As the recruiting season is about to kick-in, we have more time to engage with companies and prepare job applications, and the first two weeks of Module 3 have been dedicated to Negotiations, Leadership, Job search strategy and company presentations.
Negotiations
This course was about much more than learning skills for successful negotiations. Professor Sameh Abadir went beyond the techniques of negotiations and shared lots of practical life wisdom about human nature and behaviors in high-stake situations. I could reflect on my past negotiation experiences and get more clarity of why some of those were successful or not. We also practiced negotiations individually and in groups.
I learned that a good negotiator has three allies:
- Time – The negotiator who has all the time in the world can play the infinite game and will eventually win versus those who are pressurized by a deadline.
- Distance – The negotiator who has freedom to walk away from the deal or to take a step back will have additional flexibility to get better conditions
- Moderation – Keep calm under stress, smile, but be firm in your position. Emotional supremacy in negotiations is as important as a real force.
Leadership
In a leadership course with Professor Jennifer Jordan we dove deep into the issues of diversity and difficult conversations.
- Diversity – We discovered our cultural biases in the ways we communicate and give feedback and we discussed how we as leaders can benefit from an inclusive culture at the work place, with the special guest Josephine van Zanten, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at IMD.
- Difficult conversations – In our personal and professional lives we have all experienced talks we had to have but didn’t want to. To be effective in those we discussed and practiced different methods and strategies.
Career Strategy
As the recruiting season creeps in, IMD is making a special emphasis on the career development stream. IMD alumnus, David Sebastio, conducted a workshop “Strategic marketing for job search” that helped us to sharpen our job search strategies. The main message was – focus on your assets, study your industry and develop your value proposition individually for each position. That also means being focused in the job search strategy.
Company presentations
Paradoxically, thanks to COVID and the wide-spread remote communication tools, even more companies from different industries are “coming” on campus compared to last year. Every time there is a company presentation we hear not only the corporate prospective of HR, but also the personal angle of IMD alumni currently working there. Each presentation concludes with information about the hiring process and current job opportunities companies provide.
This week alone we have heard from Danaher, Thermo Fisher, ZS Associates, Zurich Insurance, and Amazon Pathways. And more companies are to come over the course of the next weeks.
Cheers,
Dima
