Epilogue

So I did find a job. (And good thing I didn't post while hunting because it was not pretty!)

And I did return to IM. (Corporate work, what was I thinking? 6 weeks at a well funded "start-up" put things in perspective.)

And I love Seattle! (It's my people out here.)

So I do have unfortunately early hours but I get paid nicely to sit around and think on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper with a view of the sound. Not bad. I'll take it.

And I do think Booth helped me come into my own as an old school fundamental investor. I do see a difference from pre-MBA. So the regrets are subsiding.

The kids are awesome ... absolute joy of my life.

I hope you all are well ... if anyone's checking.

To bed with me. Happy Friday.

What everyone should know about breastfeeding

Try the following experiment:

1. Set an alarm clock to ring every 2-4 hours around the clock.
2. If you are at home when your alarm clock rings, stop what you are doing and a sit down for 15-30 minutes, pretending to have a small human being attached to your bosom.
3. If you are not at home, find somewhere private where you can sit down for 15-30 minutes, pretending to have a whirring plastic contraption attached to your bosom (which you keep with you at all times outside of the house.)
4. Repeat for about a year or so …

Hanna Rosin's The Case Against Breastfeeding in last April's Atlantic raised a lot of hackles. I read it and cried.

As I've alluded to in prior posts, the biggest shock for me about motherhood was how much I HATED breastfeeding … and, most of all, pumping. And how long I stuck with it anyway. Formula seems like a paltry substitute (physically and emotionally) for the real thing, but I wish that someone had given me the heads up that if you are planning to leave the house before your child's first birthday - breastfeeding is an incredible pain in the ass. It just is. Rosin's article captured my mixed feelings perfectly.

So if you are ever planning to bear babies, work with someone who bears babies or marry someone who bears babies, here is what you should know:

• Lactation consultants (yes, I too snickered at first), use them soon and use them often!
  
• Mothers are not milk on tap. This means, sans baby, often milk will not come out when you want it to and milk will come out when you don't want it to.
  
• Milk supply may plummet unexpectedly.
  
• Lactating breasts do not sleep.
• God forbid you leave the house and forget your breast pump. Do. Not. Let. This. Happen. … Ever.
• Breastpads! Keep 'em handy but Kleenex can work in a pinch.
• Milk is perishable and bulky. Your pump is bulky and may require electricity. Logistics matter!
• (As someone who spent virtually all her pumping life standing around in bathroom stalls) "Mother's Rooms" are not a luxury, they are the humane way to treat employees!
• Working and breastfeeding is easiest done by the organized and informed. You are now informed.

Life these days

Was about to pen one of my uber serious posts but don't have the brain power (lucky for you). Really, I should definitely be sleeping.

I am now a "single mom" (when my mom isn't here, that is). The good news is that Y has a job (with a real pay check and a not crazy boss). The bad news is that he doesn't live in Chicago any more.

Happy Father's Day!!

I am very much looking for a job. But also trying to enjoy the kids and summer. And the last month of Hyde Park. But really, it has become really impossible to imagine that I will ever be employed again. Sigh.

Baby Y's bday is upcoming and I just made a gorgeous double chocolate layer cake that I am planning on bedecking with June strawberries tomorrow morning. That and some delicious crustless quiches, one with and one without mushrooms, fresh fruit salad and bagels etcetera will be make for a lovely Monday. Can you believe he's almost two years old?? He's as old as my MBA ;)

Baby X is the most amazing sleeper ever but I think we deserve a good sleeper after what we went through with the first!

Happy Summer Solstice!!

Re Discovering My Self

(major post backlog is losing to major life to do list backlog. finals week. graduation this sunday which i am attending solely for my mom's benefit. opting for less ponderous post in the interest of expediency)

The hardest thing about the past 12 months I've realized is not knowing what it is that I wanted.

For the first half of my internship last summer I was thrilled. Except for the less than ideal (but acceptable) geographic location, the position and firm were perfect and the perfect capstone to many, many years of preparation. Then, as things began to get more tense and strange on the desk (I'll not belabor the details), I was shocked to discover one summer evening that I was pregnant. (I thought all the free food was just making me fat!) When I returned to work the next day the firm had just instituted the first layoffs in its history. My little team of 4 was now a team of 2. I knew I would not be coming back.

I've begun to wonder if my abrupt turn against IM was a way to protect myself from the reality of job hunting as a pregnant woman in a collapsing market.

As I return to some semblance of my pre-maternal self, I realize my metamorphosis is not only physical but also mental. It's nice.

Dealing with MBA Entitlement

I was catching up a few weeks ago with the alumnus who hired me last summer. (He is still at the fund but confirms that it's still brutal in IM land.) Towards the end of the conversation we discussed the fact that a sense of MBA entitlement was counterproductive these days and yet it is awfully hard to escape.

