MBA & US Job Hunting | From the Big Four to Finance in New York! Do You Need to Be Great at Socializing and Drinking for an MBA? (Part 2)

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KC, you've shared your English prep plans and so on on IG. How did you improve your English before starting your MBA?

That's a great question, because like I said earlier, I'm a rather pessimistic, cautious person,
so no matter what people said about my English, I still wanted to improve it. Before going abroad I kept taking
online speaking courses. Back then I chose HiTutor, but I'm not saying you have to choose that one;
just find one you like. Actually I'm still taking classes now; the one I use now is called
AmazingTalker, which has all kinds of teachers. Just find one you like and try a trial lesson.
I think keeping yourself in that environment really helps. But even though I'd already practiced for a year back then,
a year, a year or two of online English classes before going abroad, once you get here you still find it's not enough.
At least that was true for me, and I think for most people: you find there's still a gap.
Especially for us in business school. Unlike engineering or computer science, we really need speaking skills.
It's not just written correspondence, which basically everyone can handle. Especially
when you think about it, we're all competing with Americans. What edge do you have over them when your speaking
is already weaker than theirs? What makes you stronger than them? All your other skills have to be stronger, and your speaking can't be too far behind either.
So I'd... yeah, it really is like that. So since I've been here, I've been very proactive about continuing to improve my English,
even making a few native-speaker friends, and taking some online courses myself,
for example to correct my pronunciation and work on linking sounds.
I still pay a lot of attention to that. People say you're already here, why bother, but I still want
to keep improving. I figure since I'm already here, I want to keep getting better. And I think the fastest, fastest way
is of course still to find friends, or have those conversations with friends that are more
on the casual side. Actually, I think my English improved the most during my internship and at work,
when I was using business English. That's when it improved the most.
Of course not everyone has that environment, because you have to land an internship or job first. So I think for this part you just
have to keep improving, keep at it, for example when you're with friends
or watching shows or anything. You need to build that habit first and put yourself
in that environment, because I've seen quite a few people who, even after doing an MBA or another master's,
don't really... you know, it's like they just changed location. They don't actually use much English, especially here in New York.
There are lots of Chinese speakers in New York, so honestly some people don't really
step out of their comfort zone and find ways to create that environment. It really, really happens, especially in New York and other East and West Coast cities
with large Chinese-speaking communities. Yeah, so you may need to force yourself to
step out of your comfort zone and make a few native-speaker friends.
Even if they're not native speakers,
that's fine, as long as they're not Chinese speakers. Just don't communicate only in Chinese. I think that helps a lot.
And go to more events. As for me, I also made extra efforts to improve,
like taking online courses, and also awareness. I think awareness is really important too.
When people use certain words, you need a learning mindset. Some people just hear them and move on, but I try hard to learn
their expressions. For example, in business some people use really elegant words, and I try to memorize them
and learn them, as many as I can. That kind of awareness is pretty important. That's how I do it.

What did you gain most from your MBA (soft skills, hard skills, mindset or personal plans, values, etc.)? How have you changed?

