Good Writing

I had the honor of guest-blogging for one of my favorite blogs, Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Check out my 8 job tips for new graduates here.

It's peak admissions season and I'm a bad, bad blogger as a result -- lots of client work to turn around (bless them!). But... in the meantime, I have to share the weirdest, juiciest story I've read in a long time. The opening paragraph:This is the story in which you learn how a graduate of Columbia Law School—that’s me—and almost 80 other people, who really should have known better, got suckered into giving away all our personal details as well as up to two months of our lives for “jobs” that never actually existed. And then you learn why it all happened the way it did.Read on here.

True story? Fiction? Who cares? I want more.

This time of year I field lots of questions about the secret to success in law school. I don't know that there's a magic secret out there, but I do like these tips from Vikram Amar, professor at UC Hastings:

• on taking law school exams (don't wait until exam week to read these)

• on success in law school and beyond

(I have to love a man who throws around words like "equipoise." Beautiful.)

If all of the above gives you the illusion of control over your law school grades, there's always this.

There I days I don't miss being an admissions officer. Last week I attended an MBA admissions panel. I used to do those roadshows, where five admissions officers sit on a stage talking to an audience of hundreds about the admissions process in vague generalities and answer audience questions with vague generalities. Admissions officers are very limited in the candor they can express in public, but there were some nuggets that were dead on, so I'll condense them here and paraphrase a little bit:

1. If your college grades weren't so hot, be upfront about that and explain why. Show that you are in a better position now to do the work. How do you prove that? By taking classes and guiding your recommenders to cite examples from your job that could allay fears about your ability to hack it in a competitive academic environment. Admissions officers care about your undergraduate performance not because they want to obsess needlessly over who you were five or eight or ten years ago, but because they don't want to set you up for failure. They'll also scrutinize your transcript for evidence of both quantitative and verbal skills, so if your background appears to be lacking in one or the other, go make up that deficit either in the classroom or on the job or on your GMAT.

2. Recommendations from people who've seen your day-to-day performance on the job are the best predictor of future performance. Ideally they'll talk about what kind of impact you've had on the organization and on the people with whom you work. Admissions officers know that you likely have not been managing other people yet at this stage in your careers, so you need to think about what impact you've had, and how you achieved those results without direct authority over people (meaning, you managed from the side and managed from below).

Guiding your recommenders is fine: take them out for coffee (the best five bucks you'll spend) and give them examples that you think highlight and demonstrate that impact. Admissions officers insist that you can't and shouldn't write those recommendations yourself, but honestly, they are delusional if they think that even a majority of the recommendations they receive were written by the recommenders rather than the applicants. If admissions officers enforced the rule, they'd have to cut their applicant pool in half. The fact is, most recommenders will not take the time to write the letters themselves and delegate that task to the applicants to varying degrees. Still, it's in your best interest to find recommenders who are willing to write the letters themselves. Those letters are almost always stronger, in my experience, than when you try to speak for your recommenders.

3. Admissions officers are not impressed by long lists of activities. They'd rather you whittle that list down to the activities that really matter to you. Schools are building communities, and they seek people who are engaged with the world around them. They want to see demonstrated, continued involvement, so banging some nails for Habitat once a year isn't going to cut it. Activities are also often a great way to demonstrate your leadership experiences and lessons in your essays.

There were a few statements that made me scribble furiously in disagreement:

1. "Try not to worry about your essays." Huh? That makes no sense. The essays are the most labor-intensive part of the application. I would hope applicants worry about them, if that means taking them seriously and expending a lot of effort on them. It's insulting to require all those essays and then tell applicants not to worry about them.

2. In your essays, "be yourself." "Differentiate yourself." How is that helpful advice? It's not. At all.

3. "Embrace the opportunity to interview." "Be yourself in the interview." Except that some people really stink at interviews. Not everyone is good at interviewing. It's a learned and learnable skill, but it takes practice and plenty of feedback.

4. It's not enough that admissions officers from top business schools butcher English grammar; apparently they have to butcher Latin grammar as well. My ears bled a little bit when one of them referred to her school's "curriculi."

One other observation: I spotted a large number of women dressed inappropriately for a professional event. Simple rules to remember: no miniskirts, and no high-heeled slides (which, aside from looking unprofessional, also sound unprofessional: slap, slap, slap. Not good.)

