Michael Armes: All Things MBA, Recruitment Trends (Student at Schulich School of Business)

hi Michael we are so excited to have you join us on today's episode and learn more about your educational and career Journey let's get started with the first question can you start by giving us some background on your educational and career related experience yeah so thank you for having me in 2018 I graduated from wford Laura University in economics and finance and afterwards I was actually having trouble finding jobs I was in the most St student so my first job and my first big break was a teller role in a Scotia Bank and I proceeded

to be a tell for seven months and my manager said do you want to be a financial advisor and I was obviously very excited to be a financial adviser I've never done that before but at least I finally get a full-time job so I studied to do my Canadian Securities course I became a financial advisor and that was like my first full-time employment where I was in charge of managing around 500 clients relating meets all their basic Branch needs for example mutual funds mortgage Investments all that stuff so I proceed to do that for two

years after the two years I managed to get a promotion to a business analyst r on headquarters and they needed someone with investment experience because this role was in the wealth operations field and they needed someone to calculate the fees on portfolios that are wealth management is charging clients and so that was my job for a bit it was a very big data role of very big Finance role and near the end they asked me hey can you help work on a project we're implementing a software so we need someone's Guidance with like um translating

between the financial advisors and the and the backend team so that's what I did till at the end there and then right after that I got recruited by a company called Capco and Capco is a consulting company that does Consulting for the big financial institutions of Canada and they provide all type of Consulting Services like it transformation projects strategy projects and whatever the financial institutions need CCO can bring a team that will help them with that project it was near that point where I realized I was trying to figure out what my next step was

and I realized I started want to get to manage it and in order to get to management I was looking at what management needed and a lot of the times I needed NBAs and that's started where I started looking through my journey I was like let me start looking at different NBA programs and seeing which one's best for me and I ended up choosing shuck and that's where I am today so I'm in my second term of first year of shuck and it's a two-year program and I'm excited to be here perfect and you talked

about the MBA and it seems like a very long journey but you ended up to where you are right now and that's really wonderful and can you share your experience with the MBA admission process and what key elements did you focus on in your application part of applying to MBA they look at four things they look at your undergraduate marks you usually the last two years they look at your work experience that's why it's always recommended you have three to five years of work experience before you go to the NBA sometimes two to five depends

on the school and the competitiveness of the school they look at a GMAT score so GMAT is a standardized test across the world where it's a math and English test it scores you on a rating out of 800 and the average in Canada for like the top program is above around 650 to get into programs and once you go to the states the average becomes like 720 plus to get to the top programs in the states the final thing they look at is an interview so there's an interview portion of every MBA application that requires

you to present yourself and they rank you based on your interview so those are the four things that's needed when I was choosing to go to do my MBA I was looking at all the programs across Ontario but I particularly was only really interested in UFT and shulik because I live in GTA and I didn't want to commute or live somewhere else but in general I would say there's four programs to stand out about the rest in Ontario and that is shuck where I'm from rotman Queens and Western Ivy and those four programs get most

attention or the most competitive to get into and they all have their pros and cons and so shuck is a two-year program Roman's a two-year program Ivy and queens are one-year programs and so what I did to stand out at my application was I practice a lot for my video interview like a lot I also had very good work experience to that point cuz I started a bit later than some people and I went for shulik because they were accepting me without a GMAT so sometimes they do GMAT waivers but as I said I'm not

the most studious person so I didn't really want to do the GMAT that much so some schools if you come from a math background like economics and finance if you do your CFA you do your CPA if you do any sort of engineering or math think might bypass your GMAT so you could just apply without it and that doesn't become a factor so shulik was the first school to accept me without my achievement and they gave me a scholarship and scholarships are based on how well you did compared to everyone else and that is kind

of the reason I kind of picked it first and it's the closest to my house which is really nice and so that's why I ended up at Sho like as you were talking about like why you chose where you are right now were there any specific challenges you fac during the application process and how did you overcome them I think the biggest challenge is it's really hard to gather like all the needs of what every School want so some schools like for example I would say UFT is the most competitive school to get into it's

the highest ranked globally and it's also the most expensive tuition on that note too but for me the most challenging was gathering all the information so I had to meet with recruitment people from every single NBA program that would give me all the breakdowns of everything I need to know about the program and then it was from there that I had to make my decision so it took a about four or five meetings it's you could find some of this information they have these pamphlets and they kind of show like what you're salary is after

graduation what industry people go into how many people get jobs and all these top schools release them and so I had a meeting with them I found that was the most challenging thing Gathering all the information and trying to figure out which one's best for me because there's so many options and NBA is a very expensive program so you want to make sure you're getting the most out of it so you got to pick something that you feel comfortable in and that you feel that the money is going to be worth what's going to be

