Leading Trump - Pradeep U.N. & his Blog about Nothing. : Tepper @ Carnegie Mellon

Meetings with Microsoft Recruiters and Bloggers!!

Pradeep U.N. — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:07:00 GMT

Less than a month ago I had the opportunity to catch up with Jenna Adorno and she blogged about it too at Jobsblog which really was more a lunch to get to know the new face behind the Jobsblog than anything. Jenna shared her true passion for recruiting and her opinions about where she would like to take it towards and ofcourse various other odds and ends. I had previously had lunch with Gretchen when she was still with MS. What I have noticed in these meetings is that its always fun to know the evangelists of Microsoft. As a common trait they are smart, outspoken, go-getters and extremely fun :)

A week after that I got to meet Maria Curry who is a recruiter working for Heather Hamilton who was more excited about my involvement with The Seattle Business School Alliance and how it could be leveraged some quality talent. What a great idea. Infact we even discussed on how we could leverage the SBSA to get the Seattle chapter leaders of the various bschools to have their alums touchbase with Microsoft recruiters. In fact for the recent Career networking event at Redmond we tried to leverage the Tepper alumni as a testing bed to see if this idea works and maybe try it with other alumni networks with other bschools soon.

The Tepper Students @ Microsoft Day was a Success. Detailed Report here.

Pradeep U.N. — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:37:00 GMT

Back in March, I had hosted on behalf of Microsoft and the WWESS Recruiting committee (this is was much before the last reorg ofcourse) The Annual Tepper Students @ Microsoft Day and thanx to my extended 2-part blog-hiatus the update is coming now! Oh well better late than never.

Summary: It was a great success, everyone acknowledged the pioneering idea of this from the various angles - Microsoft/Recruiting/Hiring Managers/Tepper or for that matter any university and got great value all around. There were several internship interviews as a consequence of this event, and one offer made and accepted to a Tepper Student. Yes - Mike Kuentz now works here at Redmond.

About 10 students (7 were interested in the Shadowing opportunity) showed up from The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh - and met with the several ppl form Microsoft. They met over 22 MS employees in various positions and capacities (Some of them met more because of the networking through shadow sessions). With nearly 1:2.5 student:MS Employee touch this was the BIGGEST Networking session ever for students! The students met: GMs, Directors, Product Unit Managers, MBA recruiters, Program Managers, Product Managers, Marketing managers, Release managers around the campus and shadowed 7 Microsoft Managers 1:1 around campus in various departments.

Here are some quotes from the students on their overall experiences :

"Overall it was the best company visit I have ever done. The combination of panel, networking, and job shadow sessions made it a tremendously positive learning experience. There is no doubt that one can really make an informed (career-related) decision on Microsoft after going through this experience. " - Tatat Yuniarto [Tepper/MBA Class of 2007]
"Having some of the alumni come in to informally talk over breakfast was a great idea that helped relax people and set the pace for the day. - Mike Kuentz - Tepper MBA Student [Current Intern at Microsoft]
"I want to congratulate you on putting so many hiring managers together in one session. It does talk very highly about Tepper at MS. This was a great opportunity to sell myself" - Enrique Garduno - Tepper MBA Class of 2007

Categorized feedback on the events? Sure - Right below

Breakfast Session with CMU Alums (sponsored by WWESS Recruiting Team) Thank you - Eve Psalti

"This session was a very good introduction to MSFT from the point of view of a Product Manager. It also gave me a broad perspective of MSFT and all of the opportunities that exist".

Featured Speakers: Larry Waldman, CMU Alum (MS Office), Adam Cooper, CMU Alum (MS Office), Jenny Lo (Windows Communications)

MBA Recruiting @ Microsoft - Perspectives by a MBA Recruiter

“I felt that the MBA recruiter (Dina Lewallen) did a tremendous job of outlining not only the hiring process, but a lot of the question about the culture at Microsoft."

