Mid-terms, Round 2

Last semester each class had two in-class tests, a midterm and a final, and they were all scheduled around the same time. This year, I have two rounds of midterms. One has past, it as back in mid-October, the next round is next week. I have an investments and an accounting test next week, plus I will be proctoring student evaluations for six classes. I also have a lunch meeting with my mentor that was assigned to be by the graduate school. So, I am pretty busy, but what else is new.

Last week's interview went well, and I am supposed to find out about a decision sometime this week. It's Thursday, so I assume I should be hearing fairly soon.

Big football game this weekend. Arkansas has had the year that most expected, not good, not terribly bad, just a little below some middle ground between those two. This week it's South Carolina, gotta be those guys. If we can end the year 7-5 we will be in pretty good shape for a bowl game.

Job Searching

As I believe I have mentioned before, I have hit a little pocket of increased free time as far as my school workload goes. As a result, I have been looking for jobs like crazy.

I hate looking for jobs.

There is something about trying to impress someone using only a single sheet of paper that is utterly ridiculous and demoralizing. Here is a short list of reasons why job searching can be a serious pain....

• Where are the jobs? At times, searching for job openings on a companies' website is way harder than it should be. Sometimes it seems like companies purposely make finding the actual job openings as painful and time consuming as possible. Maybe they do this to weed-out those individuals with no patience for hunting through all the gibberish. I don't know.
• Don't leave me in the dark. I hate it when companies never get back to you. If I spend the time to fill out all the information required to apply for a job, at the very least, I feel entitled to a response from the company. For the most part, this hasn't been an issue, but sometimes, they never even let you know. That's totally frustrating. To this point, yesterday I applied for a job and I was turned down within 5 minutes. Either my qualifications made it a no-brainer for them, or they are really efficient with their hiring practices. Either way, I know to move on.
• Why do I have to both submit a resume, and recant my job experience? This is probably my least favorite aspect of job searching. Sometimes companies want your actual resume, plus they want to you basically retype your resume into their predetermined format. What is the point in that?
• When applying online, making salary requirement a required field. I know this is important to a lot of companies when making hiring decisions, but how am I supposed to gauge how much I would require for performing a particular job duty if all I know about the position is from the little bit of information provided in a single job description. This seems like something that should be a required discussion much later in the hiring process.
• Feeling like you will never get a job. This is the worst. When you've applied for 50 jobs and have zero to show for it, you feel like you are destined to deliver pizzas the rest of your life.

As I said, I hate job searching, but at least this search will be way easier than any I have had before. Receiving a Walton MBA has given me the opportunity to apply for all types of jobs, that before, I would never have been qualified for. This encourages me through my search.

Plus, there is one thing I always tell others to remember about job searching, one day you don't have a job, the next you do. These things tend to happen out of no where and all of a sudden. So, even though I was just turned down for another job (literally, as I type this), I could get a call tomorrow from someone wanting to interview me.

Big Interview

With the second semester mid-terms over, we are offically halfway through the program. That's an awesome feeling, but also kind of scary considering I don't have a job lined up after school yet. The last couple of weeks I have slacked on job searching in order to study for tests, but this week and probably next week will give me a great window of opportunity to get back to the search.

While on the topic of job searching, I have a pretty big interview coming up. It's the kind of interview I have heard that MBA students can expect. The interview is with four people, the controller, assistant controller, the mangager of financial reporting and the head of audit. These are some big players in the company. The interview is scheduled to last two hours and the company head quarters are located in another state, so they are flying me to the interview. I have never been on an interview of such scale, so I am both nervous and excited about it. We'll see how it goes....

Went camping last weekend. Every year a big group of my friends have a camping trip, this year we had it on some private land so we could be as loud as possible. Pictures to come.

Back from Vacation?

The past three weeks have been crazy busy. I know I say that a lot, but the past couple weeks have been especially busy, and it's all these guy's fault.....


Not really. My brother got married last week, and he lives in Oakland. It was the first time I had ever been out west. During the trip, we went to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco to check out the sea beasts, picture above. So, it wasn't the sea lions that caused me to have been ridiculously busy, it was these guys.....


