The Management Career Week 2019: Autumn was ended. It was organized by active students at GSOM SPbU under the guidance of the GSOM SPbU Career Center. Thanks to this tandem, students learn to organize events, interact with partners and work in a team. Ilona Dantsevich, Maria Voskoboinik, Ekaterina Alisova, Maria Khvatkova, Anastasia Goikolova and Maxim Fedotov shared their emotions and impressions of the event. Read the detailed story of each career week event firsthand. 

 

“Management Career Week is the brightest and largest career event of this autumn, because it brings together motivated and talented GSOM SPbU students and representatives of major Russian and international companies, creating conditions for networking, sharing knowledge and experience. As a result, students receive treasured job offers, and the best employers recruit their teams with unique personnel!” — said Elizaveta Troyanova, Career Center Director. 

Maria Voskoboinik, Chairperson of the Student Organizing Committee of MCW, shared the event's statistics: “This season, November 11-16, the fifth career week took place — the experience of the organizers, together with new ideas and a desire to make the event even better, led to fruitful results: we hold 21 events with more than 500 participants and 42 partner companies.”

“The start of the MCW was given a few days before the official opening: on November 5, GSOM SPbU students got the opportunity to feel like the CEO of a large international company thanks to the business game from Adidas. During the game, the participants touched the real indicators of the organization and developed strategies for specific actions that could lead to increased consumer commitment to the company's products”, noted Nadezhda Krylova, Career Center manager. 

The first event within official Management Career Week was an open dialogue between GSOM SPbU students Olga K. Dergunova, Deputy President and Chairman of the Board of VTB Bank and GSOM SPbU Director. She shared with students the history of her career and the development strategies of the School, which will be implemented soon. If you were not able to attend this event, you can find answers to questions in the podcast format created on the basis of the interview.

 

 

“In parallel with the open dialogue, the CEMS + Talent up coaching session“ 7 energies at work ”was held. During it Philip Guzeniuk, a personal coach with experience of working with large companies, a partner of the St. Petersburg Coaching Institute, shared tips on how recharge energy from work and fill with new strength even in stressful situations”, said Ekaterina Alisova, a member of the Organizing Committee.

 

 

Ilona Dantsevich, Head of Marketing and Promotion Department of Organizing Committee, spoke about open discussions with experts in the areas of analytics, franchising and taxation. “During the week, three open discussions took place, the topics of which were undoubtedly interesting and useful for students, as they were able to touch upon various aspects of building a career: 

• Elizaveta Oginskaya, Head of Analytics at Changellenge, who developed over 100 cases, tests and business games, shared useful tips for solving cases during the public talk “The Truth About Cases: Lifehacks from Changellenge”.
• At the open discussion “Franchising: business or hired labor?”, The Tequila Dance franchisor Artur Kondrakov and franchisees of Dodo Pizza Nikolay Khutoryansky discussed all aspects of franchising and did not leave anyone indifferent.
• Participants in the career week were able to get insights on the topic of taxation from Alexander Chizhov, Tax Director of EEY, during of public talk “Taxation of financial transactions”. The non-obvious aspects of working with taxes, the pitfalls of conducting transactions and first-hand information about working in an audit company were just a small part of what students who attended the event found out”.

Maria Khvatkova, a member of the Organizing Committee told how important and interesting it was to interact with companies that were industry leaders. “Students were able to prove themselves in practice at the workshops “Banking Management: Approaches to Project Evaluation”, which was conducted by Maria Bondarenko, Loan Manager of the Lending Department, Sberbank PJSC. At the event, participants learned about approaches to building CF-models and the processes of making decisions by the bank regarding projects. During a business game from the company Procter & Gamble, students tried on the role of product manager of the FMCG of a large company and got the opportunity to train their negotiating skills, which are one of the most important in sales”.

Throughout the week, the best HR specialists from companies such as Ancor, Kelly Services, AKKS, Unilever, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and X5 Retail Group conducted individual career consultation for students. During the consultations, experts gave recommendations on compiling resumes, interviews and case interviews, and also answered questions about hiring. Students were able to apply the advice received from the experts in practice during the selection process for internship programs from Mars and UNIQLO companies, as well as during the diagnostic assessment center from X5 Retail Group.