Featured Speaker: Dina Lewallen, (MBA Recruiting)

Meet Microsoft Hiring Managers Session

“I found this to be a really great session. The speakers were experienced hiring managers hailing from diverse groups within Microsoft. Besides learning about what they do, we also learnt about the qualities that they are looking for from aspiring Microsoftees: ability to execute, value proposition, passion, and so on.”

Panelists:

Michael Smith, Tepper Alum (OBA),
Jack Tang (MS Office – IWAG),
Gary Cohen (Windows),
Kate Hughes (Services),
Raju Malhotra (Services),
Cathy Hsieh (Licensing)

Lunch with CMU Alums (Sponsored by XBox ProductGroup) Thank YOU - Paolo Malabuyo

"I thought the people who attended this session, and the structure of the session, were excellent. I would prefer to start the day like this, and have a check-up over lunch.”

MS Employees Networking with students

Shawn Vij (Krannert Alum, Server & Tools),
Charles Anthe (Windows Small Biz Server),
Shirlene Lim (Dynamics CRM),
Deepa Vij (Tepper Alum, MSN AdCenter),
Glenn Pereira (Wharton Alum, Services),
Paolo Malabuyo (Xbox)

Shadow Event - Students Shadow MS Employes for 3 hrs around campus

“This was the best experience of my entire job-search time at Tepper. It gave me a chance to really “see” myself working at MS, interacting with other employees and helping to make key decisions. Far beyond my expectations, and it really boosted my perceived value of MS.”

MS Employees who allowed Students to shadow them through meetings & brainstorm sessions:

Larry Waldman	Program Mgr	Office: IW-PM Graphics
John Smithwick	Lead Prod Mgr	Office: IWAG Solution
Justin Kirby	Lead Mktg Mgr	Xbox Global Brand Strategy
Shan Haq	Prod Mgmt	Biz Talk Server Mktg
John Rodman	Product Planner	Xbox Planning & Design
Charles Anthe	Release Mgr	US Windows
Jack Tang	Snr Prod Mgr	Office: IWAG Solution

Tepper Q&A Alumni Panel

“This session allowed us to reflect on what we saw earlier in the day and ask any nagging questions. The diversity of the people on the panel made this a very valuable experience, because they could offer us many different perspectives on things.”

MS Employees Networking with students: Adam Cooper (Office Infopath), Charles Anthe (Windows Small business server), Stuti Shukla(Windows Server), Peter Johnson (Finance)

THANX & Acknowledgements

Apart from the people already mentioned above A long-over due thank you to the folks below who were behind the scenes and helped make this happen. Through email and sharing the news with their contacts and putting me in touch with wonderful people who helped me run this event even when I had never met them before ever J THANK YOU ALL.

Sponsorship: Paolo Malabuyo, Eve Psalti

Friends who helped through 6 degrees of seperation to setup the folks for Hiring Manager Panels and Shadow Engagements: Microsoft Community/Distribution Lists for: CMU Alumni, Tepper Alumni, MBA Mentors, MBA Jobs. Sanjeev Jain (GSBChicago), Ivan Joseph (GSBChicago), Renuka Agarwal(Wharton), Yaya Guo(UC Davis), Harini Gokul (Owen), Sassan Saedi (Kellogg)

Logistics and Support: Ann Gorman (For Survey results and student logistics), Samaara Zulfiqar (Microsoft Logistics)

Tepper Folks: Ann Gorman (Survey results and Ad-hoc help on the day), Steve Rakas (For coordination and making this happen), Ken Keeley (for support)

Legal: Pauline Price (Drafting the Non Disclosure Docs, making this event smooth and legal!)

MBA Recruiting: Dina Lewallen, Ian Rosi, Sharman Mailloux Sosa

Admins: Nancy Apthorp, Christy Fox, Lynn Curtis, Joan Yarkosky.

Ofcourse for everyone else who I forgot – I have to blame my bad memory than intentions. We will run this event again in 2007.

First Ever! Carnegie Mellon Tepper MBA Students @ Microsoft Day in 2nd wk of March.

