Finding a Digital/New Media Job as a MBA

A few weeks back I completed my MBA from NYU Stern.  The past two years have been two of the best years in my life. I met great friends, took some incredible classes, helped launch an iPhone app and recently secured an incredible job at an advance media startup (subsequently requiring me to turn down an investment banking offer). But the process of getting a job at a digital/new media company is not easy nor clear cut coming out of B-School.  Below is a compilation of the best tips I found from online research, advice of friends, and lastly my own process.

Create Your Online Presence
Paper resumes still have there place in the modern world, but today the first page of a Google search result is one of your most important personal marketing tools.  So use it and get involved digitally.  If you are serious about the space you need to be sharing and learning with the industry.  That means tweeting and blogging.  An about.me page, Linkedin profile (I have heard a paid profile can be helpful) and a Facebook account (Tumblr is also good) are essential and bring depth to a name and resume.  Yes, I know it is a lot of work, but the more involved you are the more opportunities that present themselves, and the more you learn about the industry. I have friend that got a senior job at a hot startup because of blogging and networking.  

Build Something
Personally I built an app from scratch with two classmates and this was essential in securing a product manager role after graduation. This experience gave me the basic experience and knowledge in doing the job.  Additionally, it showed commitment and greater understanding of the mobile space which set me apart from other candidates.  If you can't come up with your own idea or find people to work on something of your own, then find another person's project and work as a free intern.  Yes, free! It will be worth it. It will help you find another job later on, and speak more confidently about the space. And interns are always needed. Even my app is looking for one or two solid interns...hit me up if interested.

Join the Community
Whether you are attending events at school put on by the tech or media clubs, or just joining the local tech meetups and conferences get involved in the digital community.  The more people see and meet you the easier it is to stand out as a person knowledgeable in the space. Mingle and introduce yourself, techies are friendly and will be happy to chat. After a few events you will be surprised by different opportunities that appear. Without even asking, the CEO of a technology medical startup gave me his card, suggesting that his company could use a MBA. 
         
Make Friends
No, not networking, but actually make friends in the industry. The more friends you have in the space the more opportunities will present themselves.  I got my startup job from a close friend. She has been in the industry for many years and had already accepted an offer, so when different opportunities came her way she always sent them to me first.  She did this because she knew and liked me, and because she felt I could do the job well.  But we were friends, I was not just a "contact".

Hustle
Last but not least you need to hustle and go out there and be aggressive.  A job is just not going to fall on your lap, you need to be passionate and use every resource possible. Your school's career center, headhunters, networking events, friends and family, targeted searching online (for geographically relevant companies), LinkedIn, and anything else people advise you to use or do. A tech/media job is not like a banking or consulting job where there is a set process and interviewing period, you have to pound the streets and go out there and create opportunities for yourself by getting in front of those who could possibly hire you.

Below is a link to a blog piece by Charlie O'Donnell's (Principal investor at First Round Capital) discussing a few additional tips that maybe helpful: http://bit.ly/9wzGD3.

Good luck and if you any additional suggestions please include in the comments below for everyone to learn from.

Supply and Demand: How the Bubble Will Burst

The other evening as I was walking out of my apartment I looked up and saw a projected advertisement on the side of my apartment building's wall. I was shocked. The advertisement was not the shocking part, it was the fact that someone paid money to do this advertisement on this particular wall. I mean advertisements are everywhere. On my dry cleaning hangers, coffee cup holders, in magazines, on TV, mobile apps, online, billboards, airplane TVs, subway cars, T-shirts, Netflix envelopes, taxis, newspapers, in the mail, on buses and cars, flyers, hot air blimps, on celebrities and athletes, on the radio, in bathroom stalls, literally anywhere you look and in thousands of different forms.  So what? Well who is paying for all of these ads and how many dollars are there to go around? For 2009, Nielsen reported that there was $117 billion spent on US advertising. That is a lot of money, but for companies to continue keep the lights on they need to be getting a fair piece of that total pie and at the right price.

As I have gotten into the digital/new media space and being in NYC I feel like I hear about 3-4 new companies a day. Almost all them relying on the advertising business model. But with all these new companies coming up and all these other channels of advertising available, can demand meet all the supply that is available at a price that can be profitable for all the companies involved?

Below is an image of a normal supply demand chart. In economics this chart is trying to show the optimal price for a certain quantity of goods.

But as the supply of advertising space increases, with new companies and other avenues of advertising, (projected ads on buildings for example) prices for these ads will go down.

As prices go further and further down, revenues will decrease, profits will decrease and the overall ability for companies to stay afloat becomes more and more challenging.  And this is how the tech bubble bursts. Right now every startup and tech company is projecting huge sales dollars based on current advertising prices. They continue to chase a story of how dollars are shifting towards digital or how demand has not yet met the supply available in the market.  But will it ever?  It is impossible to determine how much total available supply of advertising there is in a year, but we have all seen empty billboards, searches without advertisements, or plain coffee cup holders that just had an ad on it the day or week before.

So what does this mean? Well as more and more digital companies pop up and other forms of advertising appear, advertisers will have greater and greater power over publishers and the prices they pay. Just so publishers don't lose clients completely, they will drop prices, eventually leading to a unprofitable venture. If companies want to stay around they will need a few things. 1. they will need to come up with innovative advertising solutions that will drive real revenues and/or brand recognition for clients. 2. companies will need to be able to provide real insights and analytics on their users and how they are interacting with their product and the ads.  3. they will need a top notch sales force to be able to bring in clients because there is clearly a lot of competition out there.

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare may have excellent products, with a lot of users, but if they and every other tech/media company wants to sustain the bursting of the bubble, they will need to be able to drive in real revenue, continuously, and not just rely on projected numbers based off of last years estimated sales growth, done by some analyst at JPMorgan. This can be done, it just requires some investment and innovative thinking.

I like to thank Seph from Proper Cloth and Steve Cheney from GroupMe for motivating me to start this blog. Thanks guys, I hope you like it... 

You can follow me @vivekmgeorge