FSW WORLDWIDE

[Shadow09]

Chance of a draw today?

 

[AndyUK]

Chance of a draw today?

Extremely unlikely. If there was no draw on Wednesday it is VERY rare to have a draw on Thursday.

 

[Rohit Chhabra]

Yeah pretty much what everyone else said. Just to add something here, it's not nearly as difficult as you may think it is at this stage. 15-20 hours a week is a very good start. You can increase that amount by sneaking french into your day to day. For me it was podcasts while driving and at the gym. Added up to easily 1 to 1.5 hours of french ilstening a day.

Don't slack on your lessons. imo, your formal learning is the most important part from an exam perspective. I've detailed everything in my guide (link in signature and in goodday's comment). Do a consistent 20 hours a week and you'll probably be a bit shocked at how much progress you'll make in 6 months.

Perhaps I'm a little late to this discussion, but I just want to share my experience for people who may be learning French for a longer time than you guys but haven't been able to clear TEF/TCF yet.
I agree with all the suggestions and approach to learn French as mentioned by @AndyUK, @iSaidGoodDay and @mushymush, and I followed a similar approach too. Structured lessons with AF + 1-on-1 classes on italki + dedicated self-learning time everyday and even after all that, it took me almost 2.5 years to get the desired scores. I just kept missing out in either speaking or writing in my successive attempts. I'm not telling this to discourage any new learners, but just want the new/old learners to know that it's okay if you don't succeed in 6-12 months as many Francophones on this forum have.

If I've to give one suggestion, it would be to consciously distribute your learning time evenly to all the 4 skills. It's very easy to put in more time on reading/ listening vis-a-vis writing/speaking. Make sure you don't do that and put in consistent time for all 4.

Bon courage !

 

[iSaidGoodDay]

Whats after MBA is what you should be worried!!!! MBA or MS or any other masters doesn’t make any big difference. But the skills you develop do. MBA or Masters is expensive if you are not an PR/citizen and you are not gonna get high paying job unless you have marketable skills. If I were you, I wouldn’t care about what Grad degree I am want to pursue, rather I would spend time to hone my skills. Also, GPA matters less.

You are so spot on! We don't even look at MBA education when we hire management candidates. It is all skills, skills, skills. Even with ATS, we no longer have criterias to filter based on education. It is definitely a poor way to hire if MBA education is used in the initial screening. I interview candidates and was a key advisor in several orgs for management hires - never once we said "This person is an MBA".

MBA is more for people who already have skills that want better career prospects or to change careers.

I don't know if that's completely true. MBA hardly adds any value to what we already know if we have skills. I think MBA is more of structured path to land an entry-level management role as some companies (traditional orgs) still potentially use it to screen applicants. 95% of all Directors, VPs and C-levels in my org aren't MBAs, and I'm seeing this trend grow more and more.

In my opinion:

• If someone can run Google ads, there's literally no lack of MBA will hold them back from landing a Paid acquisition role. 3-4 years of accelerated Sr Management path from there is possible.
• If someone can build financial models, good with excel/Python/(VBA? lol), etc - nothing will hold them back from making that career transition.

Honestly, I prefer candidates who built something of their own vs those who'd blindly run SWOT analysis . At least in the cases where we want to hire a top 75 percentile candidate as a preference, we love to see a candidate with a portfolio vs an MBA. I'd try to look for data on MBA preference for hiring that demands a below 75 percentile candidate.

A good read for anyone who is right now re-thinking their career: https://www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions#Common-Traps-Career-Decisions

 

[imransyed]

York and Ottawa U are both very good universities with very good reputations. I would not hesitate with either of them.

My issue is that nowadays it seems like the MBA is obsolete, I don't think it has the same pull it once did. So I don't know if it's the best option, I would look into it especially because it's also very expensive.

I agree with you a little bit, MBA is outdated but the only Bachelor's degree that I have is low gpa and from a not so great college in India. And now that I sort off realize the value of good education and the doors it can open, I want one degree for which I will put in my everything.

