New MBA Students Explore Options at Career Immersion Event

Professionals from a range of sectors shared their career insights and experiences with Yale SOM's new full-time MBA students during the school's annual Career Immersion event on August 17.

Organized by SOM's Career Development Office (CDO), Career Immersion is a one-day conference designed to acquaint new MBA students with possible career paths. The CDO hosted 66 alumni and executives from a variety of industries who served on 22 panels representing a cross-section of post-MBA career fields. In addition, faculty members and alumni hosted primers introducing students to specific sectors.

Greg Tanner '14 attended the real estate, private equity/venture capital, and hedge fund panels. "Having spent over a decade working for a hedge fund, I was looking for more definitive information on the other sectors of investment management," Tanner said. "The panels helped me further qualify my interest in various fields and set the groundwork for the research I'll do to find out more."

The event also offered students an opportunity to assess their own fit for various industries. "The experience helped me gauge whether I want to work in a specific industry and whether my background would be an asset or a liability," said Thomas Trudeau '14. "It was a productive day in terms of learning about the types of options that may or may not be available."

A number of students explored the technology sector. "I received a lot of questions from students about how they could leverage their experiences in both large, established tech companies as well as the start-up world, specifically if they did not have a technical background," said Neha Bhaskar '09, a senior marketing manager at Microsoft.

Students exploring the broad world of consulting asked a wide variety of questions, said Anthea Tjuanakis '11, a consultant with Boston Consulting Group. "The questions ranged from the types of projects we work on to how the firms represented support the growth and development of their consultants," Tjuanakis said. "These events are excellent for gathering information in a candid atmosphere. They offer students a solid introduction to different industries from the perspectives of former SOM students."