Next week will see a number of MIT Sloan School of Management MBA students embark on a series of MBA networking events, the most popular of which is known as the ‘Tech Trek’.
The annual Tech Trek is designed to allow current MBA students at MIT Sloan to get a feel for opportunities within the technology sector and the kind of skillset employers are looking for, through informal visits to companies.
This year’s Tech Trek to San Francisco and Silicon Valley will take in large firms such as Apple, LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, and Google. However, (relatively) smaller companies are also encompassed – with last year’s trip visiting Japanese video game company, GREE and software firm, Palantir, among others.
The student-organized Tech Trek is run by MIT Sloan’s technology club. For 2014, Thomas Iljic is one of the trip’s coordinators and is quick to highlight the value of MBA networking events to learn more about employer requirements.
“We see a great difference in approach depending on companies. Apple, for example, values very much the skill in operations of Sloan MBAs, Google recruits for all types of positions, and new entrants such as Quantcast show interest in highly analytical MBAs. It’s really case by case,” Iljic says in a press release.
MBA career opportunities within the technology sector were a clear highlight in the QS TopMBA.com Jobs and Salary Trends Report 2013/14 with employers around the world reporting an 11% growth in industry hiring.
However, MIT Sloan MBA students are also sensing expansion elsewhere – and the yearly MBA networking events are certainly not confined to technology firms in the Silicon Valley mold.
Other networking events available to MIT Sloan MBA students this year include the West Coast entertainment and media trek to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, featuring visits to DreamWorks, Paramount, Disney, NBC Universal, Sony, and Lionsgate.
Stephanie Cheng was working for the animation wing of DreamWorks before enrolling at MIT Sloan and is keen to remain in an area where she can understand and truly enjoy the end-product. “The value of an MBA has increased in recent years within the entertainment industry,” she says, before stressing that the sector offers “good working conditions and a culture based on meritocracy, challenging projects, and meaningful end goal.”
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