This is a picture of my brother, Shane, and his wife Jenn. They got married last Thursday so I missed about a weeks worth of school to go to their wedding. It just so happened, that their wedding fell right in the middle of midterms. So, since last Monday, I have had two midterms, one final, and been to Oakland California. It was pretty nuts, but totally worth it. They got married in the Berkley hills, needless to say, it was pretty incredible up there.

At this point, I am pretty much caught up with all that I missed since I was gone, and it is a really good feeling.

In other good news, since I last posted, the Hogs have scored many touchdowns, and even won a couple games. Thank goodness. This week is Florida, so I am keeping my expectations low.

Also coming up this week is the MBA etiquette dinner where we will be taught how not to eat like savages while in a professional context. In all seriousness, at first I thought this sounded like a waste of time, I mean, I know how to eat with my mouth shut. But, as I have mentioned to people outside the MBA course of the dinner, they have said they wished they would have had such a training before they got out into the professional world, so now, I am kinda looking forward to it. Should be a chance to get some helpful information.

Touchdown

Hey Arkansas, get a touchdown. (It's halftime during the Alabama game).

Another week down. I thought that this semester was going to be a little more easy going compared with the last. I figured I was used to being in school again, and my classes would be more similar in coursework than my classes last semester. It wasn't going to be so bad.

Well, that has not been the case. My classes are difficult, but interesting. I expected that. What has made this semester really busy has been the job searching. Last week I spent about 7 or 8 hours total looking for a job. Applying for one job often takes me about a half hour because of all the personal information you have to provide, plus the writing of a cover letter, which takes a while because I always try to tailor it specifically to the job I am applying for. I would really, really like to have something lined up by the end of the semester. Fingers crossed....

Well, the game is about back on, so I need to get back to watching it, and getting super frustrated.

It's Friday, that means the busiest week of school to date is over. Today, I don't have to even go to campus, that feels outstanding.

This Saturday is the Arkansas, Georgia game. It's the first really exciting game of the year, so everyone is pretty pumped about it. It's too bad that it looks to be rainy tomorrow. It has been raining everyday for the past 10 days or so, and I for one am pretty tired of it. Rain tomorrow will definitely dampen tailgating efforts which is a shame because we have some friends with the best tailgating setup ever. They converted an old news van into a razorback machine equipped with TVs, a beverage dispenser, etc. It's a blast. If it rains, I am sure they will still be tailgating, but it won't be quite the same.

This semester in the MBA program is when job searching really gets amped up. I have already applied for a handful of jobs, and talked with my old employer about possibly returning. I would really, really like to have something lined up by the end of this semester, but we'll see. It's tough out there right now.

Myself and a couple other people in the finance tract have applied to be in a group that will compete in an investment research project. The project consists of researching a company and making a decision on their equity for the future. The team will eventually compete against other universities,with the eventual winners competing in Hong Kong. That would be pretty cool.

Fantasy Football

I never used to watch the NFL, so I certainly never used to play fantasy football, but all that changed about three years ago. That was when a friend of mine, who also never watched the NFL or played fantasy football, convinced me to give fantasy football a shot. He told me I didn't need to be a football expert to enjoy playing, plus there is betting involved and that is fun, so I gave it a shot. As a result, today, I watch as much NFL as possible and constantly check my fantasy teams (that's right, I have more than one now) to see how they are doing. I have never had a winning season, but I still have fun playing.

Whoever invented fantasy football should be living a lavish lifestyle all at the expense of the NFL, because the number of people who are now interested in the games, and watching the games, thereby increasing ad revenue for the NFL, etc, has had to have been greatly increased by the invention of fantasy football.

Watched the second half of an outstanding documentary called When the Levee Broke. It is an HBO documentary by Spike Lee all about Katrina, the destruction it caused, the people affected, and the completely disgusting mishandling of the disaster by the government and other groups. It was very interesting, but about 4 hours long, so get comfortable.

It has been a weekend of distractions, which has been nice as this upcoming week looks to be a long one.