Last autumn I wasn't ready to compromise as I saw many of my classmates doing. I wanted to keep my options open. Now, I hugely regret that stubbornness. I wish I had just taken any old corporate job and been done with it. I've been job hunting more or less for 3 years. I have no more enthusiasm for this game and no more faith in an ultimate payoff.

It's final dawned on me that the reason I was so resistant to returning to Seattle is that it felt like the ultimate admission that I had just made full circle without anything (yet?) to show for it. After all, one of my primary reasons to get an MBA was to get out of Seattle. W/o the MBA my husband and I would both be gainfully employed homeowners, enjoying our children, getting exercise, taking the occasional vacation. W/ MBA we are roughly half a million poorer (tuition, childcare and foregone earnings for both of us), hoping we can get something roughly as good as what we had before, unsure of what we can afford in rent and too busy getting our lives together behind our laptops to pay attention to our children.

Hopefully with time the value will become apparent but the point is to say that MBA entitlement arises not just because the folks who get the MBA are just schmucks (though you can't rule that out entirely ;) but when you pay such a price you really want something big in return. And while the advice to humble oneself and get to work resonates with me, (after all that's what I was doing pre MBA), having spent so much money and time already and having two little ones that I'd like to spend some time with, makes this an increasingly bitter pill to swallow. If the qualities that will make me successful post MBA are just those that I possessed pre MBA - what was I paying for?

I went into this degree with eyes wide open to the financial risks that it entailed and the potential ramifications to my family. (And the '01-'02 MBA job market was still a fresh reminder.) I thought it would be worth it as my ticket to hedge fund land. And it may never be. Which is frankly the best lesson of all. I did not sufficiently hedge my risks* and I let greed blind my inner Eeyore.

In investing and in entrepreneurship losses are to be expected, so hopefully I'm more prepared for that reality than before. And I do believe that things are more likely than not to get better for me from here. But even more than before, I concur that for a happier life, shake off your misplaced optimism. (Passed on by the alumnus just before our chat.)

*Such hedges would have been applying to a broader range of programs and choosing the lowest cost provider. Applying to programs earlier before children. Doing a part-time program. Taking my employer up on sponsoring me for an executive or part-time program. Compromising on employers for the sake of security/stability. Etc.

On the Job Hunt

On good days (hours) it feels like an exciting challenge and I'm glad to be going back west. On bad days (hours) I feel utterly despondent and afraid I will feel forced to make huge compromises. The biggest issue is that I am still not completely sure of what I can/want to do with myself. My skill set is very specific and in this economy there seems to be less desire to just take "smart MBAs" and assume that they'll figure it out. Recruiting in the off cycle requires a lot of leg work and applicable experience. To be successful these days, one needs to be in top shape ... and ... I'm not. And I didn't structure my MBA with the intention of career switching.

The WSJ has had some articles about MBAs finding themselves returning reluctantly to their pre-MBA industries. Unfortunately that's not even an option if that industry no longer exists as you knew it.

Surprisingly, I find myself still sort of mourning the fate of my old career path. And regretting that my capacity to bootstrap something has been diverted by a recent, hefty investment in human capital. And worrying than an inability to hold one's tongue does not bode well for career sans trading floor.

Oh well. Could be worse. Much worse.

Performance Measurement: Everybody can be a winner.

There have been a few moments at Booth in which I realized I was not just in the minority on a particular issue, but perhaps completely alone. Two such instances occurred in Taxes (on corporate tax "evasion" and the estate tax) and one instance occurred in my "HR" class with regard to performance evaluation.

One of the reasons I chose my second undergraduate institution was because of its very unusual grading policy. We received regular grades so when we applied to PhD programs (as most did) we had a transcript to show for our work but we never received a report card. If you wanted to know your grades you had a make a special trip to the registrar. And I never made that trip.

And I loved it. At my first college I was living for the grade. I was absolutely miserable. Grades motivated me but in an unbearable way. Rather than learning for myself, I was simply trying to please my professors. Relieved of grades, my performance became dramatically better.

So the quarterly report card at Booth was jarring. And being graded on a curve was even worse. I understand the role of the curve at a large institution. (Much easier to grade 120-180 students by.) And I get the rationale for relative performance measurement. (Constrains grade inflation ... and perhaps egos.) Being aware of the average and striving to excel beyond that is certainly not a bad thing. But I challenge you to determine from a discussion with 25 randomly selected Booth students which one's are the A students and which are the C students. (In other words, how often to grades tell us anything useful in a group that is above average as a whole?) So I was surprised to realize in my HR class that this sort of grading scheme was standard at many corporations for the purpose of performance evaluation. And I was completely alone, so it seemed, in my assertion that in an organization, especially of high performing individuals, that this seemed ludicrous and counterproductive.