Whats after MBA is what you should be worried!!!! MBA or MS or any other masters doesn’t make any big difference. But the skills you develop do. MBA or Masters is expensive if you are not an PR/citizen and you are not gonna get high paying job unless you have marketable skills. If I were you, I wouldn’t care about what Grad degree I am want to pursue, rather I would spend time to hone my skills. Also, GPA matters less.

Thankfully, I am a PR so for me, the price is not a big factor at all. I would not be spending international student fees on any degree anywhere though. For me an MBA/grad degree is just a door stopper for me to get in, and then the marketing skills plus experience matters more. I have never used anything I learned in my Bachelors at all and I work in supply chain/procurement, so it is very related to the degree I have. (business administration)

MBA is more for people who already have skills that want better career prospects or to change careers. If you have no skills and do an MBA, it will be useless. MBA from a good uni just indicates to top firms that the candidate has been vetted to a certain extent and will probably be able to do the job

I don't know if I have the skills, but I certainly have the need/want/hunger to develop more skills. Its just that my circumstances have really limited me to get my foot in the door. However when I do get an interview call, I tend to ace it with flying colors but its for job that haven't helped me develop new skills really.
That's what I want the MBA to do for me. Open new doors, show recruiters that I have potential and the ability to learn and be good at anything I apply myself to. Kinda want to prove that to myself too.

You are so spot on! We don't even look at MBA education when we hire management candidates. It is all skills, skills, skills. Even with ATS, we no longer have criterias to filter based on education. It is definitely a poor way to hire if MBA education is used in the initial screening. I interview candidates and was a key advisor in several orgs for management hires - never once we said "This person is an MBA".



I don't know if that's completely true. MBA hardly adds any value to what we already know if we have skills. I think MBA is more of structured path to land an entry-level management role as some companies (traditional orgs) still potentially use it to screen applicants. 95% of all Directors, VPs and C-levels in my org aren't MBAs, and I'm seeing this trend grow more and more.

In my opinion:

• If someone can run Google ads, there's literally no lack of MBA will hold them back from landing a Paid acquisition role. 3-4 years of accelerated Sr Management path from there is possible.
• If someone can build financial models, good with excel/Python/(VBA? lol), etc - nothing will hold them back from making that career transition.

Honestly, I prefer candidates who built something of their own vs those who'd blindly run SWOT analysis . At least in the cases where we want to hire a top 75 percentile candidate as a preference, we love to see a candidate with a portfolio vs an MBA. I'd try to look for data on MBA preference for hiring that demands a below 75 percentile candidate.

A good read for anyone who is right now re-thinking their career: https://www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions#Common-Traps-Career-Decisions

So many points that I can relate to. After the citizenship, I intend to move back to GCC region which has a tonne of traditional orgs, with traditional hiring mindsets. It is not that I need an MBA to learn good management skills or anything, its just that in that region of the world, a degree is door opener. Opposite is true for Canada though.

Can you expand on the Google ads thing a little bit?


Also to all: I am looking for professional career/guidance counsellors who specialize a bit on the mature side of things. MBAcrystalball is well known, but i am still on the look out. Once I am through with it, I will post the results here.

Stay safe out there!

 

[imransyed]

Oh some good news that just came in!

I got a course by course report for my credentials from WES and apparently I have a GPA of 3.2.
That is amazing to me coz i thought it'd be a 2.8 or something and it was really stressing me out because it's difficult to meet any graduate admission requirements with a GPA less than 3.0.

My day is made haha

Edit: oh and they recognise my 3 year bachelor degree as a 4 year Canadian equivalent. Beautiful!

 

[cansha]

Oh some good news that just came in!

I got a course by course report for my credentials from WES and apparently I have a GPA of 3.2.
That is amazing to me coz i thought it'd be a 2.8 or something and it was really stressing me out because it's difficult to meet any graduate admission requirements with a GPA less than 3.0.

My day is made haha

Edit: oh and they recognise my 3 year bachelor degree as a 4 year Canadian equivalent. Beautiful!

Congrats!!

 

[GandiBaat]

You are so spot on! We don't even look at MBA education when we hire management candidates. It is all skills, skills, skills. Even with ATS, we no longer have criterias to filter based on education. It is definitely a poor way to hire if MBA education is used in the initial screening. I interview candidates and was a key advisor in several orgs for management hires - never once we said "This person is an MBA".