what's going to result at the end perfect I think everything you've talked about kind of segu into this next question so you can just add on to it how did you decide on the MBA program you apply to and were there specific factors or criterias that influence your choices yeah so my biggest criteria was I would look at LinkedIn and see like what people did with their NBA afterwards so I would go through Linkedin message random people from different NBAs and usually I like the NBAs where people responding to me the quickest so sh like

happen to NBA to respond me quack or some of them like no one responds to and I don't know if that's like an ego thing though I liked seeing how they were doing afterwards I liked looking at the cost it's a very important factor because Shuck's tuition is around $72,000 and uft's tuition is around $110,000 so the there's a huge discrepancy there you also have to look at where you're most likely get a scholarship from because that could help bridge the payment I was looking at the distance for me personally but if you don't mind

the distance all of them are great options and you I was looking at the salaries after graduation and how big their Alumni network is so part of MBA is it's all about Connections and networking and how many people you get to meet and you meet industry experts from all across many Industries and that's one of the greatest things about it and having a opportunity to connect with the most amount of alumni probably gives you the biggest Advantage because you now you have access to anyone from any industry and shulik had one of the biggest alumni

programs which is one of the great things for me yeah yeah it's nice to know that there are other ways as well to see which program suits you the most and by co- messaging as well that's something I really lack in as well so it's really nice to learn something from what you said and our next question for you is what factors influence your decision to pursue an MBA so there's a few benefits of an MBA one of them is Canada is a most um educated country in the world and a l a lot of

people know that but we have a 55% graduate rate so I think the next Heist is 35% and we're 55% so we are the most educated country in the world because of that we're the most competitive for jobs and in order to really stand out having a postgraduate an NBA a CFA a CPA can really help and I was looking into MBA because a lot of senior positions in companies if you look at their job postings they say minimum requir an NBA and those don't really mean that much but having that minimum requirement of an

NBA is super important if you want to start growing into those like larger rules and I think it's best to do it when you're younger and that's what I was trying to do another key benefit at NBA like once again I mentioned the lumni network being able to commun message anyone and talk to anyone across all Industries the access to a lot of networking you have so many networking events in NBA is ridiculous and the last and I would say if you have not had a background it is very good learning like if you did

not come from a business background like gives you the opportunity to make a giant career switch there's a lot of people that are nurses dentists psychologists in our program people have never done anything related business and this is all brand new to them and they get the chance to now go into business straight up out of an MBA so if you're in a program that's not a business focused program and you want to switch to more of a business it's the perfect gear way to switch to the business field thank you for that and talking

about Canada being the most competitive country for like degrees or education pursues what were unique aspects of the business environment or opportunities in Ontario that attracted you to pursue your MBA here is more of a I have my family here and a lot of my friends are here so I didn't really want to leave Ontario but I would say if you are willing to leave there is better schools out there and Ontario has the best schools in Canada but all these schools in Canada are considered B tier schools and there's a tier schools which are

like the Harvard stanfords the world and if you could get a high enough GMAT score you could always go to those programs and they'll most likely result in higher pays when you graduate better position offerings it was more of a selfish reason to stay here because I had my family friends and I just didn't want to leave home but if you were willing to travel there is better opportunities out there and anyone could do it just it's all based on your Gand score and of course your work experience well I personally think family and friends

are very important factor as well especially if you do go into into a very new environment it's like um you have to make new friends and also um there are a lot of things that you have to figure out yourself as well but with your family and friends a lot of things are much easier so yeah I really agree with your decision for sure and how did you research and evaluate different NBA programs in Ontario before making your final decision I know you talked a bit about it already but just add on a little bit

more if you want so I actually had an Excel sheet with rankings the tuitions the job salary afterwards the employment rate afterwards and messaged 10 people from every single program and saw how many people messaged me back and what their experience was that's how I evaluated and then I kind of rated it based on a numeric way because I don't know that's like how my Vine works but all of them have their pros of cons and like some are really specialists in certain area if you wanted to go Consulting like if you're dead set on

Consulting I would probably gear towards Ivy Western if you're dead set on investment banking I would gear towards UFT and obviously you could get to any of these from any of the programs but some of them just have the most people getting into those programs after graduating there is spe Specialists like shulik does specialize in marketing and we have a giant marketing research and we have the most marketing profs I think per for any University in Canada um so if you're interested in marketing sh's a great option but you just have to be wary of

like what you want to do and what your kind of goal is afterwards so my my goal was just to get into more leadership roles so it didn't really matter too much for me where I came from Consulting I didn't want to go into Consulting I didn't want to go into investment banking so I was really just interested in the management aspect and just having an MBA so I would just choos what's best for myself but it's really important for everyone to like look at themselves see what they want to do afterwards and see what's

