What’s in today’s issue?

1. I’m going to share with what I’d do and not do if I had a time machine take me to the beginning of my MBA.
2. Top content I’ve come across that might be of value to you.
3. News From The Week – Recent news to keep you current on what’s going on in the business world but don’t have time to track down yourself.
4. Recent uploads on the YouTube channel.

Reading time: ~8 minutes

Part 1. Five Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My MBA

Wouldn’t it be great to have a conversation with your younger self, share some wisdom on pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to lean into.

Hopefully, I can be the older version of you offering that advice with the benefit of hindsight.

It can be tough to remember all this in the heat of the moment as you’re swamped in this super intensive program.

If you can though, you’ll likely end up getting more out of it and hopefully be able to take a little stress off. Maybe this is one of those emails to save and come back to now and again.

Remember – there are lots of people who want to help

Most people have moments in their MBA where they feel completely overwhelmed. There’s a pile of work due, you’re in the midst of your job hunt and something heavy is going on in your personal life.

These are the times when you need remember that there are people around you who want to help.

Your profs, the admin folks, your friends, even alums. They all want you to succeed.

Make use of all the resources at your disposal. One of the major surprises to people is just how supportive alumni can be in your job search. Many will remember being in your shoes.

Take full advantage of this and then return the favor when you’re on the other side of things.

Talk to your profs about upcoming assignments. Maybe there’s some flexibility there.

Bottom line, you have plenty of resources – make use of them.

Job search plan

People who don’t have a plan risk bouncing from one thing to the next never really knowing if they are moving towards their desired endgame. Going through the job search process in a reactive way like this will reduce your chances of success.

You will really help your odds of getting your targeted job if you have a plan and execute against it.

I know, I know.

You’re busy and this does take some time and effort. It might seem this way at first blush, but wow does it ever pay off.

One of the biggest benefits is that once you’ve figured out your plan, the biggest difficulty – deciding what to do next – is taken care of. It should be really clear what your next step is at most points in time.

I can’t overstate how important this is. One of the biggest thing that holds people back in just about everything they do is not being totally clear on what is the next step. This was one of the most important conclusions David Allen came to in the category defining book Getting Things Done. It’s one of the keystones of what he shows people how to do.

Beyond the “next step” aspect of a good plan, it will keep you organized and save you having to keep everything in your head. It reduces the risk of forgetting something and will make you look like an absolute champ when you can ask someone “when we last spoke you were about to head off to Hawaii, how did you enjoy it?”

Very few people will be able to keep track of all the details but you will because of this plan.

I’m going to be writing/talking about building a job search plan in this newsletter, YouTube channel etc in the future so stay tuned but if you have immediate questions, make sure to email me and I’ll get back to you.

Start doing informational interviews early

You won’t believe how fast recruiting season will come at you.

Unless you start doing informational interviews early, you’re going to find yourself

• trying to go through recruiting season
• while building your network
• while working on improving your interview skills
• oh yeah, and that whole school thing as well

Worse still, the people you’d be trying to connect with may already be involved in the recruiting process and aren’t really able to talk to you much.

Instead, if you start doing informational interviews early, even before the end of the summer, you’ll go into recruiting season well ahead of the curve. You’ll already have a well developed list of target companies and hopefully alums acting as advocates and making sure you’re in the loop on everything.

Don’t get me wrong, people get jobs without starting early but they may not get their targeted job and almost certainly have a lot more stress through the process.

Study skills are easy to build – aim for high grades but you don’t need to grind

Some people say grades don’t matter – I know it’s a controversial opinion but I think that’s nonsense.

Maybe that’s a little harsh but there are definitely jobs where your grades do matter. Beyond that, you might want to lean on high grades to make up for less robust pre-MBA work experience.

What I think people miss is that grades aren’t really used as a measure of whether you’re smart. There are really bright people who don’t get high grades and average people who get amazing grades.

There are plenty of things in the world of full time work which everyone dreads. A strong academic performance in MBA suggests though that you are willing to put in the work even in things you don’t love.