If you have a group of hard-working people who all did a damn good job, what's the matter with splitting the pie and calling it a day? Why do we need to focus on nearly imperceptible differences in order define our hierarchy? And if the higher ups are too chicken to identify and address very perceptible differences, creating the risk that slackers will receive just as much reward as hard workers, then that's a completely different problem. You need to hire some better managers. And if you are continually hiring under achieving employees, then improve your hiring practices.

This has bigger implications than collegiality at work, or lack thereof. And I don't think this is just applicable to organizations of exceptional achievers. How is living for the grade all that different from living to beat quarterly earnings expectations? How is grading on a curve all that different from judging employees solely by whether they managed to beat the next guy, even if that means a fantastic decline in business practices (such as lending standards)? I don't see how long-term excellence or truly innovative, independent thinking (that firms allegedly desire) can ever come from the short-term perspective that is created by relying on quick and easy grades and relative performance standards. And I don't see how rubbing employees' noses in temporary setbacks or down periods, in order to fill your X% under achiever quota, does the organization any good. And if this measurement scheme is the only way to get results in your organization then perhaps you're hiring the wrong people.

I believe that it is more important to be absolutely good than relatively good. I believe that boiling one's life efforts into a tidy score sheet is unenlightening. I believe that life is not a sum zero game: my "win" does not necessarily require your "loss". And I believe that surrounding myself with people who excel for themselves, not for someone else's approval, will make me not just happier but ultimately more successful.

[The title of this post comes from my puzzlement at the backlash to the "everybody's a winner" self-esteem movement, for lack of a better term, for kids. But that's another story.]

Why Entrepreneurship?

(I have such a backlog of blog posts in my brain, where to start?)

Anyone paying attention to this blog last fall might have noticed that I sounded, well, a bit depressed. And I don't think I was alone in this in MBA land. Although I had actually fallen out of love with the IM track before matriculating and the collapse of the financial world was the push I needed to finally figure out what it was that I should do with myself, the experience was disorienting and overwhelming. After trudging along one career path for 5 plus years, allegedly on the cusp of capitalizing on all the grunt work at long last, I felt unmoored.

But the bigger problem was that no career route or company sounded appealing. I could not think of a single job that I wanted. (Which is actually why I ended up with an IM internship in my first year.) The offers other second years were receiving sounded completely unappealing. I sat in on a few corporate finance lunch and learns. I dutifully made an appointment with a career coach and plotted out a new exploration path. Etcetera. And it all just sounded awful. I dreaded employment more than unemployment.

If you look back at my Why Investment Management? post from April 2008, you'll notice that one thing is missing ... "research". I hated researching stocks. It brought me no joy. However, most of the rest of the list still remains true. While I don't want to be a portfolio manager anymore, there is much about my experience on and around the trading desk that I felt sad about giving up, most of all, a connection between effort and results that seem too diffused in the "corporate" setting and the frank and fast nature of the day.

The other issue is that the idea of putting on a suit and walking someone through my resume at this point in my life is unbearable beyond description. Ultimately, you can't "show" in an interview. It's all "tell". And I am so tired of telling people what I can hypothetically do. I just want to do something. And I'm not interested in seeking someone else's permission first.

Pre-MBA I didn't see the sense in getting the degree and then going off to start your own business. And while financially it's still a bit alarming, I do feel like my time at Booth has put me in a stronger position to pursue entrepreneurship. Primarily, because I have a broader and more realistic sense of the business world and my place in it. Also because I have an inspiring network of peers which was completely lacking previously.

At moments I still wonder if there are skills and experiences that I still need from a corporate experience. (The never-ending "not quite ready" excuse.) And I wonder if the lure of a regular paycheck at this rather expensive (childcare, ack!!) phase of my new family's life will prove too compelling to resist. But otherwise, the only thing that relieves the sense of depression I felt this fall is the hope that I never have to "find a job" ever again. I'd rather do something else with my time.

Mother Love

It strikes me that women who express concern that they don't love their newborns as they should might be being a bit premature. Although I found newborn Baby Y pretty remarkable, my feelings were more of astonishment and curiosity than deep love. For me, the love grew over time, as it does with any relationship. And it has grown to become overwhelming. Additionally, my feelings about working as I approach graduation are definitely more complicated than they were when I entered school. And unlike the opinion-less newborn I arrived at Booth with, I am now mother to an increasingly opinionated little boy.

The week before last I skipped virtually all my classes and hardly moved from the couch which Baby Y thought was just fantastic. We read books and cuddled and whenever he went out with Grandma, I was right there on the couch when he he got back home. So this week with me back on the regular schedule, was a hard adjustment. And I actually thought on Thursday that he might be mad at me. I didn't think 20 month olds could get mad but he refused to have anything to do with me when I got home that night which was crushing.