Pradeep U.N. — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 03:38:00 GMT

On March 15^th (Wednesday) about 10~12 MBA students from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon are coming down to Microsoft for a networking session. To my knowledge, we dont do this normally at Microsoft - neither did as a Tepper Student ever have a whole day from CMU at a firm (unless it was for gruelling interviews). But both the parties involved seemed super-excited about the idea - and so this came about.

The objective of the day is to make the students have a feel about the opportunities, excitement and people here at MS!!

0830 - 0900 AM		Breakfast with CMU Alumni
0900 - 1000 AM		Talk with Recruiting Folks from around Campus
1015 - 1115 AM		Talk with Hiring Managers from around Campus
1115 - 1215 PM		Lunch & Network with CMU Alumni

0100 - 0400 PM		Shadow some Tepper Alums around Microsoft
0400 - 0500 PM		Tepper Alumni Panel for Final Qns

Details on this after the event...

A Tepper 2006 students gets a Microsoft HIRE today

Pradeep U.N. — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:41:00 GMT

Time for the Happy dance.

A 2006 Tepper School Business (at Carnegie Mellon) just got his Microsoft Hire call and we are all excited.

Woo Hoo.

Harvard Business School on Corporate Blogging

Pradeep U.N. — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:56:00 GMT

Sandhya Ganapathy my Morgan Stanley friend (still finishing up homework at Tepper) mailed in with this link to blogging by HBS

The article doesn't give much insight than what we already know and blog about anyways:

"A blog is an incredibly effective yet low-cost way to:

Influence the public "conversation" about your company: Make it easy for journalists to find the latest, most accurate information about new products or ventures. In the case of a crisis, a blog allows you to shape the conversation about it.
Enhance brand visibility and credibility: Appear higher in search engine rankings, establish expertise in industry or subject area, and personalize one's company by giving it a human voice.
Achieve customer intimacy: Speak directly to consumers and have them come right back with suggestions or complaints—or kudos."

But hey - I did go to business school to reaffirm my judgement that business is all about common sense! So it was not bad to see the bschools get on the blogging bandwagon and say a few words. And yes there have been a lot of other bschools doing the same too..

The Tepper/Tuck/Chicago MBA Collaboration at Microsoft.

Pradeep U.N. — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 05:46:00 GMT

Ivan Joseph - talked to 5 Tepper MBAs selected for 2nd Rnd interviews today and answered some of their questions about the Microsoft recruiting process and other qns the students had. Some of the questions he wanted to the share the answers are on his blog.

Thx Ivan for taking the time for my students.

Between Shannon Huffman and IvanJo - we are discussing opportunities to collaborate the recruiting support structure for Tepper/Tuck/Chicago MBA students who are interested to get in at Microsoft, since the alumni here at Microsoft for these schools are comparitively less in number compared to the Big-wigs: Wharton/Harvard/Kellogg.

I know - it does have all the makings of a good book in it....

IvanJo answers MIT/Sloan student's questions. Talks to Carnegie Mellon prospects!

Pradeep U.N. — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:10:00 GMT

Ivan Joseph (Chicago GSB MBA) - the same ping-pong guy who put his job underfire 1 wk after joining our team by defeating HardeepW our General Manager at the Ping Pong Tournament in Rnd 1 (Massacre would be a better word I hear - but hey English is not my first language so I will go with defeating) was giving his insights to a Sloan student about the Microsoft hiring process.

If you know IvanJo - you'd know you should take his advice with a grain of salt. If you know him even better - you'd add some pepper, garam masala and other fancy multicolor indian spices to boot , but seriously he has some good pointers here.Mentoring students almost on a daily basis - I get the qn of how much of the reading an interviewee does can be used in an interview (though not asked in so many words).

Ivan's response to that is spot-on. "There's so much material out there that it isn't worth stressing about. I haven't read even 1% of the stuff that is written about Microsoft. So the chances are pretty high that whatever you read, your interviewers won't have read- so use that as fodder to ask questions of the interviewers."