the best goal that'll help them get there perfect thank you so much and in your opinion what are the key benefits of obtaining an MBA both in general and specifically in the the Ontario business context I think if you want career switch it's one of the easiest ways to do so if you want to go from a really like different route as I said there's people in my program they're dentist and they decide they want to go into business so now they're trying to gear they got an NBA and now they're trying to go into

like healthcare consulting which is pretty cool so an NBA lets you switch completely so if you don't really like what you're doing or you want to like do more business oriented or you want to learn how to like start a company or that is one of the benefits as I said the other benefit is access to a bunch of networks and alumni and people to connect with anytime so now if I'm very interested in Industry I want to learn more about it I could quickly just find someone that that went to shuck that's like in

mining or in healthcare and I could just quickly message him be like hey how was your experience I came from your program and you are way more likely to get response from people that are alumni because that's kind of how like alumni networks works like they all communicate with each other and and I think the other benefit is just the minimum requirement as I said in Canada it's very competible in Canada I would say NBA is almost sort of a minimum requirement to get higher level jobs which is kind of sad because in other countries

it's like so well- looked upon so if you choose to live in another country it's probably better for you to begin an NBA but if you're here then it helps you get to those positions as like a minimum requir similar like an undergrad like it just came to that point where it's just too competitive here and that's kind of why it's almost like you have to have something afterwards that really Stand Out definitely thank you for that this was the first time I've heard that Canada is actually in such a high requirement for this higher

level jobs but yeah like it's nice to learn something more every day and our next question is have you noticed any particular advantages or opportunities that an MBA has provided you in terms of networking or career advancement yeah so there is almost daily networking events in NBA like there is such a sheer amount of networking and I would say my LinkedIn has like quadrupled in connections I now know more people ever known in my life professional connections of course and in terms of opportunities there's a lot of MBA programs in company so for example the

big Banks all have rotational leadership programs so if you want to be a leader in a bank you could go through an MBA rotational leadership program and they only hire mbas and they'll take you through rotations across the bank and then they'll place you in a senior roll after the rotations similarly there's pharmaceutical companies who do that all the Consulting companies do that they all have MBA specific programs that you only have access to VF NBA and they come to campus all the time to advertise their program and so like Pepsi just came recently and

the big four Consulting companies which is like the deoy KPMG PWC those guys came and even like the three strategy ones above them have come to our campuses which like Bane BCG McKenzie they come to your campus all the time and they advertise their NBA programs and they're all very competitive because there's a lot of NBA students in on Canada but it's great because you have access to those and you never would have have access to them otherwise and if you want to get into a specific company I'm sure most of these big companies have

an MBA program so if you do your MBA and you want to get into that you can network with them and actually know people in the company that could help you kind of gear into it and now leading on to your experiences with your MBA program could you share some of the positive aspects or advantages you've experienced since starting your MBA program yeah so I'm pretty new I'm just reaching my first year but I would say they give a lot of help for building your resume career your networking they have career Specialists dedicated to you

and to figure out what you want to do what's the best path forward they know how the market is so like for example right now Consulting isn't doing too well because of how the state of the market is and banking isn't that odd either right now but there is markets like Pharmaceutical that is thriving right now um because there's a lot of money going into Healthcare so they kind of try to position you and help you in those ways that you could try to transition your skills into areas that need people and that you're willing

to go into and so far I've seen that was the biggest Advantage also you get the chance to meet with all these amazing professors who are usually industry experts who have a lot of connections in the industry so for example one of my professors she has her own marketing firm and she often hires three people from Sho like every year MBA just to her marketing firm and she's just a professor here you meet a lot of cool people and now I have access if I ever want someone to ask about marketing I could just speak

to her and you meet a lot of amazing people in their different fields thank you for that and our last question for you is how do you manage the workload and balance demands of the program with other aspects of your life yeah so that's the biggest challenge of MBA like not only are you taking a bigger course Lo with way more project you probably ever take in your life but now you have to do networking you have to do job searching it's just you know the time is so limited and you have to try to

balance with your friends and family and so they'll try to keep up with those relationships but it's time is limited here and you just have to really organize yourself and create schedules and really make sure sometimes I would have to like forego certain grades in some classes in order to pursue a networking opportunity sometimes you choose like I have to do this job application so I won't be able to get this extra 1% I could have gone in this grade so sometimes you have to make choose your sacrifices and really pick what you want to

do because no one in the program can do it all it's all about how you prioritize and that's kind of what really separates like the really successful people in NBA and the not so successful people how good you are priar in your time that really resonated with me with this balance that you have to have right when you want to balance everything there are some things that you need to choose to maybe not sacrifice for more like so you have to prioritize something else and do that later just so you can have this balance and

be able to reach your full potential in this program as well thank you so much and that was the last question that we would like to ask you and again thank you so much for sharing all this insight and joining us on this podcast today