The Benefits of Job Treks

While the Career Development Office organizes well over 100 on-campus job presentations in a given year, they are also busy organizing job treks, which give students the chance to visit the offices of potential future employers. These treks are organized all over the world and in various industries based on student interest.

During the treks, students are able to get a clear picture of what life after Yale SOM looks like, as most of the visits are to organizations at which alumni are already working.

Miranda Palter-Poston ’19, who recently participated in a job trek to PayPal, shares, “Visiting companies on-site gives students the opportunity to gain insight into the culture and work-life of those organizations. We plan the treks so that students can see a diverse range of companies, including those that may not come to campus. For a lot of students, treks are a crucial part of the job search and assessing fit, as they look to see where they envision themselves at an internship or full-time job.”

Here’s what other students had to say about their November New York City job treks, which included experiences in a variety of industries and functions.  

Media and Entertainment

“The Viacom MBA Media Trek was an enjoyable, low-pressure way to meet company representatives, hear an exciting presentation, and learn about all the opportunities available to first-year MBAs seeking internships for the summer. Apart from the presentation and panel with current department heads (in business Development, data analytics, and strategy and operations), we also had the opportunity to speak with the panelists one-on-one, as well as with members of the talent acquisition team.” —Preethi Hittalmani ’20 

Marketing

“It was so helpful to get up close and personal with PepsiCo on our recent job trek. We heard from team members from several different departments, had lunch with a panel of recent MBA hires to learn more about the summer experience, got the full tour from SOM alumni, and had a lot of fun making mocktails at the end of the day. After this trip, I can almost literally see myself working there! “ —Kaitlin Baumgardner ’20

“Yale alumni at PepsiCo were thrilled to plan and spend an entire day with us, pulling best-in-class marketers from different lines of business to share their insights with us. While the trek certainly helped us learn more about PepsiCo as a firm, it also provided us with invaluable insights which we can all carry with us in industry.” —Kevin Shankar ’20

Tech

“The NYC Tech Trek to the Salesforce and Paypal/Venmo offices was by far a highlight of my fall semester. Having the opportunity to learn firsthand about some of the leading tech companies is really incredible and is definitely a huge benefit of the strong alumni network and global reputation of SOM.” —Angie Wei ’20

Fintech

“What made the FinTech Trek particularly worthwhile was the variety of companies we visited, from more established players to startups. We visited Bloomberg, Barclays Rise (workspace and accelerator for FinTech companies), and the blockchain technology company R3.

“At Barclays Rise we toured the workspace and were treated to discussion with both the founder of Novo, a digital banking platform, and an associate at Plum Alley Investments, a VC firm. The energy and enthusiasm displayed from the speakers was infectious.

“While at Bloomberg we met with Yale SOM and Yale College alumni who work in product management and equity analytics. Besides the walking tour of the beautiful office space, the highlight of the visit for me was a live demo of a new Bloomberg Terminal feature, a knowledge graph of supply chains.

“Lastly, at R3, we met with members of the company’s research, business development, and engineering team. The team gave our group an overview of blockchain technology and R3’s Corda platform. It was a really conversational experience with the R3 team, and I appreciated how receptive the team was to follow-up communications.” —James La Vela ’20