While on IvanJo - without much arm-twisting - he was kind enough to take some questions through a concall with a gang of my Tepper students who have been selected to come to Redmond for 2nd rnd interviews (7 of them so far for marketing) end of next wk. The students are preparing on what qns to ask him. Thanx for taking the time IvanJo - appreciate it.

Tepper gets voted into SBSA!

Pradeep U.N. — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 22:45:00 GMT

Monica and John Robinson (my classmates from Tepper 03) at Carnegie Mellon University have been instrumental in the work behind getting our alma mater voted into SBSA yesterday. I get a free drink each time I put John's name on my blog (well thats what he tells me) - so I figured I should "Go beyond" and "exceed expectations" and add Monica's name too and maybe John/Monica will throw in a dinner to go with that free drink offer. (thats 3 drinks and Dinners John - count for yourself!)

Anyways this is exciting stuff - since a lot of the ppl on the board already work at Microsoft and Shannon Huffman (our PingPong-phobic marketing professional) is on the board representing Tuck!

Small world :)

Mentoring at Tepper School of Business @ CMU

Pradeep U.N. — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 21:24:00 GMT

Analytical Decision Making, Great effervesence of Technology leverage, Passion for Technopreneurship and Strong Team Collaboration to get results: There are a my top differentiation points for the Tepper School of Business @ CMU and I was there during the halloween weekend with a super-packed schedule! But it was worth it.

Leading to the preparation for the trip was a fairytale ride that would have been worth blogging if I had been diligent enough to put some time - but hey that did not work out.

Apart from the wild parties that happened - I met some great students, club presidents.

Over all it was a great time and everyone was super-excited about Microsoft. Playing a very hard coach a-la Bill Cowher - I did take a rather harsh stand with the students - and got great feedback for the same from them because I was not sugar coating the message.

The results of all this has been great:

* Over 67 students attended a 730 AM presentation - which is mind boggling considering I never woke up before 10 AM when I was at school leave alone go to a presentation at that time!

* Over 30 students attended my presentation when there were 4 other events happening at the same time in 8 different halls!

* As of now we have more students being called to Redmond for their next round of interviews than in 5 years combined. Thanks to some great folks at MS Recruiting who have taken the right direction in leveraging some excellent schools which have not received love in the past.

The next step is to work with these students to help them reach their alumni and other folks to get an idea about what is required to join some great teams at MS and how they can Go beyond!

Any questions from ppl I have met or others who want to join MS would be welcome at this pt. Though this mssg is more for the MBA/school recruiting crowd.

Carnegie Mellon Prof Talks about "Managing Creativity" at Microsoft Campus.

Pradeep U.N. — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 02:52:00 GMT

As part of my first activities as a new alumni and Boardmember in the Seattle Chapter of the Tepper School of Business at CMU - I am helping organize a talk at Microsoft Redmond Campus open for All Tepper Alums, CMU alums, Microsoft FTEs and their guests.

Interested parties should register here - registration Fee: US$10 only.

Please print out this invite for helping us let you in

The Seattle Alumni Chapter of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University

Proudly presents

Dr. Peter Boatwright on

"Managing Creativity to Achieve Pragmatic Innovation"

Associate Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon and co-author of

"The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products"

Thursday, September 15, 2005.

Networking: 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Talk: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Building #34, Quinalt Room

Refreshments will be served.

Product developers have worked for decades under a mantra of total quality management, quality is increasingly a commodity; everyone can get it. And costs have been cut about as much as they can be.

The next opportunity for a competitive edge is to be found in creating products that are more innovative than those of the competition. The most important issue then is a) how to produce innovation, b) how to repeatedly generate innovative products.

A necessary first step is to understand successful innovation from the marketplace point of view. Innovation is not about new technology but about meeting people’s desires, about fulfilling their fantasies. Rather than a leap in functional capability, innovation provides a leap in consumer value. (Consider the iPod. When developed, it was a minor technological advance but a major leap in consumer value.)