It's been an incredibly unproductive weekend. And I don't mind. I just want to spend time with Baby Y. Every homework assignment just seems trivial and useless compared to foregone or distracted hours with him. Normally, Baby Y goes down for bedtime and naps without a peep. We put him in his crib, wave good bye and go on with life. But today he was completely beside himself if left alone. We held him and sang and rocked for a good hour. And that's all I wanted to think about. So many times during my life at Booth, I have wanted Baby Y to take only the pre-allotted time in my daily schedule so I could get right back to homework or interview prep or stock pitch research. My reasoning at the time was that it was all for him. Ultimately, the preparation would turn into a good career for me and a college fund for him and happiness for my family.

What I'm wondering these days is how it will be with two little ones. How I can bear to send them to daycare once we leave Chicago, assuming my mom returns back to her normal life, and is no longer full-time grandma. Will entrepreneurship will give me the freedom and flexibility to be with my babies or whether the all-consuming nature of starting a business will prevent me from feeling as though I'm ever fully present for children? Would a summer spent as a full-time mama leave me satisfied or frantic and bored? But it's interesting to reflect on how much I'ved changed during bschool: month by month my childless identity grows fainter in my mind, and the mother love grows deeper. It's an interesting ride.

Career Services II

The longer I blog, the more I begin to repeat myself, so bear with me if this is old news. But I realized after my recent career services post that I left out an important component - my fellow students. Career services at Booth are very good but equally important in the job search, and addition to career advisers (the official student face of career services) are student groups and miscellaneous peers and alumni. The career oriented student groups (for me this was the investment management group) play a big role in resume feedback, interview prep, and general knowledge of employers and what to expect. The IMG assigns you with second years mentors which may or may not be helpful and gives you an opportunity to pitch stocks to the entire group (which may or may not be helpful ;). I also made extensive use of all the second years who would give me 5 minutes to talk about their experiences and often reached out to alumni.

So I just wanted to mention that as well. For those on less typical post-MBA paths, this might be less viable, simply because there won't be a big pool of peers on the same path as you to share the wisdom. But, likely for most of us, the peer network is as big an asset as anything officially offered by the school.

On Efficient Markets

So Mr. David Booth was on campus for a lunch with students on Tuesday. I'm all about free lunch but I also was curious to hear what he had to say. (And wishing DFA was open to retail investors.) When I acknowledge the fact that I've become incredibly skeptical of the value of active management, many seem to assume I've fallen under the lure of Chicago's efficient market gurus. Perhaps. But the salient question for me is not whether markets are perfectly efficient (it's hard for me to go that far) but whether the amount of money to be made from inefficiencies is worth the cost. And more importantly, if you are paying for someone else to exploit the inefficiencies, can they actually generate more value than they are worth? While in any given period, someone can be the "rare orangutan" (as Booth so lovingly put it), but can they be the rare orangutan consistently? Likely not. Likely you're paying for leverage and/or luck. And certainly, a certain level of active management is necessary to keep any market efficient - but that level seems far lower than what we have currently, even with the current contraction.

Though I've been skeptical and suspicious about the alpha bit my entire working career, it's striking/surprising to me how complete my skepticism has become. I am still active in the Investment Management and Buffett groups and mentoring first-year IM aspirants. It's a somewhat strange experience. Sort of like continuing to go to church for the company after "coming out" to yourself as an atheist - a reasonably pleasant but meaningless activity.

Not doing stock pitches or sitting in finance classes makes me incredibly happy. When I first heard John Harris advise us this fall at the IM conference to do what we were good at, not what we wanted to be good at, I couldn't decide whether that meant IM or no IM. Now I know it means no IM. I am no stock picker. Few are. I will never be one of the world's great investors (if there are any), at least because I just don't care enough to bother. A disorienting and freeing realization. Listening to Booth this Tuesday it was hard to imagine anyone didn't feel as I did. But there's a good sized flock of my classmates still pounding their heads against the active management door. Hey, good luck to ya!

Career Services at the GSB (aka Booth)

Gradually trying to retrain myself to say Booth. It's slow going.

Today I had a one-on-one meeting with one of our career librarians and thought I might pen a few thoughts on the subject of career services. From bits and pieces that I hear, it seems that the school gets high marks in rankings and such for career services. I have absolutely no reference for comparison but I have been very satisfied with career services here.