I don't know if that's completely true. MBA hardly adds any value to what we already know if we have skills. I think MBA is more of structured path to land an entry-level management role as some companies (traditional orgs) still potentially use it to screen applicants. 95% of all Directors, VPs and C-levels in my org aren't MBAs, and I'm seeing this trend grow more and more.

In my opinion:

• If someone can run Google ads, there's literally no lack of MBA will hold them back from landing a Paid acquisition role. 3-4 years of accelerated Sr Management path from there is possible.
• If someone can build financial models, good with excel/Python/(VBA? lol), etc - nothing will hold them back from making that career transition.

Honestly, I prefer candidates who built something of their own vs those who'd blindly run SWOT analysis . At least in the cases where we want to hire a top 75 percentile candidate as a preference, we love to see a candidate with a portfolio vs an MBA. I'd try to look for data on MBA preference for hiring that demands a below 75 percentile candidate.

A good read for anyone who is right now re-thinking their career: https://www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions#Common-Traps-Career-Decisions

What you are saying is very North American or Western European centric thinking and that too in post 80s orgs. More traditional orgs -- in construction, finance, import export, transport, shipping -- tend to have minimal entry requirements with MBA. Its just one more checkmark. I have seen this in action. A friend of mine with good skills in managing teams was denied an AVP level tech position in a major media house because he was not having a post grad management degree. He did his MBA on part time with BITS in India and was able to get similar roles. There is still a major chunk of orgs who recruit based on your degrees and creds. One can make them as their starting point to develop their experience.

 

[GandiBaat]

So many points that I can relate to. After the citizenship, I intend to move back to GCC region which has a tonne of traditional orgs, with traditional hiring mindsets. It is not that I need an MBA to learn good management skills or anything, its just that in that region of the world, a degree is door opener. Opposite is true for Canada though.

Can you expand on the Google ads thing a little bit?


Also to all: I am looking for professional career/guidance counsellors who specialize a bit on the mature side of things. MBAcrystalball is well known, but i am still on the look out. Once I am through with it, I will post the results here.

Stay safe out there!

If you intend to move to GCC, why don't you just reach out to few folks in GCC with roles similar to what you want or higher (preferably higher) on Linkedin? It may look annoying from the perspective of other party but lets be honest here: do you have anything to lose here? At worst you will get a lot of "no replies" but thats the worst of it. If you want to end up in GCC, why not get critical info from the horse mouth?

I did something similar way back in 2011 when I had to know about suitability of PhD from Tokyo. I reached out to foreign/indian researchers in Japan who did their degrees from Japan and were working there. I got a lot of inputs. When you have a direct line why guess? Take Linkedin Premium for a month or so as it makes your job easier. Its cheap. Like 25 dollars cheap.

Find few companies that you want to work in there. Find folks in them. Ask them. Simple. Ask your queries. Rinse and repeat few times and you will get a general idea or lack of it. If its lack of it then things are very situational -- which is fine too! You will have to work with those baseline.

Basically, you are trying to get an ad-hoc mentor. It can be pulled off. Its mostly a numbers game. Reach out to 30 and get 3-4 responses.

One more option is to do what I call linkedin window shopping. Go through the profiles of folks working in roles you want to have in GCC on linkedin and see how they might have reached there. Their past experience and education is on display. So you have some data points to work with. Its useful too though not totally accurate.

I used the above method (window shopping) back in the day to get an admit from a really good US university. Basically by analyzing the kind of folks they send admits to (I used to collect resumes of their recent grads), I was able to narrow down what they wanted to hear in application package. I applied only to that univ and got the admit there. I did not go there but thats a very different story.

 

[iSaidGoodDay]

What you are saying is very North American or Western European centric thinking and that too in post 80s orgs. More traditional orgs -- in construction, finance, import export, transport, shipping -- tend to have minimal entry requirements with MBA. Its just one more checkmark. I have seen this in action. A friend of mine with good skills in managing teams was denied an AVP level tech position in a major media house because he was not having a post grad management degree. He did his MBA on part time with BITS in India and was able to get similar roles. There is still a major chunk of orgs who recruit based on your degrees and creds. One can make them as their starting point to develop their experience.

