During last week’s Chicago Booth “West Quest” (trip to visit potential MBA internship employers in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles), I found I had definite ideas about what the company presentations were forgetting to mention. After hearing from 14 companies, I wrote up the following questions I thought companies should be answering:
- What functions are you recruiting for on campus? Off campus? Do you sponsor international students?
- What problems do you solve? What progress have you made? How is the company organized (functions, product groups, US and international offices – top level org chart and world map)?
- What areas of your business are growing? What are the big issues you expect to have in the next five years?
- What’s the career path or what are a few examples of how mid-level executives have moved around? What do employees do in the first and second years after getting their MBAs? What’s the team composition?
- What do interns do (how are projects assigned, project examples)? What else is included in the internship program (networking, mentoring)? What’s the recruiting calendar?
Our group eventually asked most of these questions whenever they weren’t in the presentations. Any more basics I missed?