How career services is organized

You can thinking of career services in terms of 3 primary branches:

1. Career advisers - 2nd year students who have gone through a selection and training process at the end of their first year and represent various career tracks. First starting place for first years who are trying to sort out their options, get resume feedback, mock interviews, etc. Each advisor holds office hours during the week and you just schedule a time to meet with them.
2. Career coaches - professionals hired by the school to help with any and all aspects of the job search process: resume reviews, life path dilemmas, negotiating salary, search strategy. Some students have expressed dissatisfaction with coaching meetings but I feel that successful coaching is very illusive. It's just not that easy to help someone figure out how to achieve their life passion. Best used for more practical issues, I think.
3. Career resource center (our library) - staffed by two of the nicest, most helpful women at the GSB who maintain books, periodicals and electronic databases to help you prepare for interviews, research career paths, craft target lists, what have you.

Career Services Activities

1. First Year: fall quarter has regular weekly sessions to get students familiar with the resources available to them, build a resume, think about interests/passions/career paths, etc. (Student groups do lots of career prep events too.) Winter quarter kicks off with a major Saturday event with mock interviews to get you ready for interviews. A lot of focus is on on-campus recruiting for the remainder of the quarter. By spring the focus has switched towards off campus recruiting, either for folks unlucky in the on campus process or those who did not participate in on-campus at all. Monthly newsletter all the while keeps us updated on the environment and happenings and dispenses tips. Career services also manages all the recruiting events, day or evening.
2. Second year: resume prep starts up in the summer during the internship and recruiting starts up right away in the fall quarter. Career service folk traipse around the world over the summer meeting with interns and getting a sense of how things are going for students. Since the 2nd years know what they're doing (logistically, if not career wise ;) there isn't much in the way of scheduled programming but there is lots of regular communication about the current environment and what career services is hearing from recruiters. Activity dies down in the winter quarter (in time for the first-years to keep the interview rooms buzzing) and will pick up again in the spring with more last minute hirers.
3. Post graduation - I don't know a lot about this but support continues after graduation as well. Certainly, one can access the coaches over the summer (I imagine) but I think there may be some support for even older grads as well. Even if just in the form of the occasional workshop or something. (I don't know that you can just call them up for a phone consult.) Career services was very proud of quickly triaging the Lehman folk this fall and getting them all new jobs within a matter of months. (Lehman was a huge recruiter on campus. R.I.P. Lehman) There also, of course, is the alumnae magazine and community directory and various networking events and such that can help folks with ongoing career management.

Enjoying life

Although until bidding results came out - I was actually feeling quite chipper and thinking of posting happy thoughts. Will do once happy thoughts return. (Moral of story - not recruiting makes me very cheerful, even if I'm unemployed. I highly recommend it.)

How I Feel about Investment Management

I have been putting this post off for months because my feelings can swing so wildly to the pro or the con on this question that I am reluctant to pen one position since I'll likely regret it later.

While I still actually agree with most of my Why Investment Management points from last spring, I have generally become completely disillusioned and bored of the industry in a way that I (despite years of some reservations) find pretty astonishing ... and completely disorienting. I have spent the last 7 years (if you include my MBA) preparing myself for this career - not a small commitment. It feels so shocking to turn away from it now. On the other hand, I definitely know what it's about and how I feel about it, so it's probably one of the more informed decisions I could make these days.

The simple story is that I find the idea of a lifetime spent in equity/debt/what-have-you research overwhelmingly boring. I found sell-side research really boring but thought that moving to the buy-side where there were dollars and cents attached to my ideas would cure this problem. Unfortunately, as short and rocky as my summer was, that doesn't seem to be the case. While it is true that you get to think about lots of different companies and industries which is potentially entertaining, you are doing essentially the same thing day after day after year after year: reading filings, talking to management/experts, building models, etc. And worst of all, you are doing nothing. Just thinking and pushing assets around. Face it folks - this is not doing.

To make matters worse, although I do not believe that markets are perfectly efficient, I have become convinced over my years around the markets that very, very, very, very few (perhaps no) investors in public securities can consistently outperform the general market in a manner sufficient to earn the fees charged through good research alone. And unless I am one of these rare few, I'd rather not bother. I once consoled myself with the idea that I was helping to allocate capital more efficiently - well, I'm not entirely sure we need some 20,000 mutual and hedge funds to do this effectively. Frankly, I feel like the industry is mostly a hubristic, sham and I'd rather doing something tangible and worthwhile with my brain. Like build a business.

There were a few interesting thinkers at the IMG conference but there was also plenty of pap and posturing (especially from the equity folk) that left me cold. (I especially hate the platitudes about being contrarian which plague IM land. Being contrarian can make you bucks and also get you squashed. Don't waste our time with this one. Admonishments to "work hard" and be persistent are also thrown around far too often. Yeah, we get it already. That has already occurred to us, believe it or not.) But a few quotes I liked:

Every bad idea starts out as a good idea. -Ralph Wanger
Do what you're good at not what you want to be good at. -John Harris (sort of intriguing, I can't decide if this means I should do IM or not do IM.)

