Career Resources & Media from SCU Leavey

Junaid Syed:
Thanks for joining us. We're really excited to be hosting this session today. And my name is Junaid Syed. I'm one of the admissions advisors who works on all of the online graduate business programs. We are hyperfocused on the online MBA, which is actually our next start term this coming winter. I'm joined, we're joined today by my colleague Kulsum. Hi, Kulsum.

Kulsum:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Like Junaid mentioned, I'm also one of the admissions advisors for the online graduate programs and we help students all the way from when they express interest up until they receive a decision. So yeah.

Junaid Syed:
Yeah. And also of course, we have a very special guest today, Colleen Withers. She's the Senior Associate Director of online programs and employer relations. Hi, Colleen.

Colleen Withers:
Hi, everyone. Nice to see you all. Thanks for joining us. And yes, my role is all things career for the online MBA students.

Kulsum:
All right. So the agenda for today. We are going to go over some rankings and career outcomes, first. We're gonna talk about the Silicon Valley Professional, the SVP, which is very unique to SCU's Online MBA program. Colleen will discuss some career resources and then, next steps, which includes some upcoming deadlines, followed by the Q&A. So hold your questions up until then, and we will answer all of your questions during the Q&A session.

Junaid Syed:
So before we dive in, we wanted to just share some Leavey School of Business rankings, career outcomes, things like that, things that are pretty important to prospective students with good reason and some of these are just really impressive numbers that we're very excited about. Our online MBA program was actually ranked number one for career outcomes by Poets & Quants, which is a really well known business school publication. They publish their rankings once a year and we were ranked number one in career outcomes, so that's a very, very exciting accomplishment for us, really for our graduates. We were ranked number two for graduate employment in big tech firms.

Google is the leading tech recruiter for the program. So a number of our MBA alum are employed at Google, which again is super exciting and that's just one of the companies represented, so many others that surround us here in Silicon Valley. Our online MBA program, overall, was ranked the number three best online MBA program in the country. Again, a really exciting accolade for us here. Our school is ranked, is in the top 25 schools for Silicon Valley hiring. And then our Santa Clara, Leavey particularly was one of the first business schools in the United States to be AACSB accredited which has really earned us a reputation as an institution of innovation and ethics.

Kulsum:
All right. So the Silicon Valley Professional, SVP. So you're probably wondering, what is the SVP? And so, we're in the Silicon Valley. We're in the heart of innovation and so we're trying to curate highly skilled leaders who are passionate about their career and their community. They're able to turn great ideas into actions and push the boundaries of innovation and growth. They disrupt both their careers and their companies, so students who really think outside of the box and students who make meaningful connections in Silicon Valley. So networking is a big part of our program. We want you to take advantage of all the networking opportunities and we want you to connect within your community. And so, all of that equates to what an SVP is.

Junaid Syed:
How do students achieve SVP skills? So each of the courses, residencies, co-curriculars, and reflections in the program ultimately will drive our students’ mastery of four specific domains. And those domains are number one, principled leadership. I had mentioned in one of the previous slides that we're known for ethical leadership. And that's something that's very much woven into the fabric of our culture here at the school. So principled leadership is the first domain. Number two, communication and team building, as Kulsum had mentioned, networking-heavy, collaboration-heavy, connect connectivity-heavy. That's something that you can expect in our online program which may not be... When you think of an online program that may not be what you immediately think of is that level of connectivity but certainly is the case for ours. Domain three being analysis and interpretation. And then domain four being innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset. So those are the four domains.

Kulsum:
So to continue on with how you would achieve SVP skills: You're going to be using something called a Silicon Valley Professional Dashboard and you'll look over to the right, this image. That's what the dashboard will look like. That's what you'll be using for your reflections and your co-curriculars. It's a great space to keep everything organized. And so the dashboard is an integrative portfolio to help you with your electives and your co-curriculars. You're going to start off by completing three reflections. One at the beginning, middle, and at the end. And what that is is that you're gonna do a self-reflection and then you're going to have six anonymous peers complete a survey about you. And so after that you'll be able to kind of look at what you wrote and then what your peers wrote about you. So it's just a great way to receive some feedback. And then you'll also be completing eight or more co-curriculars and what those are are activities or events such as course activities, an event like a pitch competition, presenting at work or other various skill-based activities. And all of that is how you achieve the SVP skills.