Employers who care about your grades are trying to evaluate if you can put in the effort to do things well even if you don’t really enjoy them. They want to know if you care more about great outcomes or enjoyable work.

All that being said, getting top grades are helpful but they’re not the be all and end all. People with lower grades get great jobs as well, but given the choice I’d rather have higher grades than not have them.

What’s really important here though is using evidence based study techniques. For sure you can get high grades through brute force, if you managed to get into MBA you are more than smart enough to get high grades without grinding. You don’t need to burn yourself out to do it.

AND, these techniques are not hard to learn. I’ve talked about these evidence based techniques extensively in this newsletter, on Twitter and on YouTube. I even have a free 7-day email course called 7 Days To Higher Grades…Without the Grind – which I highly recommend you sign up for if you haven’t already.

Things like the memory palace, active recall, spaced repetition and the Feynman technique are to learning what modern mechanical equipment is to farming. You can use other tools and hopefully get the same result, but it’s going to be a lot more work and you may not get finish ploughing your field before the sun goes down and get chased by wolves (ok, maybe I took that analogy too far – but you get the point)

Bottom line – take advantage of these resources to boost your GPA without grinding.

It’ll fly by so make sure to say yes

Most people will tell you they had a great experience in their MBA.

They’ll probably also tell you it’s nuts how fast it flew by.

Don’t let it pass you by. By using good study techniques, you’ll free up time to take advantage of all the great stuff your MBA has to offer.

Take opportunities to bond with classmates, join clubs and explore other areas of business besides the one you’re focused on. This is likely the last time you’ll be in school. It’s a great time, take advantage of it.

That’s it – hopefully those 5 tips will help you get so much more out of your MBA and maybe reduce some of the stress along the way.

As always, if you have questions, I’m only an email away.

Part 2. Great Content I Came Across

1. I’m not sure how many of you are interested in resources around technical interviews but I came across this thread with a bunch of them. If IT is not your bag, then maybe you can help out a friend by sharing it.

2. Storytelling is one of the most powerful skills you can develop. Check out this thread for some really actionable tips to level up your storytelling skills.

3. I’ll be writing about this more but Nathan Barry (ConvertKit founder) put out a ridiculously valuable thread about building culture with remote teams. Some of his ideas though can be used by you either in your own program, in an internship or to level up once you are working full time. Highly recommend reading and saving this one.

Part 3. News From The Week

You need to stay on top of major business stories but are swamped with school, your job hunt and 100 other things. That’s what this section is here for. It’s not everything but here are some big stories I’ve read recently.

• An excellent and plausible explanation for what caused the crisis in the UK Pensions a few weeks ago. The article is accessible to everyone but if you’re a finance major, definitely read this.

• The EV transition is going to be complicated not only by inputs for batteries but also by the huge labor transitions we’re going to see. Auto manufacturing and parts suppliers are huge industries in many countries but EVs have about 100x fewer moving parts than an internal combustion engine.

• Europe needs to see reduced electricity demand in order to prevent an already bad energy crisis from getting worse. Articles like these are valuable to keep an eye on. The problem is that governments are continuing stimulative policies to try to shield their populations from the worst of it…which will increase demand. I’ve been keeping a running thread here of these counterproductive policies.

Highlights From The YouTube Channel

I talk a lot about how important it is for MBAs to read extensively and build their general knowledge. In this (very short) YouTube Short I show you a really easy way to build a reading habit. It was one of my early videos, so go easy on me.

How Can I Help You?

• If you want higher grades – check out my FREE email course 7 Days to Higher Grades…Without the Grind

• I have a very small number of coaching slots open at the moment. This is focused on 1 of 3 areas in particular – getting higher grades, job search and interview success and career progression. Please email me if you’re ready for that.

• I’m always looking for topics to write about that people are interested in/struggling with in these areas so feel free to email me or connect on Twitter if there’s a topic you’d like me to explore.