Additionally, there is an interesting dichotomy between what makes a good employer in IM land and what makes a good investment vehicle. For example, one of the most highly sought after long-only managers (based in LA) still charges loads which I find reprehensible. And one of the other mostly highly sought after long-only managers (based in Boston) runs an overflowing stable of funds which, while a few may earn their keep, underperform in the aggregate. I find it challenging to get excited about working for managers with whom I would never invest my own money. And the hedge funds are no better. The fees are absurd (but do line the employees' pocket books nicely) and, though I've met some folks of admirable character in such funds, the majority are testoterated circuses living on borrowed time. No thanks.

These are smart people running this money - I'm not saying that I know better than them. I just don't know if it's a game worth playing.

Now, don't think this means I am completely abandoning IM. I just thought given my previous positive posts, I owed other IM aspirants still figuring this stuff out a more balanced view. After all, if there is one thing I prize more than anything it is the freedom to change my mind. Over and over and over and ...

Dispatches from the job front

Just a quickie to keep myself from falling out of habit for too long.

Last week I did two all-day conferences which were surprisingly tiresome - especially when smooshed into my pre-preg suits which barely contain my new physique. Wednesday found me puking on the side walk on my way home after a long IMG conference (depleted by endless hours of market prognostications) and dead to the world on the couch all evening. I am entering into hibernation mode.

Anyhow, there was a request to hear more about the job front (recruiting, the career office, how folks are dealing with the bad environment). So let's start there.

Recruiting (from a 2nd year perspective - not sure how the 1st years are faring but then it doesn't matter so much for them)

As I've mentioned before, it has everything to do with your industry of choice. Banking and investment management are completely devastated. Few employers are showing up on campus and some might not even hire at all after interviewing. The other industries seem to be holding up much better and I hear that general management is taking this moment to load up on folks who would have otherwise passed on these positions. So all hope is not lost ... if your main objective is to just be employed. But I imagine most of us hoped for a little more than that. I'm always shocked when I hear about folks securing positions - it's so bad in my industry I forgot that employment was even possible. So I have a particularly bad vantage point, as you can see, because people are getting offers.

Another thing I've been learning about lately is how hard this is on the international students. Apparently, very few employers will hire, or even interview, students without U.S. work authorization which is making an even bad situation much worse for my poor international classmates. It seems absurd and completely unfair and I feel really bad for them. Future international students, this is definitely something to investigate in your To MBA search.

Recruiting bottom line - it's not completely dead, people are accepting offers, but only the minority are coming out with their dream positions.

GSB Career Office

I don't interact much at all with the career office as a second year. During the first year there was a lot of programming and resume reviews, interview prep, etc. I feel like they try to keep us up to date on the recruiting status and cheer us up. Definitely seem ready and willing to help (to the extent possible) should one feel the need to call on them. I just haven't felt like there is much they can do for me, so have not taken them up on this. So not much new to add there, but definitely nothing negative.

Survival techniques

I think this is definitely a time when folks are working on plan B, C and D and pursuing options they were not considering coming into school. Many have accepted summer offers that they might have otherwise passed on. While many are actively chasing the on campus options this fall, some of us have decided not to worry about it until spring when hopefully there might be some more clarity on the world economic outlook and employers might be beginning to unthaw a bit. Networking and seeking out off campus opportunities, always a good game plan, is becoming all the more necessary. It feels a bit strange not to be actively looking, like I am missing out on something obvious, but there doesn't seem to be any point in trying to find a job right now in my case ... and for many others.

I assume it will all work out but it won't be easy. Do I think an MBA is still worth it in this environment? A qualified yes. I think that an MBA doesn't make sense for every career but generally the connections and opportunities (even if much slimmer these days) are never more valuable if not in the midst of a super crap economy.

Until next time.

Someone is feeling optimistic

So it looks like Mr. Marks of Oaktree seems to be of the opinion that our sense of gloom may have reached a nadir, making this a good time to join the contrarians in the optimistic camp. Latest memo here: http://www.oaktreecapital.com/memo.aspx. (until replaced by the new memo) I have a great deal of respect for Marks, and find the idea appealing, but I still have deep reservations about the ability of the U.S. economy to create prosperity in the coming years as our resources go towards salvaging the wreck rather than making long-term investments that increase productivity. I would not be surprised by a multi-year stagnation in the equity markets.

But in regards to my personal circumstances, my outlook is becoming somewhat more positive as I will have my last on campus interview next week and can then can ignore recruiting land for the next 7 months or so. The lack of recruiting opportunities, at the moment, feels more freeing than stressful. So that's good.

More specific MBA posts coming soon ... ish. And, as always, topic requests welcome. If find it harder to know what to write about as I get further from the applicant stage.