A last note: this particular admissions event was co-hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Club of Boston and Kaplan. The venue was papered in slick Kaplan brochures and folders and fliers. Do not choose Kaplan just because of their huge advertising budgets. There are much better GMAT options out there.

As a former admissions officer, I remember the stupor that fell over the whole file-reading process at some point in the admissions season, after I had seen the same kind of essay over and over and over again. No wonder, then, that admissions officers like to shake things up every once in a while.

MBA applicants who are thinking about adding Chicago to the list now have a new "essay" question to tackle: "In four [PowerPoint] slides or less, please provide readers with content that captures who you are."

Not an easy assignment, but I bet it will show a side to applicants that other schools won't necessarily get to see. NYU Stern has been asking this type of question for years now, and it always makes the application process more fun (the list of what not to submit gives a sense of how creative people can get):Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative.All submissions become part of NYU Stern's permanent records and cannot be returned for any reason. Do not submit anything that must be played or viewed electronically (e.g. CDs, DVDs, mp3s, etc.), that is perishable (e.g. food) or that has been worn (e.g. used clothing). If you submit a written essay, it should be 500 words maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font.

On another note: wouldn't it be lovely if admissions officers at top business schools used correct English grammar? Chicago's question should say: "In four slides or fewer...."

It's rare that I hit on a topic that allows me to write about issues of importance to both MBA folks as well as law school/aspiring policy wonk types. You'd think that not many people would care about the special tax treatment received by partners in private equity firms and hedge funds (in particular, the capital gains treatment for their "carried interests"), but two opinion pieces in today's NYT demonstrate why the issue should matter to many more people, including many who read this blog.

First up: "The Under-Taxed Kings of Private Equity" by Alan S. Blinder, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, and adviser to Democratic politicians. His piece lays out in very understandable terms what that "carried interest" is, why it matters, and what kinds of dollar amounts are at stake for the public treasury.

Next up: "The Hedge Fund Class and the French Revolution," by lawyer, law professor, writer, actor ("Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?"), economist, and Nixon speech writer Ben Stein. Stein takes Blinder's argument one step further and asks about the policy implications behind a tax law that has hedge fund and private equity gazillionaires paying a much lower tax rate on their income than normal people:

We are in a war. We are apparently not winning the war. The military is desperately shy of funds, to the point where our fighting men and women are being shortchanged in training and equipment.

We also need more money for our soldiers’ pay, so their families do not have to live like church mice while their spouses are deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. In these circumstances, is it fitting and morally right for the richest of the rich to be paying either very low taxes or no tax at all?

Is it right or even admissible in the human conscience that while teachers, emergency room technicians, police and firefighters are taxed at full earned-income rates — and often underpaid — that the highest-earning people in this country should pay at either very low tax rates or none at all?

Stein is no class warrior, so coming from him, this argument lept off the page (screen) at me.

Why does or should all this matter to a big chunk of my readership? For the following reasons:

1. For my MBAs and aspiring MBAs, so many of whom are itching to get into private equity: I've written before about how the economics of PE are very possibly about to change, and how that doesn't bode well for their career prospects, or at least their earnings prospects, in PE.

As Blinder puts it, "If we tax Activity A at 15 percent and Activity B at 38 percent, a free-market economy will give us more of A and less of B." If we start taxing private equity incomes at 38% rather than 15%, expect to see less capital and less top talent gravitating towards private equity.

(And the issue of capital gains treatment of their income doesn't even touch the problem of what happens to the buy-out market once interest rates rise, as they inevitably will. Could be a perfect storm brewing.)

2. For my law school types: I would guesstimate that a solid majority of law school applicants seek a law degree because they want to effect change on a policy level and make society better. (And they usually misspell "effect" as "affect," a spelling faux pas from which spellcheck won't rescue them.) In the same breath, when I ask them more specifically what kind of law they want to practice, they start rattling off the kinds of law they're certain they don't want to study. High on that list: tax law. That they don't realize how intertwined tax law is with the fundamental policy choices we make as a society and the give-and-take that happens through the legislative process suggests to me that most applicants have no idea what they're talking about.

Stein's article is a reminder that if you don't know anything about tax policy like carried interests and amortization of goodwill during an IPO, you're going to have a hard time making a rational or convincing argument about whatever activities you would rather have the government encourage, or what programs we should be funding over other ones, in a world of finite treasury resources.

