What now?

What now is exactly on my mind. If you come to Tsinghua SEM, you'll finished writing your thesis somewhere end-April, polish it up and it's due by the second week of May. Other than that, you don't really have much to do aside from looking for jobs. But if you start looking for jobs now, it's a little bit too late - most of the decent jobs have been pretty much taken and you are stuck looking for jobs that trickle through the Career Development Center (CDC).

If you're not too picky, a good place to start is on LinkedIn. Start applying for jobs through LinkedIn, I know classmates who seem to have had a pretty good hit rate on that; at least they're getting called for the first round interviews. But of course, some of the jobs seem pretty mediocre. I would seriously advise you to start looking for jobs sometime in August of your second year - at least prepare your cover letters and resumes and start networking. You can never start too early on that.

The other option is to look at NON-MBA jobs, such as jobs with IBM, P&G, and all the larger companies. You won't be able to join their specialized MBA programs/management programs, but you'll at least have some job of sorts. You won't earn a lot and you may not have the similar opportunities you would have had if you were on their programs. But that's a solid option to have.

So, what else is there to do? Well, you could explore Beijing especially if you like to take photos. Slightly before this time, it's a good 2 weeks of spring, where the weather is cool and not too hot, so go to places like 798, Nanlouguxiang or even Tianjin. Go with a partner, preferably one of the opposite sex, it's a lot more fun that way.

If you want to go to gym, there are 2 gyms located in Wudaokou, one at TUS Park and one at Lotus Center (I think it's Nirvana). Nirvana is the most expensive one and not as nice as the one at TUS Park. I think there's another gym at Wenjin International Hotel, but I'm not too sure about that. Choose TUS Park's gym at B1, it's pretty cheap and good. If you have decided to stay in Liudaokou, there's a Chinese gym at Jinma Dasha, where the Starbucks is. It's not too pricey and gets the job done.

If you like pool, there are several pool centers (I didn't know that they were pretty hard to find until I tried looking for them). The first one is around the corner from Ten Year Cafe. Walk from Ten Years Cafe towards Wudaokou in the small alley and on your left will be a hotel, the road will also split left at the hotel. Just walk down the left road until you come to a large building (it's literally 1 minute from the hotel, so it isn't that far). That's the first place, the second place is at thw Wudaokou Hotel (I think that's what it's called), where the cinema is (opposite Hualian). Next to the ICBC ATM's is the entrance, just go down to B1 again - this one is pretty nice, decent tables and cues, except it's way pricey, I think it's about RMB50 per hour. If you want to play 4-ball or Korean pool, there's one on the left side of the cinema called Dama Billards in the little alley (you have to enter a staircase and walk up 3 flights of stairs).

Alternatively, if you fancy playing computer games, just go to B1 of Huaqing, at the entrance next to the McDonald's in Wudaokou.

Come to think about it, there really isn't much to do in Wudakou.... you can always go to Propaganda/Solutions to pick up girls/boys. Any night will be a good night, just don't get drunk there, the dodgy alcohol they serve will make you sick, literally.

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Jaime said

"Thanks! I already read that book, it was really fun and interesting. Actually IB was not my first choice either. But, right now the construction industry situation is not that good, and I have experienced myself how architects are exploited for a misserable pay, so I thought that if I had to work that much I would better be payed well. Appart from these, I believe working in IB would be very challenging and would help me learn about how business are done. Sadly I don't really know how to break in... "


Hi Jaime... (thanks for being such a consistent reader, we should have coffee one day :) )

Well, truth be told, most jobs are somewhat horrible. To be honest though, I have rarely, if never, heard about architects going into investment banking. By and large, most non-finance people who go into finance tend to be engineers, physics, science etc. I may be wrong, but investment banking usually doesn't focus on hiring architects. If I'm not wrong, you once mentioned you're a PhD? I think it might be easier for you to transition into consulting instead of investment banking.

I know that you would like to be compensated as much as possible for your work done, we all do :) not that I'm trying to discourage you from going into investment banking, but you should consider other options and widen your focus a little bit.

1. The higher paying jobs are front office - sales, business development, client management - and not operational jobs. You need to keep this in mind when applying for jobs, while operations is a critical part of any business' success, operational people not only do not get paid that well, but also tend to have less recognition and career opportunities. Good operations people are hard to find, but employers tend to think that they are easily replaceable (perhaps when compared to a star busines developer/sales person etc)

2. Money can be made in any job, especially in niched industries - commodities, specialized manufacturing - you make more money when you're specialized in something and not just a generalist. However, having said that, it's interesting to note that the specialist that becomes a generalist makes even MORE money because they have technical skill (which is valuable) and are able to work across different roles (which is important), allowing them to transition to senior management.

3. Challenge has to be met by passion. If you want a challenging job, you need to be passionate about it, or you will never be able to take the stress, the challenges or even the hours that you need to put into it. While money is a strong motivator and people work for years in finance, most people in investment banking tend to move out after a couple of years, some go back to school, or go into a specialized finance job (PE/VF/HF is they're very good). Unless you're passionate about making money for the sake of money, you will be hard pressed to survive in any environment just because you want to make money.

To clarify, there is a difference between making money and making money for the sake of money. One wants to make money for material gain, the other just loves to make money for the fun of it.

4. The best way to learn how business is done is by doing a business, or working in a business where you are involved with the business. Not by doing an MBA or by working in an investment bank or by being a consultant. While you do learn about business in those three mentioned ways, you will only be able to see very focused areas, or have a very shallow exposure to actual business.

I would suggest (I might be wrong here), but if you wanted to learn about business, this is the route that you might consider doing. Given that you don't have a background in business, and you do need to learn the basics, consider the following.

i) Work in a commercial bank with their commercial loans department. Here, you will learn about the cash flow of the business and what goes in and out, more importantly you will have the opportunity to speak with 100s of CEOs and Finance managers about their financial requirements.

ii) I'm sure you've done this, but start reading blogs on entrepreneurship and business. There are plenty of them, do a quick search and subscribe to them. They will offer insight into different parts of business, sometimes, a very in-depth view as well.

iii) Do a business :)

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Clazzi - Love & Hate (Korean)

I'm told it sounds very 80's... but I think it's very nice.

On that note, you should watch the original Korean version of "My Sassy Girl".