Odds and Ends: Lahde Bids Farewell, Grant Vindicates my Eeyore Doctrine, and Noonan Talks Sense

Three small pieces I've enjoyed over the weekend. Odds are this is old news for you but I wanted to share:

Hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde's goodbye letter to investors. I totally hear the "what I've learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it"! in reference to this 10/4/08 WSJ article. (prelude to my pending 'how I feel about investment management' post)

James Grant articulates the unfortunate role of over confidence (aka unchecked optimism) in our current predicament far better than I can. Chew on this fact - since 1983, debt has risen by 8.9% per year in the U.S. compared to 5.9% annual GDP growth over the period. Or, in other words, total debt rose $45.1 trillion while income rose by $10.9 trillion. I find that mind blowing. I can't believe we've survived this long.

And lastly, though I normally steer clear of the WSJ op-eds, I was pleased to see Noonan talk sense about Palin. Palin is the female version of Bush. Enough with the plain-talkin', bull-headed, anti-intellectualism already.

Oh yeah, and on the GSB front, the career office has come out with a very sobering update on recruiting season this fall which just confirms what many of us already knew. It is not looking pretty.

On Optimism (or embracing your inner Eeyore)

Though on the grand scale (such as the future of humanity), I am an unrepentant optimist. On a more personal level, I believe that some friends said it best when, in response to the burning 'which Winnie the Pooh character are you' question (many, many years ago), I was declared Eeyore. There are many potential explanations for my reflexive gloom (nature, nurture, socio-economic life experiences?), but it is certainly true that I feel my best when my outlook is of the worst. (Perhaps related to the physical discomfort I experience when living places with far too many sunny days.)

But let's examine this question pragmatically. How is the world these days? On the grand scale things are looking pretty good. Warfare, major plagues, witch hunts (in the literal sense), child mortality, crusades, human sacrifice, So2 emissions are all down. Literacy, dental care, 5 hour trans-Atlantic flights, use of clever political satire, indoor plumbing are up. That's good. On a more immediate scale, things are more dodgy. We seem to have gotten ourselves into a baffling economic quagmire that will not be solved quickly. And while some are falling faster now, methinks we will all get our "due" in the end. (In other words, "Main Street" meet "Wall Street".)

I see a distinct difference between the attitudes of my IM recruiting friends and the attitudes of the others. (I don't really know any aspiring ibankers.) The non-IMers seem relatively at ease, most of them have offers and the biggest question they seem to be grappling with is whether or not to take it. Many of the IMers saw our funds unraveling at the seams over the summer and find ourselves competing for an ever dwindling number of listings. And trust me, no fund manager not actively recruiting for new hires right now, has any interest in hiring at the moment. But it's not just that. This summer, guys who have spent a lifetime in the industry kept telling me - this is the worst I've ever seen, this is a complete disaster, go get yourself into a PhD program, these markets are unbelievable, these markets are rigged. And that was before the indices dropped some 20% in the month of September/October. (I've lost track of the score at this point.) And my conversations with such folk continue to be very dour. To convey otherwise at this point would be disingenuous.

As Taleb's tales of his childhood in Lebanon remind us, the world can go to hell in a moment, and expecting a rebound (we were happy then, we can be happy again soon) can be sheer foolishness. While I appreciate one thoughtful first year's comments that American-style optimism can have a healing/inspiring effect, lots of optimism is based on naive extrapolation of a recent past which may never be seen again. And true hardship is a very faint memory for many Americans. A good dose of pessimism might be more productive sometimes.

Similarly, think of how we ambitious, aspiring folks move ourselves towards the end goal, we seek out stories of success and see our own potential mirrored in the achievements of others. This is optimism and generally its good for us. This works reasonably well in up markets (labor, equity, real estate, etc.) but can be a practical and emotional challenge in lesser times.

The following statement from Cliff Asness sums up my feelings on luck and fortune (and, by extension, the place of optimism):

I will pause for a moment to stress the importance of luck in one's life path, which is often downplayed in autobiographical work. This isn't particularly useful advice (go get lucky!), and I do not mean it fatalistically, as hard work and courage really can put you in the right place to get lucky, but especially for an empiricist, to deny the role of fortune in terms of their highly path-dependent nature of life is just excessively egotistical.

So until I fully dismiss the role of luck in life (for the better or worse), I can never whole-heartedly embrace unbridled optimism. And I can't help but feel that with a few more Eeyores in the finance industry we would never have gotten into this mess in the first place.

[Next up - how I feel about Investment Management.]

Just don't ask me how I'm doing ;)

[Note on 10/16/08: I woke this morning having decided to delete this post but was so intrigued by the 4 comments greeting me that I decided to leave it for the moment. I've always been curious what the folks who don't like my posts/blog think. So thanks, anonymous, for sharing!]

