Dear Wharton Class of 2011 Student,

Congratulations on becoming part of the Wharton community! On behalf of the Wharton MBA Career Management team, we look forward to your arrival and the start of your first year as a Wharton MBA student.

As you know, these are unprecedented economic times. The current job market will require you to use all the job search skills that you have amassed in your experiences prior to Wharton as well as develop and implement highly focused job search strategies and tactics.

Our goal is to work collaboratively with you so you achieve success in the job search process at Wharton and beyond. We offer the following four major services and resources to assist you in each stage of the job search process:

Student Advising

Career Workshops

Student Website

Employer Access

While more details on the Wharton MBA Career Management office and our resources as well as the job search process will be available during our Pre-Term events (including our August 5 MBA Career Management Orientation session), we recognize that many of you are eager to begin the job search process. As such we have compiled the below FAQs to address the most frequently asked questions we receive from incoming students.

Once again, I look forward to seeing you and introducing you to our staff at the MBA Career Management Orientation during Pre-Term.

Enjoy your summer.

Best Wishes,

Michelle A. Antonio
Director, MBA Career Management

1. What MBA Career Management activities do you recommend I do over the summer?

Rest assured that we offer substantive career programming (workshops) during Pre-Term and your first semester to prepare you for the job search. That said, students often tell us that conducting self-assessment and industry research as well as updating their resume over the summer saved them invaluable time in the fall. As such, in the weeks prior to Pre-Term we recommend you engage the following activities (directions on accessing our website available in Question #2):

Self-Assessment

• Read “Chapter 2: “Self-Assessment” of the MBA Career Management’s “Guide to Managing Your Career”
• Complete your CareerLeader® profile, a comprehensive online business career self-assessment program comprised of three proprietary tests that assess your interests, values, and abilities in an effort to help you identify potential career paths
• CareerLeader® will become available to you in mid-July, and results are available immediately upon completion
• There will be a Pre-Term workshop on the CareerLeader® self-assessment tool
• Complete the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), an instrument that provides an assessment of your personality type by determining preferences across four dichotomies
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• Receiving your MBTI® results requires an in-person interpretation session
• Sessions will be available during Pre-Term

Industry Research

• Read about industries of potential interest in WetFeet, Vault or under the “Explore Industry Areas” menu
• During Pre-Term you will have the opportunity to view our Exploring Functional Areas online presentation and to attend several IndustryChats (basic industry overview sessions)

Resume Development Process (click “Resumes” on our website)

• Listen to our online presentation entitled “Creating an Effective Resume” and complete the exercises in the Appendix. (Note: to receive MBA Career Management Resume Feedback in October, you must view this presentation prior to October 4. Details available in the presentation)
• Read Chapter 5: “Resumes” of the MBA Career Management’s “Guide to Managing Your Career”
• Convert your resume into one of the Wharton templates and ensure your resume is compliant with the Wharton Resume Requirements
• Evaluate the effectiveness of your resume and revise as necessary

2. When will the MBA Career Management website be available to me for exploration?

Access to the MBA Career Management website becomes available after you have matriculated and set up your Wharton username and password. For questions or problems related to obtaining your Wharton username and password, please contact accounts@wharton.upenn.edu.

Once you have your Wharton username and password, log onto the student MBA Career Management website at: http://mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/student.

3. Do I have access to all of the MBA Career Management resources?

Once you matriculate and set up your Wharton account, you have access to most of the resources on our student website with the exception of …

• Student Appointments – see Question #4 for when student appointments begin
• CareerLeader – becomes available mid-July 2009
• Capital IQ – becomes available Fall 2009 (access is only available to current students during the academic year)
• WhartonConnect/Alumni Database – becomes available Fall 2009 (for questions related to this database, contact alumniaffairs@wharton.upenn.edu, since this database is managed by the Alumni Affairs office)

4. When can I schedule a meeting with a career advisor?

Before scheduling a meeting with a career advisor, we recommend that you take advantage of the many Pre-Term sessions (during August) that have been planned for the incoming MBA first years prior to scheduling an advising session. Advising sessions will be available to the Class of 2011 in September (with the start of classes).

5. I’ve been invited to or am interested in pre-MBA employer recruiting events such as receptions, pre-MBA internships, summer camps, etc. Do you recommend I attend?

Before you begin your MBA experience at Wharton, you may see advertisements or be invited to employer receptions, recruiting programs, and/or summer events. Attending such events can provide you with valuable insights into the hosting firm, the industry they represent and can expand your professional network; some can even offer the opportunity to secure an internship opportunity prior to the start of school. However, before accepting these invitations, you should consider the risks as well as the benefits. Since many of these events are recruiting-oriented, your candidacy for these firms will be evaluated, either formally or informally. You should consider what kind of impression you will make at these pre-MBA recruiting events. If you do not feel you are in a position to present yourself in the best light, consider not attending, because we will provide programming and support in the fall to help you be more effective in future employer interactions.

While securing a summer internship early can be an attractive proposition, remember that an internship is not a guarantee for full-time employment. We have heard from students who committed to a first year MBA internship prior to matriculation that they later felt constrained in their ability to explore other opportunities that present themselves throughout the school year - often because it can make a poor impression to continue attending recruiting events after accepting an internship offer, especially events of firms in the same industry as the accepted offer - and as a result, these students felt less prepared for the full-time job search. Lastly, we have a number of recruiting and offer policies in place to protect students during the recruiting process, but these policies only apply to activities and offers made during the school year, so by engaging in pre-MBA employer activities, you are precluded from utilizing these policies to your benefit. You can view our employer policies at: http://employer.wharton.upenn.edu/recruiting/information/policies.cfm.