Why you should feel comfortable graduating without a job offer.
I graduated from business school without a job offer. Looking back, that turned out to be a great decision – I was able to secure multiple offers shortly after graduation, and I was able to hold out for the job I really wanted. It was tough to turn down offer my summer internship offer and watch classmates relax during spring quarter, but in the end it all worked out for the best. For me, the main reasons I graduated without a job are below:
There weren’t too many interesting MBA cleantech jobs during on-campus recruiting – There are a few companies that came on campus to recruit, mostly large oil companies (e.g. Exxon, Chevron, Shell), utilities (e.g. PG&E, SCE, Exelon), and a couple of solar companies (e.g. SunPower, SunEdison…oh wait).
Unless you want to work one of these big companies, there just aren’t that many exciting companies around.
Large oil companies aren’t exactly the most progressive when it comes to renewables and emerging technologies.Utility companies – while there are exceptions such as PG&E, Nextera…etc – are also fairly resistant to change, and the thought of being a soldier in an army of tens of thousands seems kind of daunting. However, some alumni have gone on to interesting places, but I personally didn’t want to go through the “training” period. Solar companies can be interesting, but unless you’re interested in project finance or general business rotations, I think most of these jobs can get old quickly. Plus, most of these companies focus on utility-scale deployments, whereas I (personally) think the distributed sector is more interesting.
Cool startups hire just-in-time and the processes will vary – Yes, you already knew that tech startups and smaller companies hire just-in-time. Well, it’s just like that, even more so for energy startups. Unlike B2C or consumer tech where new funding is (relatively) easy to come by, you won’t see energy startups squander money to raise a new round in 6-12 months. Thus, hiring another person at these energy startups can often take months to find the right person, and sometimes hiring managers need to get board approval! Don’t expect to sign an offer in February and start in August – things in the energy industry change so fast that these timelines just don’t happen.
It’s much, much easier to find a job after relocating to your job market – If you want to find the best job as quickly as possible, you really need to be planning on moving permanently to the location of choice. I will mention in a future post where I think the energy hubs are – really just the bay area – and maybe NYC, Chicago or even Boston if you’re really stretching it. The SF in particular has an incredibly strong cleantech network, and there are dozens of events every month ranging from informal meetup groups to random happy hours that often begin with organizers announcing various job openings.
Another key reason is that startups in particular strongly prefer local candidates because they are cheaper to both interview (e.g. no travel + lodging expenses) and pay (i.e. no need for relocation bonus). In fact, many of the startups I had positive first round interviews with were reluctant to fly me out there for a final round interview – final round invitations occurred only after I was already in the area!
You might disagree with the advice, but I know classmates who didn’t move to the bay area and are just commuting back and forth for networking and interviews. Up to you!
Your classmates won’t start their jobs until the fall anyway – A common worry I hear is that it will look bad if you graduate in June and don’t start until September. Most of your classmates will be traveling before their full-time gigs anyway, so it’s totally normal to take a few months off. During my interviews post-graduation, some hiring managers even asked me why I wasn’t taking a few months to travel after school.
So yes, to sum up, if you are dead set on startups and can stomach the uncertainty, it’s totally okay (and maybe even preferable) to wait until after graduation to start looking.
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