As Career Advisors, we love getting to know students through advising appointments, and the advising experience can be pivotal in helping students achieve their career goals. Here are 6 suggestions to help you get the most out of your appointments (which are booked directly in Career Central). Getting the most out of advising largely comes down to 1) leveraging resources as much as you can prior to your appointment and 2) driving a clear agenda.
1) Before Advising: Explore Resources on Your CDO
Nearly all of the Career Development Office’s (CDO’s) resources to help you with different aspects of the recruiting process are found on Your CDO. Exploring these resources first means you don’t have to wait for an advising appointment to find what you need, and it will allow you to use the time with your Advisor for support needed after leveraging these resources. Start with the MBA/LGO/MSMS Program page, a central location for key resources, updated regularly by the CDO.
For example, if you want to explore with an advisor, “How can I find networking contacts besides searching LinkedIn?” check out the Contacts and Directories resource. After leveraging the various directories, your new question that you can take to an Advisor might be, “This is my networking plan – I’d like feedback on whether this sounds like a good way to move forward.”
You can also explore resources by career community, whether affinity or industry:
If you haven’t attended Career Core classes, we strongly recommend reviewing the content before meeting with an MBA Career Advisor, as the content provides key guidance and answers many common tactical and strategic questions shared by students. It guides you through getting market ready and maps to the Market Readiness Scorecard (see below). An MBA Career Advisor can work through questions you have about applying the content to your own specific situation.
2) Before Advising: Go through Company Notes / Recruiting History / Contacts in Career Central
If you have nuts-and-bolts questions about a company’s recruitment (e.g. timing, if they typically recruit through Sloan, etc), a great way to get some of that info is to explore the company in Career Central. Our Employer Relations & Recruiting team posts updates from companies, which could include what roles they’re hiring for, when, and what the interview process will entail, and more. Recruiting history can show you what roles they’ve hired for in the past, giving an idea of what else might be coming. Contacts will show who at the company you can reach out to for more information.
We have more information for companies with more established recruiting channels at Sloan, so not every company will have the same amount of information available, but it’s definitely worth searching.
3) Before Advising: Review the Market Readiness Scorecard
The Market Readiness Scorecard is a tool to help you gauge your progress towards being market ready. “Market ready” means you have done the preparatory clarity and branding work to align yourself with specific target opportunities in the market, and the scorecard breaks that down into key milestones. Before your meeting, fill out the market readiness scorecard to help you identify the areas in which you need a Career Advisor’s support.
4) Before Advising: Use the Signup Form to Clarify What You Want to Discuss
When booking an appointment in Career Central, you can add comments in the sign-up form. This will help you (and the Advisor) be clear about what you want to get out of the time together.
Sometimes our heads are a jumble of career confusion, and it’s hard to articulate what we need compared to the tactical questions – that’s ok (we’ve ALL been there). In those cases, you can give us some clues in the signup form, but don’t worry about spelling it all out since we can talk it through with you.
Whatever the case, you don’t have to write a lot in the sign-up form (phew!); just some context about the situation and your questions will be fine.
5) After Advising: Write Down Next Steps and Make a Follow-up Appointment
We do our best to make sure students walk away from advising sessions with clear action steps to focus on. During or after your session, write down any next steps and plans so you don’t forget and so you can help yourself stay organized and follow up.
After the session, make a follow up appointment in Career Central! We strongly encourage students to work regularly with one MBA Career Advisor, especially if you are still gaining clarity. The more we know about you, the more we can support you and keep you on track in your search.
6) Outside of Advising: Keep up with Newsletters
Email overwhelm is real. We know. Still, we are biased for you to read ours. 😊
Newsletters are sent weekly on Wednesdays (biweekly for 2nd years). We share updates on upcoming events and workshops, resources, and guidance around various aspects of the job search. Wondering what career events are coming up? Looking for key resources to research companies and build out your target company list? Curious about how to create your own internship? Check out the latest newsletters each week for answers to questions such as these and more! (Newsletters are posted to Your CDO weekly – check out the MBA newsletter link on your class tab to see more!)
To sum it up…
All topics can be covered in advising sessions. Sometimes, students don’t really have specific questions and just need some help handling the stress and anxiety of the job search, which is totally ok! That’s part of the process too. We meet you where you are and will help you tackle whatever you bring us. Keep the above in mind to help you get the most out of advising, knowing that we’re here for whenever you get stuck.
