Sunday, March 12, 2006
Harvard Asian American Alumni Reunion Dinner
I went up to Boston this weekend for the first ever Harvard Asian American Alumni Reunion Dinner, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Asian American Association. It was extremely well organized. Kudos to everyone who played a part in organizing this wonderful event. I ran into many classmates that I haven't seen in a while, as well as met new interesting alums in diverse professions.
Fred Ho, a renowned composer, writer, and producer, was the guest speaker. Fred, class of 1979, was instrumental in the founding of AAA in 1976, to help galvanize Asian American students to get Harvard to recognize Asian Americans as a minority student group. Fred is currently the CEO of Big Red Media, Inc.
On the way to the Dudley Union, I ran into my friends Jeff Yang, Bill Yao, and Nelson Wang. Jeff was the founder of Harvard's first Asian American magazine, East Wind, and after he graduated, founded A Magazine. Jeff now writes on Asian American culture for SF Gate, and is a Consumer Strategist on Asian & Asian American Markets for Iconoculture.com. Bill is the CIO for a hedge fund, and Nelson is a Senior Editor at Time Inc. Another former AAA Co-President, John Kim, is now an EVP of Rakuten USA, a large Japanese media company, and CEO of Linkshare.
I was also very impressed with the current student leaders at Harvard that I chatted with. Jeff, Bill, Nelson and I were roaming the upper floors of the Dudley Union when we ran into Sarah Paiji. Sarah was a former AAA Co-President, and one of the main organizers of the reunion. She told us that she wanted to create an Asian American Alumni database and reunion since freshman year. Well, she managed to act on her vision. During my years at Harvard (1988 to 1992), several of us AAA officers also wanted to do the same thing, but we never got it done. So here's to Sarah and her colleagues for executing on the vision!
Towards the end of the evening, I spoke with Yi Chen, another main organizer of the event. She's only a first year student! I think it is great that young people take the initiative and volunteer to lead the planning of events. At this point, I also want to give a plug to my high school, Hunter College High School in New York City, since Yi attended Hunter briefly. Earlier in the evening, I also spoke to Sewell Chan, a reporter for the NY Times, who also attended Hunter and Harvard. We noted that there was another Hunter / Harvard alum, Jennifer 8 Lee, who is a reporter for the NY Times. I met another recent alum, Joy Lin, who is an editor at CBS News.
I think it's great that more and more Asian Americans are going into journalism, and are in a position to influence the media, educate the public, reduce stereotypes, and hopefully reduce racism in this country.
Fred Ho, a renowned composer, writer, and producer, was the guest speaker. Fred, class of 1979, was instrumental in the founding of AAA in 1976, to help galvanize Asian American students to get Harvard to recognize Asian Americans as a minority student group. Fred is currently the CEO of Big Red Media, Inc.
On the way to the Dudley Union, I ran into my friends Jeff Yang, Bill Yao, and Nelson Wang. Jeff was the founder of Harvard's first Asian American magazine, East Wind, and after he graduated, founded A Magazine. Jeff now writes on Asian American culture for SF Gate, and is a Consumer Strategist on Asian & Asian American Markets for Iconoculture.com. Bill is the CIO for a hedge fund, and Nelson is a Senior Editor at Time Inc. Another former AAA Co-President, John Kim, is now an EVP of Rakuten USA, a large Japanese media company, and CEO of Linkshare.
I was also very impressed with the current student leaders at Harvard that I chatted with. Jeff, Bill, Nelson and I were roaming the upper floors of the Dudley Union when we ran into Sarah Paiji. Sarah was a former AAA Co-President, and one of the main organizers of the reunion. She told us that she wanted to create an Asian American Alumni database and reunion since freshman year. Well, she managed to act on her vision. During my years at Harvard (1988 to 1992), several of us AAA officers also wanted to do the same thing, but we never got it done. So here's to Sarah and her colleagues for executing on the vision!
Towards the end of the evening, I spoke with Yi Chen, another main organizer of the event. She's only a first year student! I think it is great that young people take the initiative and volunteer to lead the planning of events. At this point, I also want to give a plug to my high school, Hunter College High School in New York City, since Yi attended Hunter briefly. Earlier in the evening, I also spoke to Sewell Chan, a reporter for the NY Times, who also attended Hunter and Harvard. We noted that there was another Hunter / Harvard alum, Jennifer 8 Lee, who is a reporter for the NY Times. I met another recent alum, Joy Lin, who is an editor at CBS News.
I think it's great that more and more Asian Americans are going into journalism, and are in a position to influence the media, educate the public, reduce stereotypes, and hopefully reduce racism in this country.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Network With Recruiters – UCLA Anderson Career Panel
As I sit on the train going home, here are some of the words of wisdom from the UCLA Anderson NY "Career Panel & Workshop" I just attended. The speakers were:
• Susan Dearing - Associate Director, of the EMBA and Alumni Career Services
• Ted Gregory – Partner at Heidrick & Struggles, with a strong focus on the financial services industry
• John Karrel – Managing Director of Glocap's Marketing & Advertising practice
• Peter Lasusa – Partner at Management Leadership Resources, a boutique search firm
Susan started the session by describing all the various online tools for Anderson alumni in the areas of career search and networking. You can access these tools here. Two of the new tools available to alumni are CareerSearch and WetFeet.