Junaid Syed:
Great. So little recap there of the SVP or Silicon Valley Professional Dashboard. Again, something that's very unique to our online MBA program, a really exciting feature of the program. We're gonna dive in now with our guest, Colleen, of course, into the career services portion. So Colleen will take us through the next few slides. So thank you so much for doing this, Colleen.

Colleen Withers:
Yes, of course. So it's not just me, I should say before we dive in, there is a team of four of us focused solely on the careers of students in the graduate business programs here at Santa Clara. And then on top of that we also have eight dedicated career coaches. So there's a whole team out here working for you behind the scenes. So, wanted to mention that first. When it comes to activities and workshops, we do a lot. Silicon Valley Engagement for sure, focused on companies who are around the Bay Area, alums from the program who work in the Bay Area, for sure, but also throughout the country. So we're not just Bay Area-focused. We also are focused on other areas within the country, as well. And as most people know, there's a lot of remote work opportunities now too. So we're very focused on that, as well. When it comes to the type of engagement, sort of to dig a little deeper into that, employers reach out to us, that's half of my role from the career coaching side, but also from the employer engagement side.

So alums or recruiters who are interested in hiring our students reach out to me. And then we have multiple avenues, channels for those employers to get in touch with you. So it could be through an actual webinar or a workshop on campus. It could be a virtual session. It could be just the job posting, so just asking for me to sort of spread the word. And some of the times, that means the students are actually connecting with alums or it means we're collecting resumes for a company. So, a lot of different avenues for employers to engage with our students. But prior to you actually engaging with employers, we do highly recommend that you take a look at what we call career education. So that's focused on what do you really wanna do next? And sometimes you've gotta take a step back and think about that before you just jump into interviews. So that's where the next couple bullets tie in. So professional development, of course, we've got dedicated speakers, paid speakers that we have come on.

They can focus on learning behavioral interviewing tricks and tips. It can focus on something more specific, like, say, interviewing for our product management role. When we're focused on the alumni panels, a lot of that is also career education. So we've had alums who come back and talk about what it's like to transition from being software engineer into product management. We have a lot of students doing that. What it's like to work in finance. Maybe you wanna work, maybe you're already currently in finance but you're just looking to move up the ranks. So moving from a financial analyst role to more senior management position. How do you do that? So we have alum panels that focus on things like that, which is the actual job function. And then we also have alum panels focused on industries. There are a lot of, obviously, tech companies here in the Silicon Valley but as well we have a lot of biotech, we have a lot of healthcare, we have FinTech. We have lots of different areas and avenues to work in, as well.

So we focus those alum panels, not only on the type of worker, like the job title, but also the type of company you would work for. So, both of those, sort of, buckets. And then the career workshops and the webinars, those are focused a little bit more on skills. So when I say skills what I mean is how to answer behavioral interview questions, right? How to answer that question of, “Tell me about yourself,” or how to tackle something like imposter syndrome. How to tackle a career pivot. So we've got a webinar next week that talks about, “You're looking to pivot,” and a lot of our students are looking to pivot from, say, marketing into finance or strategy into operations or ... There's a million different examples, but how to take some of those transferable skills that you had from your current job and really make them relate to what you wanna do next. So, sort of helping you with a career pivot. I could go on and on about our workshops and webinars, but we can move forward.

Junaid Syed:
That's great. Thank you Colleen.

Colleen Withers:
Yeah, of course. So these are a couple topics of the things that we do. The 90 Days: Starting Strong is focused on what to do when you first start a new role. And this webinar, the senior director of our group puts on and is really some great structured tips about, “Okay, I'm just starting a new position. What do I do? How do I hit the ground running?” So some great ideas there. Practical Conversations for Leaders. This is fabulous. If you're looking to move up into management, we actually do role plays where you can have a real difficult conversation with an employee and it's someone that works for you but you have no idea that this conversation's happening. And so we kind of put you on the hot seat to help you figure out and strategize how to have some of those conversations and how to be a good manager. So that's a fun one. And then another example, Emotional Intelligence: Obviously, a really big part of being a manager and leadership in general is focused on how to embrace the people that work for you and to have that open-door policy.

