Location, location, location!

Michael Moses - Assistant Director, Recruitment & AdmissionsWhen deciding where to do your MBA, one of the biggest factors is “location:” where, geographically speaking, is your MBA campus located?

For those that might be a bit unfamiliar with Toronto, Toronto is Canada’s business and financial capital. As North America’s fourth largest city, it is quite big. However, a vast majority of Toronto’s (and by extension, Canada’s) largest companies’ head offices are located in the downtown core of Toronto, which happens to also be where the Rotman campus is located.  This brings Rotman some huge advantages for both students and employers.

Rotman’s Location Advantages for our Students

To land one’s coveted MBA internship and post-MBA job, one of the most important things MBA students must do is network with industry professionals and/or the companies they are interested in working for.

As a Rotman student, regardless of your career interest, be it finance, consulting, marketing, health care, etc., you are around a 10-minute trip away from most of the country’s largest and most prominent employers. This means all it takes is an hour break between classes to get the time you need to head to a company and meet with a Rotman alum or executive working at one of such companies. For all of you McKinsey fans, their office is actually even on the University of Toronto campus making access even easier!

When you consider as well, that our first year students do not have class on Wednesdays, an entire free day means the opportunity to meet multiple companies every week.

Now let’s examine the scenario of attending another b-school: At best, the Toronto downtown core (i.e. where Canada’s largest and most prominent employers are) is about a 1 hour and 15 minute trip away- and this is a best case scenario. When you factor in traffic and/or coming from a b-school that is a bit farther away, this becomes an even lengthier trip.

The below comparison of time commitments on a student for an informational interview (i.e. networking with one employer) will hopefully add some clarity to why location is such a huge advantage for Rotman students:

  Rotman student Non-Rotman student (best case scenario) Non-Rotman student (typical case)
Time to get to informational interview 10 minutes 1 hour and 15 minutes 2 hours
Informational interview meeting 30 minutes 30 minutes 30 minutes
Time to return to campus from informational interview 10 minutes 1 hour and 15 minutes 2 hours
Total time commitment 50 minutes 3 hours 4.5 hours

One meeting with one company takes over 3x less time for Rotman students! This leaves more time for our students to meet with even more companies, get involved in extracurriculars, polish their interview skills, etc.

You might be wondering though, in our internet-connected age, couldn’t students just Skype an employer and meet with them that way? I can promise you that for networking and landing one’s post-MBA job, the importance of face-to-face, in-person interaction cannot be understated.

Rotman’s Location Advantages for Employers Looking to Hire MBAs

Employers are very busy people with limited time for out-of-office activities (i.e. meeting students on an MBA campus). Put yourself in their shoes and consider the following 2 questions to an employer:

Question A: Can you take 50 minutes out of your day (the time to meet students + commuting time) to come to Rotman?

Question B: Can you take 3 hours out of your day (the time to meet students + commuting time) to come to (non-Rotman) school?

All else being equal, I hope it is clear which request an employer would be more likely to say yes to. 🙂 – And as a result of this, this leads to some pretty fantastic guest speakers coming on campus, from Bill Downe, CEO of the Bank of Montreal, to former Coca-Cola CEO Neville Isdell!

Hopefully this blog post helps illustrate why “location, location, location” isn’t just for retail success but is also pivotal for picking the right MBA school!

Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Recap

Michael Moses - Assistant Director, Recruitment & Admissions

This past weekend Rotman opened its doors to prospective students for the 2014 Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Weekend and a chance to win a full MBA scholarship (valued at $90,000!). Participants included guests from across the world, from Toronto to India!

It was a very busy 2 days of competition and networking but very exciting as well. Here is a summary of the events of the weekend:

 

Friday March 28

9-10:30am

Participants arrived at Rotman and were placed in their teams for the Challenge. These teams were created to maximize diversity in terms of teammates’ current jobs, interest post-MBA, country of origin, etc.

Participants were also welcomed by one of Rotman’s instructors from the Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking, Scott Rutherford, who gave an overview of what to expect for the weekend and the challenge question all of the teams would tackle over the weekend.

10:30am-5pm

Each team had 6.5 hours to create a PowerPoint presentation of up to 15 minutes in length that answered the Challenge question.

During this time current Rotman students met with each team for coaching sessions as well, to help guide the teams along as they prepared their solutions to the Challenge question.

5pm

Time’s up! Every team had to submit their presentation by 5pm on the dot or be disqualified.

5-6:30pm

Rotman problem solving challenge competitors mingling

After a long day of work, all Challenge participants were invited for a networking reception where they could mingle together, with the Rotman Career Centre, current students and alumni.

8-11pm

Following the networking session, all Challenge participants joined current Rotman students at a nearby pub for some more time to unwind.

Saturday Mar 29

8-9am

Teams reconnected over breakfast and Rotman’s Director of Recruitment & Admissions, Niki da Silva provided an overview of the day’s schedule.

9am-12pm

Each team presented the presentations they created the day prior. Each team presented in front of  judges comprised of alumni, current students, the Rotman Recruitment & Admissions Team and Career Centre team.