Maybe I should take a posting break - I feel like a broken record. But hashing all this stuff out online (oddly) helps me think. Midway through my undergraduate experience I hit a very low point. A very very very low point. And so I left. I didn't plan to finish. But eventually I did. And I find myself continually battling in myself between sticking out things that are making me miserable and knowing when to try something else. My first job out of college was making me physically ill at some point. I had stopped sleeping more than about two hours each night and not even sleeping pills could help. I felt that I was losing my mind. And so I left in one of the worst job markets in the Pacific Northwest in recent history. And realized that losing my mind might have been better than indefinite unemployment. Etc.

So the part of me that is just completely ready to say to hell with the suits and corporate conversations and the resume drops and the dings and coffee chats and stock pitches worries that the part of me that has worked all these years to get a job in money management will have some serious regrets if I walk away now. I don't know what the best answer is. I know I have a terrible habit of closing off my options when I get frustrated. And I'm worried I may be on the verge of that at the moment.

And part of me says, I'm not sure how I got into this MBA thing to begin with. These are not my people. My people aren't afraid to say to hell with this. Or to try to grow carrots and goats in the mountains. Or tinker with motherboards in the garage. Or wander around the world when the mood strikes. My people don't live for their resume and their GMAT score and the next big deal. My people don't bankrupt companies for the benefit of their own pockets and set financial crises in motion or live in front of a Bloomberg screen or think penning meaningless mission statements is a day's work done well. What have I become?

I just can't bear to think about finding a job anymore. I know I'm not alone on this one. We're moving into the 2nd year of non-stop job hunting and preparation and I imagine more than a few second years are starting to really grow weary.

So, please, don't ask us how we're doing! And I'll try not to talk about it any more. Deal?

And let recruiting season begin (or, the economy is in the crapper and you just spent $100k on a fancy MBA, now what?)

So last night was the first round of invitation interviews. As mentioned previously, pickings are slim, firms continue to cancel interviews and I am allowing myself to be picky. In sum - on campus recruiting is virtually done for me before it even started.

There are 4 firms coming to campus that I am applying to and as of last night, two (massive, well-known, long-only types) have decided not to invite me to interview. As both close listed me last year this can only mean that they were put off by my summer hedge fund dalliance, my interviews last winter were worse than I thought (laugh) or that my fellow 2nd years are very new and improved after a summer.

But rather than being disappointed I felt a tremendous sense of relief. I have all the points in the world to bid on these firms but I don't really want to. I don't have a good long stock pitch. I don't find the idea of working at a massive, well-known, long-only fund all that appealing and I didn't really enjoy my interviews with them last year. I applied because I felt that I should be doing something.

I find it continually surprising how frequently I find myself ignoring my intuition in this MBA experience. Applying for firms I don't want to work for, trying to attend the wrong social events, taking too many finance and accounting courses which aren't really broadening my knowledge base.

Does it matter if I find a job right now? No. It would be nice to be done with the process but I didn't come to the GSB to find a job. I came the GSB to transform my career and life trajectory. And I'm not going to do that by trudging down everyone else's well worn path. I have until next summer to find a position and I'm sure I will. And I much prefer doing things my own way anyway. On campus recruiting gives me hives.

It strikes me that despite all the corporate blather about "out of the box" thinking that few understand the reality of living beyond the well worn path. True contrariness (much talked about in investment land) is somewhat uncomfortable and lonely and at times a really bad idea. And while I think I'm still trying to figure out where this so-called box is (i.e. I do consider myself somewhat of a contrarian), separating out which career choices/decisions are reasonable and which are foolish is much easier said than done.

But I also came into the quarter feeling that it would turn out as it was meant to be. Meaning, the job search process, especially in IM, is like an intricate mating ritual and individuals who find successful long-term relationships seem to be those with the patience to take their time and wait for the right partner rather than jumping into the arms of the first willing suitor who comes along. Despite all the upheaval and still uncertain offer status from my summer employer, I think it was the best internship opportunity for me. It really was a great fit and I felt good about it from the beginning. And in some ways, I feel that if I don't find the right investment management position by the end of the year, it may be a sign that I was meant to do something else with my life. I think in the end I will come out of the GSB with a clearer sense of career purpose and fit then I had going in. And a rotten economy actually helps me focus.

So what now? Well, I really regret not taking 4 courses this quarter so that I could take 4 in the winter and only 2 in the spring. So, given my lack of recruiting activity and open course schedule I think I will try to find a inter-year internship to keep my skills fresh and develop some useful references. I'm going to try to work through my unread pile of books and magazines and articles, get some exercise, make friends with the first years, play with my entrepreneurial ambitions, have a baby, make friends with the alumni base ... and maybe try to find a job.

Over and Out.