So it kind of goes back to what we were talking earlier about ethical leadership. That's also a big part of the curriculum here but it's also woven into the network of our workshops and webinars and sort of all-around focus. Perfect. So, on top of all of that, we've also got these other aspects as well—resources. We have a number of tools that the university pays for that would be free for you as a student. A lot of things to really help you tighten up your resume, help you tighten up your LinkedIn profile so that you can appropriately use the AI behind applicant tracking systems. We've gotten really well-versed in how that all works. And even if you're emailing your resume to someone, it's gonna end up in an applicant tracking system. So, making sure that you are up to date with how all that works. And then we have, as I mentioned, those eight career coaches on top of the four of us that are staff to focus on the one-on-one coaching.

So within those one-on-one appointments, we can take the resume review and the LinkedIn tools to another level and give it, sort of, the human perspective. As well, we do a lot of one-on-one career coaching just in general, like job-search strategy. "I have no idea what I'm doing, what I wanna do next." We can focus on doing a mock interview. That's one of my favorite things, where I get to ask all the tough questions for you and it gives you a chance to try a few different answers and figure out, “Okay, what fits best and what would be appropriate to say in an interview?” So we kind of talk through some of that. Salary negotiation, anything is open for those one-on-one appointments. Webinars, I discussed that a little bit already but all the different topics that we have coming up. We could also help you focus on personal branding and elevator pitch, that type of thing.

And then the resources on campus. So the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a center on campus that really focuses on startups. And there's a venture accelerator portion, there's an opportunity to meet investors. It is, like, exploded. It's a huge center that all students are welcome to be a part of. And if you're looking to, if you have a startup idea, just, they have a thing called an idea lab. If you're further along and you're looking for a co-founder, they have work on that, if you're looking for funding, they can help you with that. So, a lot of amazing opportunities to connect. And sometimes that's connecting with Santa Clara alums or what we call Friends of the University, which would be people who are interested in investing in Santa Clara students. So that's that. And then the job resources, I think I pretty much covered that one.

Junaid Syed:
Yeah. I love what you're saying, Colleen, because when a prospective student is researching different schools, different programs, there's a lot of focus, as there should be, on curriculum and, just, structure and things like that, and those are so crucial to their success, right? But I love that Santa Clara puts so much of an emphasis on, “Yeah, we're gonna give you this highly regarded education but you're also going to get this emphasis on what are you going to do with that after you get the education,” right? So, really, really, really refreshing to hear.

Colleen Withers:
Yeah. So, this is digging a little bit deeper into some of the platforms that I mentioned. So, these are tools. The Handshake tool is a university-wide tool. It's kind of like a job board/LinkedIn sort of smushed together. So it's really easy for employers to post a position on Handshake and then they just click the universities that they're interested in seeing the post. So it's a great way to help see who's hiring and for what kind of role. The Bronco Exchange is a relatively new alumni platform. So if you're looking for a mentor, it's fabulous. So alums sign on as mentors, current students sign on, and then you're matched. The background system, in case anyone's familiar with it, is called People Grove. But it's a system where help... It's like a matching system to help alums and students connect. The next two are resume reviews. So, like I mentioned, we do have these tools that help you with applicant tracking systems.

Colleen Withers:
Jobscan is a new one for us and it is amazing. So, in that one, you upload a job description and then you upload a resume and it gives you the percent match of keywords and things like that. So what I really stress with students is resumes shouldn't have everything you've ever done. Resumes should match the job description. So sometimes you've gotta kind of flip your thinking because you're thinking, “I gotta put everything I've ever done on my resume.” But really, what you wanna do is take a look at the job description and take a look at the bullets of the responsibilities in there and think about, “Have I done that? And if I have, is it obvious on my resume?” And so this tool really helps pull out some of the things that you're like, “Okay, no, I haven't done that.” Okay, that's fine. That's also good to recognize, “How can I get those skills so that I would be applicable for this position? Or if I have done it and it's not showing up on my resume, oh, that's also a big red flag.”