When teams were not presenting they had the opportunity to attend a wide variety of sessions on campus designed to provide more insight on the Rotman experience. These sessions included:

  • Rotman campus tours
  • Rotman student and alumni panel discussion
  • Coffee Chat with the  Managing Director of the Rotman Full-Time MBA Program, Kevin Frey
  • Experience Rotman’s Self Development Lab in action
  • How to create a successful personal brand online

12:30-1:30pm

Over lunch, the top 4 presentations were then announced. Those top 4 teams would need to present again later that day to determine the Challenge winner.

1:30-2:30pm

Prior to the final presentations, Challenge participants were treated to a Q&A session with Michael Tippett, Director of New Products at HootSuite!

3-5pm

Final presentations in front of Challenge participants and our judging panel comprised of:

  • Kevin Frey, Managing Director of the Rotman Full-Time MBA Program
  • Stewart Lyons, President & CEO of TeraGo
  • Michael Tippett, Director of New Products at HootSuite

5-5:30pm

Prior the Challenge winners being announced, Rotman’s Associate Dean, Mihnea Moldoveanu provided Challenge participants with a more in-depth look at Rotman’s approach to model-based problem solving.

5:30-7pm

Awards ceremony and cocktiail reception where Challenge participants, admitted students and current students could mingle and find out who won the Challenge scholarship awards.

Everyone that participated in the Challenge worked extremely hard and we were very impressed with their efforts. Congratulations to all of you for your excellent work!

After the reception, everyone then headed to a local pub for additional mingling time.

Sunday Mar 30

Challenge participants met up for brunch with some Rotman alumni and then all went together to Ripley’s Aquarium.

Sunday afternoon many of our guests said their goodbyes to each other but it will be a very short-lived goodbye- They will all be back on campus this summer to kick off their studies at Rotman!

A HUGE thanks to all of our current students, alumni, Challenge participants and newly admitted students for making the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Weekend such a success. It was your energy, passion and eagerness to get involved that made the weekend what it was; we could not have done it without you!

The Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Weekend- Networking opportunities abound as well!

Michael Moses - Assistant Director, Recruitment & AdmissionsThe Rotman Problem Solving Challenge kicks off in less than 2 weeks! You probably already knew that we will be awarding over $300,000 in scholarships. But did you know the weekend is also a great way to start building your Rotman network before you even start school?

  •  Networking with the Class of 2016– Everyone participating in the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge is either admitted to the class of 2016 or in the process of applying for admission to the class of 2016. Also in attendance for the non-competition events during the Challenge weekend will be those who were admitted for the class of 2016 but might not have been able to compete in the Challenge.
  • Networking with the Classes of 2014 and 2015– The social events during the weekend will be hosted by our current students (those graduating this semester and completing the first year of studies this semester).

This is a great opportunity to learn about your future classmates’ backgrounds and career aspirations, who is interning where, etc., and how you can help each other land your dream post-MBA jobs!

  •  Networking with Alumni-Judges for the Challenge will be Rotman alumni representing the following companies:
    • A.T. Kearney
    • Accenture
    • Bain & Co.
    • Boston Consulting Group
    • Deloitte
    • McKinsey & Co.
    • RBC
    • Rogers

And as part of the Welcome Weekend for admitted students, on March 30, alumni will be hosting said students for a fun day about Toronto. The alumni hosts will also be coming from the top-tier consulting firms!

Looking for some tips on how to navigate the world of the Rotman MBA, how to stand out in job recruiting or something as simple as where to get some cheap food near campus? Get the answers you are looking for right in the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Welcome Weekend!

As you can see, the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge offers our incoming students so much more than just the opportunity to win a scholarship. It promises to be an exciting weekend experiencing Rotman’s unique approach to problem solving in action and a great opportunity to leverage the fantastic network of Rotmanites you are now a part of!

Introducing the 2014 Rotman Problem Solving Challenge!

Michael Moses - Assistant Director, Recruitment & AdmissionsHappy new year! As many of you finalize your applications in time for the round 2 admission deadline you might be thinking, “is there anything else I can do to improve my chances of getting in?” Or perhaps you were already admitted and are eager to get a head-start on the Rotman experience.

To cater to those interests and give prospective and incoming students the opportunity to experience Rotman’s unique model-based problem solving approach in action, we are introducing for the second year, the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge!

Here is a clip of some current Rotman students who participated in the event last year, talking about their experience at it:

Beyond the great opportunities and benefits that Michael, Viral, Jonathan and Alex mentioned, some other things you can expect during this year’s Rotman Problem Solving Challenge Weekend:

  • Networking opportunities with current Rotman students, industry professionals and Rotman alumni
  • The opportunity to win a scholarship such as full tuition to the Rotman Full-Time MBA program
  • Experience Toronto with your future classmates

Stay tuned to the Rotman Problem Solving Challenge website in the next few weeks for complete details on:

  • The big, messy, unstructured problem that prospective and incoming students will be tackling
  • Judging Panel
  • Key dates and deadlines
  • When registration is open (while you can see the registration button the page now, it is not live yet. Not to worry; we will announce when we will begin accepting entries!)

Good luck with your submissions and looking forward to seeing you on campus!