Great question, because many people probably still don't really understand the MBA, and the reason,
I think, is the same as before: there really isn't much about it in Chinese. I think what the MBA really changed a lot for me
was mostly soft skills. As for hard skills, for the work I do now, I think
the MBA helped, but for me that's something I could still learn on my own, so that's fine. What I gained most was soft skills:
working together on a project with people of different nationalities and from different countries,
and seeing foreigners' habits and ways of getting things done, which are very, very different
from ours in Taiwan. I learned a lot there. Another great thing, I think,
really, even though it's a cliché, is that I genuinely feel my horizons have broadened, because
your classmates are all really outstanding, and even the people you meet at internships and full-time jobs are all very, very outstanding.
Everyone is very, very outstanding, and the foreigners may be top people in their home countries before flying over here,
probably. So I think it's a great motivator: they're all outstanding, so you want to become
outstanding too, or even better. You really feel that passion and drive. It happens in Taiwan too,
but it feels a bit different. I have to say Taiwanese people are all
very... yeah, sometimes I actually think it's a real shame, because a lot of Taiwanese people are really outstanding, but it's kind of a shame.
First, foreign language skills. Second, I think Taiwan's work culture is still a bit
too much of a sweatshop, at least in my experience. In my experience it's way too grueling, so sometimes talent doesn't stay.
People feel they can't take it. So sometimes when I see outstanding Taiwanese people abroad,
I feel it's a bit of a loss for Taiwan,
like, if all these outstanding people went back to Taiwan, how great that would be, it could help a lot.
But I think Taiwan's work environment is a bit too grueling, or the packages can't be as
competitive as abroad, so it can't really keep talent. I think that's a bit of a shame. And in terms of mindset, I feel that since coming here
I've kind of broken out of the box, because I think in Taiwan, at least around me,
most people are also really outstanding, but the box tends to be a bit limited:
at least a lot of people's conversations are about how young you are, which big company you're at, how much you make, whether you own a car and a home,
that kind of thing. I feel like success has already been defined, a bit boxed in. That's just my personal view,
and I think it's a bit of a shame. At least in the US, I know we value that too, but I feel that
here, at least my classmates or some colleagues may care more about work-life balance.
Of course I know, like I said, Taiwan may not have that kind of working culture,
which is a bit of a shame. But here, besides money, a lot of people still value other things, for example
a gap year, where people travel or meet different people. And there's more ethnic diversity here,
so people think more differently, and you have more chances to be exposed to different people and things.
It feels broader to me, and people may value different things. I don't feel it's like in Taiwan, where most people may care about
which company you work for, how much you make, how many years until a promotion, which is a bit more limiting.
This opened my mind more and made me realize we actually have lots of choices. You don't have to squeeze into a big company to
succeed; success can be defined more broadly. I think that's how I've changed the most.

Part 3 Job hunting in US finance

MBAs are famously expensive. Do you feel a lot of pressure about not finding a job in the US?

Good question. It really is very, very expensive.
But I personally got quite a lot of scholarship money, more than half. Let me explain a bit
for those who don't know yet: MBA tuition is very expensive. For example, at Michigan Ross, tuition is about 73,000
to 74,000 a year, so for two years it's roughly double that, almost 150,000.
And places like Columbia or NYU are even more expensive. If I remember correctly, Columbia and NYU are around 82,000 to 83,000,
a full 10,000-plus more, so roughly 170,000 to 180,000, even more expensive,
NT$1 million more. It's really, really expensive. I got quite a lot of scholarship money,
so it cost me less than most people. That's the first thing.
So for me, I didn't have as much pressure as people without scholarships.
I felt I could earn it back, so back then my pressure wasn't really about money.
I was fine. But some people around me didn't get scholarships, and their stress levels were very, very high,
especially some who just finished their internships and didn't get a return offer.
They're under even more pressure. Even without a return offer you can keep job hunting in your second year,
but they put even more pressure on themselves, because think about it, say
about 6 million in tuition, they're at NYU, about 6 million in tuition, and the cost of living here is higher too.
You might need to spend 1.5 million a year, so 1.5 million a year makes 3 million for two years,
plus 6 million, roughly 9-plus million, almost 10 million in costs over two years. If you can't find
a job that lets you earn that back, the pressure really is high, especially since 10 million
is very hard to earn back in Taiwan, I have to say. So most people are still under a lot of pressure, but I'm fine,
partly because, like I said, I got quite a lot of scholarship money, and also I got a return offer during my internship,
so I haven't been under that much pressure.

Taking the Michigan Ross MBA as an example, in which countries and industries do Asian students usually end up working after graduation? Is US finance harder for Asians to break into?