You've gotta make sure that you're weaving that information into the resume. So that tool's a fun one, new for us. Camino is where we have recorded all of our webinars since 2020. So all the things that I mentioned before, about tackling imposter syndrome and elevator pitch, things like that, those are all in there to be watched on demand whenever you'd like. So, a lot of great content and the alum panels that I mentioned earlier, those are all in there, as well. So if you're looking to search back and reach out to alums, this is a fabulous way to do it because you can watch their webinar and then connect with them on LinkedIn, sort of take it from there. CareerLeader is a fabulous tool if you are really just starting out and you don't know what you wanna do, or maybe you were working in a position that you just don't like but you haven't figured out what it is you wanna do next.

So CareerLeader is a skills and assessment type of thing. It's like three parts that are all 45 minutes each. And you can, it's the little sort of quick answer kind of thing, like yes or no kind of thing. So it helps you figure out what you're good at, what motivates you. And then in the end it actually spits out some job titles and suggestions. So that's a fun one. And then the last two. The LinkedIn Masterclass is the one that I mentioned that tightens up your LinkedIn profile. So that one I highly recommend. And then Interview Query, which we're just about to launch, helps with technical interviews. So it helps with those people who are looking to interview more, like, at the data analytics field. Maybe software management, software engineering field. So it's a really cool new tool that we're looking forward to.

Junaid Syed:
Amazing. Thank you, Colleen, for going through all of that. Talk about a wealth of resources. My God.

Colleen Withers:
There's a lot. Yeah.

Junaid Syed:
I love that. Great. All right.

Kulsum:
Oh, actually, we'll have it right here. So as you can see our email, our phone number is listed on this page, jot it down. You can reach out to me and Junaid about any admissions-related questions. And then Colleen for any career services.

Junaid Syed:
Just know, we're here to help. Kulsum, myself, our colleague, Lynn. We can schedule a call with you, talk about your background, determine your eligibility. If this seems like something you want to move forward with, we'll be here to support you through the whole application process, basically until the time that you've been offered admission and you accept that offer. So again, we're here to help. Haven't seen any other questions come in but all of you should have our contact information. Please reach out to us, and thanks again for taking some time outta your day to join us. And thank you so much to Colleen and Kulsum. We really appreciate you for taking time out to be here with us.

Colleen Withers:
Definitely. Happy to be here.

Junaid Syed:
All right.

Kulsum:
Thanks, guys.

Junaid Syed:
Take care, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye-bye.

Colleen Withers:
Bye. Thank you.

March ’23 Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Explained

Seoyoung Kim:
Hi everyone, I'm Seoyoung Kim. I'm currently the Finance Department chair and Program Director for the MS in Finance and Analytics. I think a couple of the questions that you all wanted answered were, “How might entrepreneurs learn about this? How is it affecting the day-to-day work of startups and how can they ease their anxieties around the collapse?” I think the first thing is most of us are very aware that banks don't have all the money on hand if everybody went to grab their deposits. And that's where the FDIC insurance is critical. But problems with banks like Silicon Valley Bank is that the vast majority of deposits are not FDIC-insured because the FDIC only insures up to $250,000. Now, saying only 250K, that's normal for retail investors or a retail individual might have money at SVB, they might have money at Chase, they might have money at Bank of America.

So now, if you have far more than $250,000, which is going to be normal for the larger startups here who are making payroll and who are paying for upcoming bills with that money, then that is not going to be FDIC-insured. Things that are FDIC-insured, the FDIC has said that if there is a run on the bank, you'll get your money within two days. Now, the problem with the deposits that aren't FDIC-insured, typically a bank like Silicon Valley Bank is invested in safe assets. So now, when a bank takes your deposit, they're going to do a lot of things with it. They're going to make student loans, they're gonna lend money to people so they can buy cars, get a house, et cetera. Now, with Silicon Valley Bank, they took a lot of those uninsured deposits and invested in US treasuries and invested in agency residential mortgage-backed securities.

