Business & Education Blog of an MBA Grad and PhD Student
Archive for May, 2009
SMART Interviewing
May 29th
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As fledgling MBAs, we were thoroughly trained in several techniques, such as the “STAR” technique, etc. If I can help one person by writing this, perhaps they can pay me some of their earnings The STAR technique has many advantages for both candidate and interviewer(s). As a candidate, you appear professional, analytical, and–above all–organized. As an interviewer in a structured interview, it is very easy to identify the competencies being communicated by the candidate, assess how genuine the candidate is, and have concrete material to back up the competencies identified for the job description.
It involves a lot of preparation (which also looks good to prospective employers), thought, and a little bit of role-playing the part of a human resource manager. One thing to remember when you get an interview is that time is money; and usually an employer won’t spend the time interviewing you unless they have an intention to hire you if you fit the bill. The method I’m proposing will help you fit the bill, to a “T,” and present it in a way that can’t be missed.STAR is very simple. It stands for (S)ituation, (T)asks, (A)ction taken, (R)esults.It helps if, before the interview, out of courtesy, you More >
Buy low, sell high
May 20th
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Everyone knows the way to make money on the stock market is, “Buy low, sell high.”
It seems patronizingly obvious. Yet people repeatedly buy high, sell low as if they just stepped off the boat from bizarro world.
It’s not usually the case that people forget that in order to end up with more money than they started with they must sell the security at a higher price than that at which they bought it–it’s that circumstances their perspectives to make it seem like the most favourable course of action.
Most often the reason for this is because they see a stock that is rising rapidly and it looks like a good company to invest in–after all, it is exceeding earnings estimates, it is financially healthy–and their friends already made a killing from it. It makes sense to invest in a healthy company that is
I believe the foundation of a stock’s price should be the valuation that any competent financial analyst should be able to calculate given a firm’s intended and emergent strategies, competitive and market environments, and its financial statements. These factors must be considered together and not in isolation. One common investing pitfall is completing an introductory financial accounting course and thinking More >
Annual Reports Lie
May 20th
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What good reason does a firm have to produce annual reports that are designed to give an accurate report on the status of the firm when it can use numbers that make itself appear better than it is?
Even as a shareholder, I would want a firm I have invested in to get away with as much manipulation as it can get away with so they look as good as possible so that the stock price is as high as they can make it.
Putting its best foot forward has more benefits than simply making shareholders rich. Healthier companies have access to more debt and equity funds, more credibility and power to influence the markets in which they play, and are safer to do business with.
I simply can’t see one good reason for a company to publish anything that does not take full advantage of every opportunity to make itself look good that it can get away with.
Keeping in mind this objective behind financial statements and annual reports, the need to analyze every financial statement critically and individually is patently clear.
Don’t buy stocks
May 20th
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I don’t care what kind of system you have or what your source of hot stock tips is, don’t buy stocks.
Before my peers flame me with their opinions on investing, I will qualify that by saying, “Don’t buy segregated securities. If you want to try to outsmart the markets, have your portfolio desgiend by someone who does it for a living or buy the market.”
If anyone were to ask if they should buy company XYZ’s stock, I wouldn’t even look up its quote, let alone analyze it. My answer would be no.
My rationale is as follows: if you need to ask if XYZ is a good investment, you clearly are not able to use the financial reports to value the stock yourself; further, since you didn’t describe the rest of your portfolio, you obviously were considering buying it without regard to diversifying any of its risk or whether it aligned with your investment objectives and horizon.
Sure, people who aren’t finance experts have made lots of money buying and selling stocks. But since they aren’t able to determine at what price the stock is overvalued and at what price it is undervalued, they made that money purely by luck. For every lucky More >
Why should a B.Comm/BBA go back for an MBA?
May 20th
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When I first began my MBA back in September, 2000–an eager, enthusiastic, ignorant pup at McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Business, I wondered why some of my newfound friends who had business undergrads needed to come back so soon for an MBA when at first glance it looks like it’s just an undergraduate commerce or business administration degree compressed into two years.
The corollary of this was the common opinion among B.Comm/BBA grads who do not choose to do an MBA that MBAs are undeservingly overpaid and undertrained. Sure, part of that sentiment obviously arises from the observation that, in general, MBAs achieve more senior positions with higher compensation more rapidly than their undergraduate business counterparts. I believe the recent trend in accepting MBA students with less and less business experience and the presentation and design of MBA courses as simple accelerated versions of the undergraduate courses has only exacerbated the problem by failing to differentiate MBA course goals from undergraduate business course goals.
Based not on any course descriptions or objectives but on my impression of people’s critical thinking abilities and experience levels, I see the role of a business undergraduate largely as the foot-soldiers who carry out the More >
Introductory Integrative Business Courses
May 20th
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I’ve pretty solidly established my strong feeling that business education must be more holistic from the get-go in my previous posts and I try to make it central to all my work (cf. http://robincheung.info/samples/bbc.pdf)
I was first introduced to the business academic world in about 1998 when I was already nearly finished my Bachelor of Science in Biology and Biotechnology. I had run my own small businesses prior to that, but when I think back about it, it was reckless without at least a basic understanding of business. I have long believed in having a wide knowledge base upon which to draw regardless of your position or field, and I had taken electives such as classical civlizations, psychology, children’s literature, and even american sign language by then. My sister, who was attending McGill University in a BA, Political Science and East Asian Studies program decided to take a course together while she was home one summer. She got a letter of permission to take a course at my school (Carleton University) and we chose Introductory Financial Accounting for some reason.
By the time I finished Introductory Financial Accounting, I had convinced myself of a few inaccuracies:
- Business was all about Accounting
- I could read–and more More >
