them and have an opportunity to talk to the local alumni. We'll have their same status soon enough.