So agency residential mortgage-backed securities are backed by Fannie and Freddie. So these are conforming mortgages that will ultimately be made whole if there's a default but all of that takes time. And now with US treasuries, we know that the US hasn't yet defaulted on anything. There's this hoopla about the debt ceiling every once in a while. Especially this time around, it was an even bigger deal that made the US CDS spreads go up. But for the most part, we're not really worried about US treasuries. But the problem, if you're buying these long-term US treasuries, you will get your coupons and you will be made whole over time. But in the interim, there's something called interest rate risk. So when Silicon Valley Bank bought these long-term US treasuries back when interest rates were super low, and then we saw over the last year, the Fed continually went on to raise interest rates.

So what you learn in Finance 101, and what we call Finance 3000 here at Santa Clara, is there's a substantial amount of interest rate risk, or what we call price risk, in these "riskless securities.” So in these default-free riskless securities, there's still a lot of price risk in that when interest rates go up, the prices of those securities come down. So now, when people are coming to collect their deposits, Silicon Valley Bank needs to sell those treasuries, and if they keep having to sell those treasuries at a lower price, now they're in trouble because they don't have the leeway to wait until they can get money whole on those US treasuries. So as this was all happening, then people became worried: “Oh no, will we be able to get our money out to make payroll?” Even if people guarantee that they'll give you your money, you don't know when and how long for the things that aren't FDIC-insured.

So even with all the activity that the US government has made over the weekend to tell depositors that they'll be made whole on their deposits, depositors are still uncertain as to how much they'll have immediately available. The depositors who weren't FDIC-insured, they're concerned as to how much will be immediately available and how long it'll take for them to be able to get all that money over time.

“What can the entrepreneur learn from the collapse? How is the collapse affecting the day-to-day work?” So the day-to-day work is impacted. Even as of last week, where, if there's a hold up on getting your money to make payroll, then entrepreneurs and co-founders need to start thinking about how are they going to pay employees immediately in the near term? And employees, who don't have the same kind of equity stake that an entrepreneur has, won't have the motivation to stick around and do the work.

And rightfully so. And so, entrepreneurs would also need to think about what is their own liquidity backstop? So even though the government has said that they will guarantee all of the deposits, entrepreneurs still have to worry about immediate-term liquidity. And some of the questions here are, “How much should you rely on a local bank like Silicon Valley?” Silicon Valley Bank was FDIC-insured, but they're not what we call a SIFI, or what we didn't call a SIFI then. Now the the federal government is becoming concerned. A SIFI is a Systemically Important Financial Institution. So something that a lot of people aren't aware of is years ago, and this is seven, eight years ago, where Chase, Bank of America, these very, very large banks. Now, they are far larger in terms of the kind of deposits that they have. Where Silicon Valley Bank was in the billions, these banks like Chase and Bank of America are in the trillions for their deposits.

These guys were requiring insurance to be paid by institutions that were going to have larger accounts that exceed the $250,000 maximum that FDI insurance provides for. And so the banks were already thinking about this problem, these larger banks, whereas smaller local banks like Silicon Valley Bank weren't requiring that type of additional insurance from their depositors when those depositors went above and beyond the 250,000 maximum that FDIC was insuring. And now, to give a sense of how much of this is an issue with Silicon Valley Bank, more than 80% of the deposits at Silicon Valley Bank are uninsured. So you can imagine that these guys are very nervous. They're less nervous now that over the weekend, the federal government has decided that all depositors are going to be made whole. Now, that's different from the investor. The investors are probably gonna walk away with nothing here. And by investors, I mean the equity participants in Silicon Valley Bank and some of the other banks that you're seeing going down just within a matter of days of each other. So I suppose the biggest thing would be: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Try to ask your bank what would happen in the case of a liquidity crunch and have a liquidity backstop of your own.