Care about AIDS or cancer research? Global warming initiatives? More subsidized health care? Better life-saving equipment for our soldiers? Fancy technology for national security efforts? Those all take federal dollars, and if you want some of them for whatever your preferred cause might be, better that you start understanding things like the policy argument behind capital-gains treatment for carried interests.

Which leads me to my final point for law school types: Don't graduate from law school without having taken financial accounting and being able to read a financial statement. It could be the most useful class you take in law school, even if -- and I would argue especially if -- you're a policy wonk at heart. And if you retort that you're "just not a numbers person," you're not going to be as effective an advocate for your cause.

The Knowledge@Wharton blog (one of my favorites) has a fascinating interview with Dana Gioia about the connection between business and poetry. Who better to ponder that connection than someone who graduated from Stanford business school, served as vice president of General Foods, became a published poet, and was named chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts? A few excerpts from the interview:Well, first of all let me make something clear, because people often get my career a little bit confused. I'm the only person, in history, who went to business school to be a poet. This is because I wanted to be a poet and I wanted to have a job, a career and I didn't want to be in academia. I found business interesting and I found the problems and opportunities that you work with in business very interesting.

So, I went to Stanford Business School and then spent fifteen years in corporate life. I sort of came into business as a poet. And I have to say that having attended Stanford and Harvard, that I got my education in business. It has taught me a lot of things that have helped me as a poet.

I think the most fundamental thing is that in business, I was working with very smart people who were more average [I think] in terms of their interests. They had a rather high work ethic and they were very intelligent people. And, I was able, for fifteen years to live and work with people - who were not literary people. It gave me a better sense of the language and of the kinds of issues/ideas and subjects that the average person is more interested in. And, it took me out of the "hot house" of the English Department. . . .

I think that if you come into the business, with an arts background, you have a tremendously difficult time initially. This is because it's a very different world, it looks at problems differently and by and large, they don't necessarily respect your background.

For that reason, I did not let anyone I worked with know that I was a poet. This is because, let me ask you a question, if you had a poet working for you, wouldn't you check his or her addition? So privately I went through a very difficult time. That being said, as you rise in business, as you get out of the lower level staff jobs and the quantitative analysis, and you get into the higher level of problems, I felt that I had an enormous advantage over my colleagues because I had a background in the imagination, in language and in literature.

This is because once you get into middle and upper management, the decisions that you make are largely qualitative and creative. And, most people who do really well in the early quantitative stages are grossly unprepared for the real challenges of upper management, at least in marketing which was the industry that I was working in, marketing and product management. . . .

Well, if you take the word poet in the old Greek sense of "a maker", what entrepreneurs and artists have in common is that they imagine something that they then bring into reality. And, as any poet or any composer or any entrepreneur knows, you imagine something, but to bring it to reality you revise and recalibrate it a million times to get it just right. So, I think the ability of envisioning something and then bringing it into being goes back to the ancient meaning of the word poetry -- Poesis which means the made thing.There are lots of interesting nuggets in that interview, but I also encourage you to read it because I hear from so many college seniors that they're not sure what they want to do with themselves after graduation, but they are sure it can't be in business.

When I scratch that surface even a little bit, I soon discover that they know absolutely nothing about the business world. Add to that mix the indoctrination they receive from academics with their quaint, tenured, old-school Marxist contempt for the private sector and free enterprise, and it's no wonder people graduate from college thinking they are fit only for academia or non-profit work or -- dare I say
it -- law school. (Which just goes to show you how little they know
about what most lawyers do all day long.) They also have no idea that the skills they learned through their liberal arts training are useful in the corporate world.

So I'm going to be keeping an eye out for profiles and stories, like this one, about people who have done great and interesting things in the business world and connected their business lives with some other deeply held passion. I'll put them in a new category called "Business for Non-Corporate Types." Stay tuned!

1. Know what you want

Many people apply to business school because they are dissatisfied with their current jobs and are looking for a change, but they're not quite sure what they want. An MBA can indeed open doors to new industries and roles, but you need to research and plan your post-MBA goals thoroughly before you even apply. Think you'll have the time and the energy to ponder a gazillion career alternatives once you get to business school? Wrong! The on-campus recruiting process ramps up very quickly during the first year, and you will be expected to pick a niche very early in the program. On top of that, the first year is designed like a boot camp in order to test your limits, and doing the mental equivalent of midnight push-ups in the rain doesn't leave a lot of room for soul-searching and navel-gazing. Finally - and most importantly - business schools won't even admit you unless you can persuade them in the application stage that an MBA makes sense given what you've done in the past, what you hope to do in the future, and how the two connect. You need to write a business plan for your career before you even think about applying for an MBA.

