Humorous Housemates

My housemate wrote this - it put a smile on my face and also gives an insight into the ding dynamic.... Pardon the formatting, HTML not a forte.

JOB HUNTING: A PRACTICAL USER GUIDE

Interviews

Case interview Series of thought experiments in which you pretend calculators were never invented

P Equity interview Mythical event, rarely seen, bit like the Loch Ness Monster

McKinsey You are in the presence of God: bring gold, frankincense and myrrh

interview

Goldman interview As above (but forget the gifts, they don’t need the money)

Feedback In the unlikely event that they remember who you were, they are likely to question either your “fit” or “commitment”…best avoided

Assessment centre A sort of MBA Big Brother event. Never believe that any part of the program is “informal” – someone, somewhere will be observing you with a clip board.

Dings

The basic ding You will experience in many forms: checking your email or hearing your phone ring may inspire panic

The stealth ding You only find out you’ve been dinged when you find your best friend is off for the final round interview in London

Back stab ding You are dinged after the formal job offer: was common during the dotcom meltdown; American Express are only recent practitioners

Google Ding After a process that is a cross between one of those Japanese endurance game shows and a Guantanomo Bay style interrogation…you are dinged unceremoniously

Reverse ding Pay back time…you finally get to ding someone…provided you have more than one job offer

Miscellaneous

Internship They pretend to pay you; you pretend to work

Career Service An INSEAD division intent on making you into a management consultant and gathering statistics to help attract applicants to INSEAD, best avoided

Career counsellors Overflow psychotherapy service used when professional psychiatrists on campus are over-booked.

Application analytics (we are MBAs after all!)

Primary ding rate No. dings for 1^st round/Total number of applications.

A good quick and dirty indicator of your application situation

Secondary rate No. 2^nd round acceptances/No. 1^st round interviews.

Used in addition to primary rate by any professional analyst

Conversion Ratio % 1^st round interviews converted to job offers…

the free cash flow holy grail of application analytics…

Job Multiples As in “Dunnett is trading at 5 times”: 5 job offers, but only one body to carry them out.