Gaining Insight from Internships
By Brian Glenn
originally posted October 23, 2007 at Business Week
If you're not a career switcher, B-school may not seem essential. But it will bring job interviews, and the internship is valuable
Some argue that an MBA is just a piece of paper, and an expensive one at that. For any career switcher, it can provide a bridge from one career or role to a new one. For those of us who are not career switchers, but rather are trying to rise within the competitive ranks of the industry we worked in prior to B-school, it offers networking opportunities and, more important, a "try before you buy" opportunity via the summer internship.
After all, when you take a job, as much as the firm plans to pay you, you are buying into that firm—not necessarily financially, but you are committing your time and post-MBA reputation to that firm. With luck, both sides of the table will see a great fit and you'll spend years, maybe decades, with your employer. If you don't make it for multiple decades at your first post-MBA employer, maybe it will be for selfish reasons (namely, early retirement).
During my quick stint in the asset management industry, working for a $10B firm located in New Jersey, I learned quite a bit. First—and I've confirmed this with some other classmates—firms in this business thrive on original, unbiased research. I spent the first few weeks of my internship calling industry participants. I found myself speaking with representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority, regional ISOs (independent system operators), investor-owned utilities, and competitors in Europe and Asia, all to gain a better understanding of spending on electricity transmission infrastructure.
Taking the Interest Home
As I drove down the Garden State Parkway every weekend, en route to the "shore," I found myself looking skyward through my front windshield at various overhead transmission lines, guessing the kilovolt transmission capacity based on the types of towers that suspend them.
I wasn't interested in wooden telephone-pole style power lines; I was looking at the major high-voltage transmission backbones, transmitting in the range of 500kV to 750kV. It probably sounds kind of nutty, but when you read about a big project connecting West Virginia to New Jersey, then see a major right-of-way with tower construction, it's going to pique your interest. By the end of the summer, I had to make calls on both the debt and equity for a major player in that industry.
Getting A Hit
My particular summer employer was a heavy recruiter of MBAs. All were analysts, even if they came from the industry, previously filtered through a Northeast MBA program. On the other hand, a classmate of mine found that his summer employer preferred experienced analysts, whether they had an MBA or not. With a full year of business school under my belt, and recognizing I'm not a career switcher, I'll argue that the MBA experience doesn't seem to make me that much more qualified.
Sure, I've learned a bit more about business strategy and finance theory, and even a few cool new tricks on Excel. I can possibly speak a little more intelligently about the economics and valuation of a business. More important, though, it gets me interview opportunities—and swinging at enough pitches will yield the right job opportunity.
Glenn is a member of MIT Sloan's MBA class of 2008.
This article reprinted in full without permission for the purposes of education and research, as permitted by Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.