The three recruiters briefly described each of their backgrounds, such as how they got into the executive search business, and what areas they specialize in. Then they opened up for questions and answers.
Some of the main points of the evening were that we should seek to cultivate strong relationship with a handful of executive recruiters that you can really trust. Let the recruiters that you have worked with know about significant new developments in your career. It is much better to have a personal relationship with a recruiter than just sending in your resume, or posting your resume at a search firm's website.
Several of the questions were about how to make a career transition. One of the recruiters said that they try to send the client at least three resumes of candidates that meet all of the client's search criteria exactly. After that, he may find a candidate who is "out of the box" for that role and suggest this candidate to the client. One recruiter did say that many clients may say that they want candidates who may be "out of the box" for that role, but they end up wanting people who fit the search criteria.
In the area of financial services, the hot areas for search are fixed income, securitization, such as mortgage backed securities. An area that is getting cooler is equity research. For the marketing & advertising industry, the area that is getting hot is Web 2.0 related companies. In terms of international opportunities, what is really hot is China. Companies are trying to create many financial institutions in China that mirror those in the US, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
A few questions were about how to network with or develop relations with recruiters when you are in a small industry and you don't want your current boss or company to know. Or, you are happy in your current position, but want to cultivate a relationship with recruiters so that when you are thinking of making a move, they have you in mind. The answers are basically that you have to network with recruiters that you trust, and we can start with the recruiters that we met
tonight.
In terms of compensation, retained executive recruiters typically make one-third of the search position's first year base salary. Recruiters will typically ask for the prospective candidate's salary range, usually towards the end of a long conversation after getting to know the candidate. It is in their best interest in finding candidates who are willing to leave their current positions for a new one, so they want to make sure that the salary range will meet both the client and the candidate's needs. Also, if a candidate's current salary range is lower, they try to understand whether it's just that certain companies have lower salary ranges, or what is the specific
reason for the candidate's lower salary range.
They try to help some candidates with career development, but their first and foremost loyalty is to their clients, who are paying the bills. They are more likely to offer more career advice to candidates that they are deep in the process with, instead of candidates that they are speaking with for the first time.
Overall, this event was very informative and interesting. In addition to meeting the three recruiters, I also had a chance to catch up with some friends and meet new fellow UCLA Anderson alums. If your alma mater ever organizes these types of events, I highly recommend that you check them out.
-Joshua Li
• Susan Dearing - Associate Director, of the EMBA and Alumni Career Services
• Ted Gregory – Partner at Heidrick & Struggles, with a strong focus on the financial services industry
• John Karrel – Managing Director of Glocap's Marketing & Advertising practice
• Peter Lasusa – Partner at Management Leadership Resources, a boutique search firm
Susan started the session by describing all the various online tools for Anderson alumni in the areas of career search and networking. You can access these tools here. Two of the new tools available to alumni are CareerSearch and WetFeet.
The three recruiters briefly described each of their backgrounds, such as how they got into the executive search business, and what areas they specialize in. Then they opened up for questions and answers.
Some of the main points of the evening were that we should seek to cultivate strong relationship with a handful of executive recruiters that you can really trust. Let the recruiters that you have worked with know about significant new developments in your career. It is much better to have a personal relationship with a recruiter than just sending in your resume, or posting your resume at a search firm's website.
Several of the questions were about how to make a career transition. One of the recruiters said that they try to send the client at least three resumes of candidates that meet all of the client's search criteria exactly. After that, he may find a candidate who is "out of the box" for that role and suggest this candidate to the client. One recruiter did say that many clients may say that they want candidates who may be "out of the box" for that role, but they end up wanting people who fit the search criteria.
In the area of financial services, the hot areas for search are fixed income, securitization, such as mortgage backed securities. An area that is getting cooler is equity research. For the marketing & advertising industry, the area that is getting hot is Web 2.0 related companies. In terms of international opportunities, what is really hot is China. Companies are trying to create many financial institutions in China that mirror those in the US, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
A few questions were about how to network with or develop relations with recruiters when you are in a small industry and you don't want your current boss or company to know. Or, you are happy in your current position, but want to cultivate a relationship with recruiters so that when you are thinking of making a move, they have you in mind. The answers are basically that you have to network with recruiters that you trust, and we can start with the recruiters that we met
tonight.
In terms of compensation, retained executive recruiters typically make one-third of the search position's first year base salary. Recruiters will typically ask for the prospective candidate's salary range, usually towards the end of a long conversation after getting to know the candidate. It is in their best interest in finding candidates who are willing to leave their current positions for a new one, so they want to make sure that the salary range will meet both the client and the candidate's needs. Also, if a candidate's current salary range is lower, they try to understand whether it's just that certain companies have lower salary ranges, or what is the specific
reason for the candidate's lower salary range.
They try to help some candidates with career development, but their first and foremost loyalty is to their clients, who are paying the bills. They are more likely to offer more career advice to candidates that they are deep in the process with, instead of candidates that they are speaking with for the first time.
Overall, this event was very informative and interesting. In addition to meeting the three recruiters, I also had a chance to catch up with some friends and meet new fellow UCLA Anderson alums. If your alma mater ever organizes these types of events, I highly recommend that you check them out.
-Joshua Li