2. Whip your current job into shape

Business schools and corporate recruiters will scrutinize your pre-MBA history. They want to see increased responsibility and recognition over time. They want to see initiative. They want to see impact. They want to see big-picture thinking and a sharp analytical mind. They want to see both hard and soft skills. They want to see someone who can make good decisions with imperfect information. They want to see someone who can lead but also follow. They want to see someone who can motivate a team and make it better. If your track record doesn't demonstrate those things, give yourself time to whip your current job into shape before applying to business school, and if your current job won't let you make an impact, it's time to move on to a job that will.

If you can't change jobs right now, or you're applying right out of college, make sure that your extracurricular life demonstrates those accomplishments and skills. One of the biggest misconceptions among applicants is that they can go to business school in order to build a track record. The reality is that you won't even get in the front door at a good program without one.

3. Women, assert yourselves

After working with many MBA applicants, I've observed a pattern: women are often more reluctant to show off their achievements than men are. As a woman, you should overcome the habit if you want to succeed in business school and beyond, as both business school and the business world will require you to toot your own horn over and over again. I work closely with female applicants on this reluctance so that they become much more comfortable articulating and defending what they bring to the table. It's a life skill you need to master.

4. Acquire international experience

The business world - and business schools - greatly value international experience and language skills. At the top business schools, it is quite common for people to be completely fluent in two, sometimes three languages. Especially if you are single and childless, take advantage of that freedom now to acquire international experience. It's harder (though not impossible) to make that happen when you have a spouse with his or her own career and school-age children.

5. Build your communication skills

The business world complains bitterly that even star students emerging from top business schools cannot communicate effectively. Many graduates are missing what employers consider the most basic communication skills, and while business schools have begun ramping up their training to address that complaint, honing those skills is an easy way to stand out from the crowd. It's never too soon to work on your spoken and written English and learn how to communicate your ideas succinctly, professionally, and effectively.

Guy Kawasaki is one of my favorite bloggers. Check out his posting called “Ten Things to Learn This School Year,” in which he discusses “what students should learn in order to prepare for the real world after graduation.” Great common sense advice on how to interact with your boss (and how that’s different from interacting with your professor), how to run a meeting, how to get along with co-workers you despise, and lots of other goodies.

The New York Times published an article today about wedding planners and their finicky clients, including a great anecdote about a bride who demanded the release of live butterflies during the wedding dinner, only to watch them flock to the light fixtures, go up in smoke, and shower her guests with their crispy remains. Less funny was the statistic that the average American wedding now costs close to $30,000. That’s a full year’s maximum 401(k) contribution for the couple ($15,000 a piece), start-up capital for a small business, a year of living abroad and learning a new language, a nice down payment on a condo, or a year of graduate school tuition.

I don’t live in a binary world – I don’t expect people to pay 30K or nothing on a wedding. The same article also profiled a 28-year-old bartender who bought her dress on sale for $115 and is working with a 10K budget for a wedding that, as she describes it, sounds perfectly lovely (and more fun than some lavish weddings I’ve attended). Managing and saving money together can be a big challenge – ask any married couple – and your wedding is often your first big spending decision together. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Watch out for wedding budgets that escalate because you have to keep your parents happy and impress their friends. If your parents are willing to pay for the whole shebang, great. If not, you have the right to put your foot down and start your marriage off on solid financial footing.

Also in today’s NYT: an essay in the “Modern Love" column by a writing instructor at a Connecticut college who finds herself attracted to an adult, recently divorced student. Why did the article catch my eye? Because he asked her one day how to use the semicolon, and she confessed to her readers that she “had no idea.” When your writing teacher doesn’t know how to use a semicolon, run. And go buy yourself a Chicago Manual of Style. What you need to get out of a college is (1) the ability to write well; (2) the ability to read well; (3) the ability to speak well; 4) the ability to think critically; and (5) a facility with numbers. You can leverage those five skills into just about any discipline or industry you want, and everything else you learn in college is just a cherry on the sundae. In my experience, most college graduates haven’t mastered even one of those skills, but with writing instructors who prefer the “intuitive” approach, I guess that’s no surprise.