So, how does one innovate?

Innovation is not wizardry or luck, but innovation is the flower of diligent work — work that uncovers the potential that a product can achieve for its users, producing comprehensive solutions that consumers respond to emotionally, cognitively, and then economically.

Since it is work, it can be accomplished with procedures, tasks, and tools. Since it is work, it is teachable. This content is the subject of Dr, Peter Boatwright’s teaching, work, book and this talk.

Peter Boatwright, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an author of the new book, "The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products," (co-authored with Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel). In The Design of Things to Come, he discusses not only the importance of innovation to profits but also processes and tools that innovative companies use to achieve their success. Prof. Boatwright has worked with a diverse range of product companies in the fields of electronics, telephony, packaged goods, B2B durables, and medical devices. Prof. Boatwright has both developed new statistical methods as well as additional theories of consumer behavior, spanning qualitative and quantitative methodologies. His expertise and teaching focuses on innovation, new product marketing, and marketing research methods.

My Rollercoaster Ride to join Microsoft. Part I: The MBA Full-Time Recruiting Fall 2002

Pradeep U.N. — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 08:19:00 GMT

Well this post was long in coming. 3 months ago Gretchen (the prolific Moongal from MS Tech recruiting) had made me promise that I should write the whole story of "my Rollercoaster story" to Microsoft. Here it is in 4 parts that spans 3 yrs 2002 – 2005 and about 6 different “rounds”. And with a list of “things I did wrong”, “things I learnt from it” and “what I recommend for new wannabe-Softies!”. Okie maybe the list on the “things I did wrong” is going to be longer – but I never did promise balance did I?

My Rollercoaster Ride to join Microsoft. Part I: The MBA Full-Time Recruiting Fall 2002

So my MBA was from Carnegie Mellon, which for reasons unknown is not a core school for MBA recruiting for Microsoft [One of my side missions here is to change that perception of course ;-) ].

Fall 2002 - I met SC, Director of a Biz group (all names are initialized just so I don’t get into trouble ;), besides it’s not necessary for the story), for a 45 min interview. After the usual behavioral qns, and running through the resume – the only real qn I remember that lasted 20-25 mins was a question that went “So Tepper School of Business at CMU has dropped in the Business week rankings published last week by 5 places, the largest drop in the rankings. Is it justified? What is going wrong? What should change? Where do u think the ranking is justified at?”

So – after a night of Googling (I know I said the G word but MSN-ing just doesn’t sound like a verb enough) SC on his background, work and what makes him tick and positioning my stories to meet his background ….. I get this curveball from hell.

Forget my answer. Suffice to say that my answer was good enough to rank me #3 on the campus recruits and they called 2 ppl to Redmond for the final rounds. Bummer!

What did I do wrong: I was a little too analytical and rational in my answer than going Ra!-Ra!-East or west, Tepper’s the best. And since it was a marketing job that I was interviewed for, it is understandable that pure marketing passion is a major criteria of decision making. (atleast for SC). Ofcourse there probably was a ton of other things I did wrong J

What I did right: I emailed a thank you note immediately after the interview and got a response back (that’s a good sign right). And when I was finally rejected I sent a note that read “I accept your decision and would like you to help me be a better person in showing me what I could do better for my career search in the future. What could make me a top candidate and professional for the future?” SC loved that tone and email and wrote a long mail – which pretty much stated – I was a great candidate, but given the job openings they had – they needed someone with a different background! Oh well.

What I learnt from it:

a) Do not over analyze your interviewer. Yes do the extra-homework on him/her before the interview but do not expect them not to go outside their comfort zone. Atleast not when they are from MS.

b) Wear the marketing hat, be analytical and results oriented – but remember its all about Marketing! Passion Baby. Bring it On!!

c) Never challenge the decision, take it in the right spirit but do question respectfully and answers do come.

Bottomline: No job at MS upon graduation. (Hey why else is this a Part I of IV Story? )