From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: Between Semesters, Careers Take Shape

Spring classes recently began here at Yale SOM, which means that Evans Hall is bustling with activity. But things weren’t exactly quiet over winter break. First-years were on campus to take part in the new Global Virtual Teams class that is part of the core curriculum. And, of course, winter break is an important time for those engaged in the job-search process. The career-related activities held over break typify the multi-faceted approach our community takes to helping students land top jobs across an array of industries and all three sectors.

Preparation for Super Week, the intensive period of finance-industry interviews each January, begins months earlier. Starting in September, the Finance Club hosts weekly meetings to prepare students for coffee chats with Yale alumni across Wall Street, small group dinners and other social events for first-year students to get to know second-year students within the investment banking community, and a buddy program. There are panel presentations, including events specifically for international students and women pursuing banking. The Finance Club also sets up two full-day Saturday sessions with premier training firms to prepare students for technical interview questions, hosts a Wall Street mixer where Yale alumni catch up with the candidates and have some time to chat informally, and holds mock interviews with second-year students (“Mock Mock Madness”) to prepare students to travel to New York to practice interviewing with alumni at the annual “Mock Madness” event.

The Consulting Club hosts a similarly robust series of activities in the fall for students participating in Super Week for Consulting, which takes place the week after Super Week. This year a significant number of the 348 students in the Class of 2019 took part in consulting interviews—in fact, it continues to be the most popular internship option for SOM students. All of the major consulting firms plus a host of boutique firms come to campus to interview and hire Yale SOM talent.

For the many students who are not pursuing either finance or consulting internships—which at Yale SOM is a significant number given our students’ broad diversity of professional interests – winter break involved less interviewing but not necessarily less activity. Some of these students participated in the West Coast Job Trek—one of many career-focused treks that happen throughout the academic year—which takes roughly 100 students to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle during the first week in January. The trek is a partnership among eight students clubs (Technology, Design and Innovation, Marketing, Energy, Entrepreneurship, Net Impact, Healthcare, and Media and Entertainment) and includes visits to companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Zillow, Disney, Paramount, NCBUniversal, Netflix, Hulu, Live Nation Entertainment, Frog Design, IDEO, Arabella Advisors, Chevron, Stanford Medical, Clorox, and 500 Startups. Members of the Career Development Office (CDO) staff join the trek in each of the cities, and SOM alumni serve as the primary touchpoint at many of the companies visited. For example, three SOM alumni hosted the trek at Google, two hosted at Facebook, and alumni from design firms such as Frog, IDEO, and Fuseproject met up with students to introduce them to their organizations. Additionally, the Bay Area and Los Angeles alumni chapters hosted happy hours so that students on the trek could network with alumni at additional companies.

As students seek internships, they have the support and guidance of the CDO, student clubs, alumni and the greater Yale community. This kind of collaborative, community-oriented approach is a hallmark of Yale.