MSM Corporate Week 2022: A gathering for growth and opportunities

From 30 May to 3 June 2022, MSM organized its Annual Corporate Week. MSM’s MBA and Master in Management (MM) students were able to explore the ideal professional environment for them after their studies. During the Corporate week, the students discussed their career goals with alumni and attended several workshops that were designed to prepare the cohort for the job market and other opportunities.

After two years of restrictions, it was great to organize the Corporate Week in person again. The organization of this event led to fruitful interactions and valuable insights that will help all the students in their future career steps. “All the company presentations, workshops and interactions with alumni have been an immensely enriching experience for me,” MM student Anuja Zinjarde says.

Fellow MM student Ksenia Avalyan, says that the Corporate Week allowed the students to participate in a variety of info sessions with different companies. “Throughout the week, I gained a lot of helpful insights from the representatives of the companies as well as the alumni of MSM. It was a truly remarkable learning experience that will help me with my next steps into the corporate world,” Ksenia added.

MBA student Priscilla Natukunda says the week offered her engaging, authentic, and professional interactions with alumni, employers, MSM faculty and provided the opportunity to develop essential soft skills and understandings required for success in the labour market. “We emerged in interactive sessions that complemented concepts we dealt with in our courses such as management and leadership, effective networking, communication, career management, and many more,” Priscilla said.

Workshops and trainings

Students of the MBA and MM program attended a variety of workshops to improve their soft skills. Some of the highlights from these workshops were Personal Branding: How to sell yourself, Negotiation Skills followed by Effective Communication in Management.

MSM Senior Lecturer Marketing and Strategy Oliver Olson enjoyed conducting the workshop on personal branding for the students: “Personal branding is important for students who are graduating because we can’t expect employers to connect the dots for you. It’s vital to come with your own inventory and showcase your skills and resources. Finally, you need to connect the dots for your potential employer to tell them how your specific skill set and resources are going to be beneficial to the company.”

Speaking about the session on negotiation skills, Priscilla Natukunda says, “Skills are equally important as knowledge and therefore I greatly enjoyed the session on negotiation skills that was facilitated by Dave Cass, Senior Lecturer.”

Company Presentations

The MSM Annual Corporate Week offers students the opportunity to attend company presentations to get to know the company representatives. This year students were able to join company presentations from the Expat Centre, 6P consultancy, Medtronic, CGI, Goboony, ASML Holding, Weir Minerals, KPMG, Mollie, Corporis Medical, Catella, Accenture, and Fluke.

Since the range of organizations present at the Corporate Week was quite diverse, MBA student Dinesh Chelattil says it provided him with the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with many company representatives in a wide range of industries. “I was not only able to get to know the potential opportunities, but also had a chance to understand the experience and background the market currently seeks. The valuable feedback will prove me in good stead for my future job applications,” Dinesh added.

Alumni Experiences

Like every year, MSM alumni were invited to share their invaluable experiences with current students. From the MBA alumni community, Bruna Moura Bruno, Daniel Mazzini, Juan Pablo, Alan Corona, Joyce Ann Avellanosa, and Claudia Huerta Hernandez shared their experiences while Dixon Block and Sofia Neria Gonzalez represented MM alumni.

A special session named “Alumni World Café” where students could have a direct interaction with the former students followed by a panel discussion with them, were major highlights of this year’s Corporate Week.

Through these interactions, current students learned about the tips and tricks that their seniors used in their professional careers to achieve certain goals. Being persistent, systematic, and finding an opportunity that resonates with one’s personality and profile were the key takeaways from the discussions.

Priscilla Natukunda says the stories alumni shared with the students were not only about successes, but also about hardships, challenges in finding suitable jobs after graduation, the rejections, making the wrong choices and learning from them.

“The relevance and quality of any education program is assured through the engagement of the private sector and MSM has clearly understood how important it is to establish, grow, and maintain the relationship with its alumni. After all, it is the alumni who are the future leaders and managers. Many MSM alumni travelled from different parts of the world for the Corporate Week to share their experiences and inspire us,” Priscilla added.

Dinesh Chelattil summarized the Corporate Week as a highly engaging platform with the opportunity to interact with alumni and a diverse set of organizations. “The feedback, tips and tricks from the Alumni network were very valuable to get a realistic understanding of post-MBA life. ‘Passion’ and ‘Persistence’ were buzzwords in their addresses, and they provided a lot of insights into the European job market”.