 

 

During the MCW, students visited Coca-Cola and Nexign's office, where they plunged into the corporate culture and watched the process of working live.

 

 

“Saturday was becoming the brightest and richest day of a career week”, said Anastasia Goikolova, member of the Organizing Committee. “Saturday morning began with the presentation of professional trajectories for first and second year students, where alumni shared their learning experiences in one of five possible areas, and professors supplemented the presentations with information about academic disciplines and career opportunities after graduation”.

At the same time, the presentation of final solutions within the case championship from Uniqlo and Gazprom Neft was held. As a result the authors of the best solutions received valuable gifts from companies and fast tracks to Gazprom Neft.

 

 

Ilona Dantsevich, Head of the Marketing and Promotion Department of the Organizing Committee, shared her impressions of the main event of the career week: “The main event of the main day of MCW is always an HR buffet, and this season was no exception! This autumn, the HR buffet gathered representatives of 20 companies: Pyaterochka (X5 Retail Group), P&G, EY, Mars, Bacardi, Veeam software, Baltika, Lenta, JTI, Biocad, Uniqlo, Gerofarm, Severstal, PwC, Gazprom Neft, L'ORÉAL, Unilever, Bank of Russia, MegaFon, Business Lines. The Organizing Committee thanks the partners of the event for their support and declares with confidence that without their participation MCW would not have reached such a high level.

 

 

Maxim Fedotov, a member of the Organizing Committee, spoke about the final day and panel sessions, which were organized on several topics — from real estate to the events organization:

• “Employer-brand manager: career at the intersection of HR and PR” with the participation of Tatyana Yurkevich, HR Director of Lenta Ltd; Pavel Kovalenko, HR Partner, Sales, Eastern Europe Procter&Gamble; Evgenia Kopytovskaya, Head of the Human Resources Department, North-West Division of the Pyaterochka Trading Network, X5 and with moderator Daria Belyakova, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Culture, BIOCAD. During the event, students became owners of valuable knowledge about tools for evaluating effectiveness, EVP and current trends in the labor market.
• Vladislav Fadeev, Director of Research for Russia and the CIS, JLL; Andrey Yezhov, General Director of Real Estate Trading House, honorary builder of Russia; Maria Kuksa, Head of Product Marketing, Setl Group, and session moderator — Ekaterina Sokolova, Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration, Academic Director of the Master in Urban Management and Development (MUMD), took part in the panel discussion “Career in the field of real estate: with what to start?” and discussed the development of the real estate market, its need for new human resources, demand dynamics and current trends in this area, and also talked about the possibility of career path for students.
• At the panel session “Event-management: how to create events and make money on it?” Julia Fetisova, PR-director, the agency “Bright Music”, the club-festival “Morse”; Anna Bushlanova, PR Director, SPN Communications and moderator Leonid Yakovlev — Member of the Russian Event Marketing Association, managing partner of the Modul Pro agency, discussed the current situation in the event industry, who careers in this area and how to choose the right direction.

Mikhail Ulyanchenko, Head of Digital, Active Consumer Division, revealed the secret of what strategies a company should develop in order to catch the elusive consumer in the information space as part of the "Digital-marketing today: how to turn digital challenges into advantages and create breakthrough marketing strategies workshop" from L'Oréal.

 

 

“Show must go on” — the events did not end with the end of the career week. “After the official ending of Management Career Week 2019: Autumn, the organizing team decided not to stop and continued to organize activities that would benefit students’ career paths”, said the Career Center manager, Nadezhda Krylova. On Thursday November 21, there was a public talk "Expats in business and life", with speakers Bianca Moodley, HR Director of JTI Petro, and Chris Kopec, General Director of the JTI Petro Factory, Vice President of Production in Russia. The speakers discussed prospects of work for foreign managers in Russia and talked about challenges they have to face when finding employment in another country.

 

 

“The Organizing Committee of the MCW 2019: Autumn thanks the administration of GSOM SPbU for supporting the organization of the events, and each participant for the time and attention paid to the MCW. We believe that each of the events of this week had a positive impact on the professional development of students and marks the beginning of their career paths”, said Maria Voskoboinik, Chairperson of the Organizing Committee.

If you would like to be part of the team, then join the organization MCW 2020, which will be held next spring.