Yes, but I think it depends on the function.
For example, if you're more on the quant side, that's not really an issue. It depends on the function.
For me, I actually work on the corporate side, more inside the corporate side,
so it's not as serious as I just described. I think the most serious is actually
IB, or even VC and PE. Those are the
hardest, the hardest for Asian men. Why do I say that? I'm going by the data,
really going by the data, plus some friends' experiences, so what I say isn't necessarily right.
It's just what I've observed and the feedback most people have given me, because investment banks won't admit it.
They have a diversity... they want to be diverse in their people's ethnicity
and even gender. As everyone knows, investment banks are mostly men,
and more specifically, white men make up the largest group.
So they want to be more diverse. That's why they sometimes let Hispanic people,
people from Central and South America, and Black people have reserved spots and apply early, through things like
early application, which is only open to those two groups. And there's also a group if you're a woman; at least at my company,
these three groups get to apply first, and they also have reserved spots.
But we men aren't in any of those three groups. On top of that, as I mentioned at the start, this line of work relies a lot on speaking,
especially IB, which sometimes depends heavily on speaking, and we may not be native speakers. So from what I've observed,
if you didn't study in the US, Canada or Hong Kong, or work there,
going straight from Taiwan into an MBA and then directly into this is really, really hard.
I don't know many people who've done it; I can count them on one hand. It really is hard.
So if you want to get into these fields, you may need to work even harder and be better than everyone else,
not a little, a lot. That's roughly what I've observed, though it's not necessarily like this every year,
not necessarily like this every year. It's just that in recent years there seem to be very few Asian men like us, truly born and raised
in Taiwan, who do a two-year MBA here and go straight in. It's a lot harder.

KC, how did you prepare before job hunting in the US? What strengths or skills might have made it easier to find a job there?

I think my situation may be different from a lot of people's. Most people,
at least a lot of Taiwanese people around me, most want to do
consulting, tech or IB, and they may not have done consulting before,
or IB, or worked in tech. They want to use the MBA to switch careers,
so it's harder for them. But for me, I'd always wanted to do corporate finance. It was my
Plan A and my Plan B; I had no other plan. Back then most older students and the school would say
you need a Plan A and a Plan B, don't put all your eggs in one basket. But I know myself well, and I was already sure this was what I wanted to do.
I didn't want to do anything else, so I didn't apply to any other functions at all, not a single one. Everything I applied to was corporate finance,
because I knew that's what I wanted to do. So in the past I'd put all my skill points into this area:
I have a CPA license, I took the CFA, and back in college
I took lots of finance electives. So my skill points were all... for me,
my career switch wasn't as big as other people's, so in that sense I had a real advantage.
Another thing is that corporate finance isn't a mainstream MBA path, so there's less competition, which made it easier for me to stand out.
At school we have a club called the Finance Club.
Most people want to go into IB, but people like us who want corporate finance number fewer than 10 at our school.
Our class has about 400 people and fewer than 10 want this path, so if you do the math, the
percentage is very low. I think it's about the same at every school. It's not a very fancy job, but it's what I want to do; that's where my interest lies.
So I had fewer competitors, but less competition also means less supply, so there aren't many options either.
I searched for a long time, and not many companies are willing to sponsor a visa. If you already have status, then you're fine,
but I needed work visa sponsorship, so the search was harder for us, mostly at large companies.
So the applications were still pretty competitive, because if you want to go to a big company, so does everyone else. So for me,
it wasn't a few months of practice; I'd been honing those skills for years, because I knew this is what I wanted to do.
So it was fine for me. But I know a lot of people, like someone who wanted to switch to a tech PM role back then.
In Taiwan he wasn't in tech, and he wasn't a PM,
so he thought, OK, he needed to make one switch first, so he switched to PM first,
becoming a PM in finance first, because that was the easiest way in for him at the time, and that's how he's now landed a tech PM job.
So like I said, switching all three factors at once is a bit unrealistic. We've already switched countries, so you have to
get one of the others sorted first, then come here and search. It's a bit easier that way.

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