I have worked internationally for the large part of my life. So, my perspective is definitely EU and NA based. One thing about these traditional orgs that you listed is that most of them are shrinking verticals(I think fintech isn't a shrinking vertical yet). By shrinking, I mean these companies only focus on reducing operational costs as they're unlikely to hit inflection points and live on incremental growth. Would make sense for these companies to hire less ambitious and mediocre candidates.

But, I'm definitely seeing a small percentage of people who have vertical focused experience (e.g. fisheries, warehousing, etc) also take management positions as they build "career defensibility" and are almost irreplaceable. So, hopefully the trend changes there to accommodate worthy applicants.

There is still a major chunk of orgs who recruit based on your degrees and creds. One can make them as their starting point to develop their experience.

Definitely. However, if someone is trying to improve their career - those organizations are not the right fit for them. Sub optimal pay and lack of opportunities to help a candidate carefully craft their executive role. After all, your career growth potential = environment of the company * your skills.

 

[iSaidGoodDay]

Can you expand on the Google ads thing a little bit?

Just a small example of how easy it is to land the same job using different tactics. Applies to nearly all jobs that MBA promises. This discussion will deviate significantly from the FSW thread, so I'll pause here. Happy to share more info in DM.

 

[GandiBaat]

I have worked internationally for the large part of my life. So, my perspective is definitely EU and NA based. One thing about these traditional orgs that you listed is that most of them are shrinking verticals(I think fintech isn't a shrinking vertical yet). By shrinking, I mean these companies only focus on reducing operational costs as they're unlikely to hit inflection points and live on incremental growth. Would make sense for these companies to hire less ambitious and mediocre candidates.

But, I'm definitely seeing a small percentage of people who have vertical focused experience (e.g. fisheries, warehousing, etc) also take management positions as they build "career defensibility" and are almost irreplaceable. So, hopefully the trend changes there to accommodate worthy applicants.

I believe in what Taleb calls Lindy's Effect. If something has existed for a long time, it will exists in future too for quite sometime to come. Come think of it, why do Mainframes still exist in banks for transaction processing? Legacy does not die fast enough.

Meanwhile, front ends moved from terminals to thick clients / application to web based client to back to thick mobile apps and again back to web apps. It applies to businesses too. Tech businesses turn up side down every five years. Banks are still here and they will likely be still here for some time. So is construction. So is mining and petroleum. List is long.

That being said, its one thing to use an existing thing and its another to become one with an existing thing. One should do the former and no the later. Develop skills, learn domain but do not become a champion for legacy. I did it and its possible. I have friends who took up job in IBM to kick start their career but never became IBM types.

Definitely. However, if someone is trying to improve their career - those organizations are not the right fit for them. Sub optimal pay and lack of opportunities to help a candidate carefully craft their executive role. After all, your career growth potential = environment of the company * your skills.

Ultimately, it comes to the person. I will say why struggle when you can use an existing system to your advantage. Use it, grow and jump out of it. Nothing stops you from learning valuable skills while working for a rent seeker. Best part? They are paying you too!

Someone really fun in a really fun movie once said "I work for bank but I do not think like a bank, big bank small bank I like to make money."

 

[Islander216]

I agree with you a little bit, MBA is outdated but the only Bachelor's degree that I have is low gpa and from a not so great college in India. And now that I sort off realize the value of good education and the doors it can open, I want one degree for which I will put in my everything.



Thankfully, I am a PR so for me, the price is not a big factor at all. I would not be spending international student fees on any degree anywhere though. For me an MBA/grad degree is just a door stopper for me to get in, and then the marketing skills plus experience matters more. I have never used anything I learned in my Bachelors at all and I work in supply chain/procurement, so it is very related to the degree I have. (business administration)


I don't know if I have the skills, but I certainly have the need/want/hunger to develop more skills. Its just that my circumstances have really limited me to get my foot in the door. However when I do get an interview call, I tend to ace it with flying colors but its for job that haven't helped me develop new skills really.
That's what I want the MBA to do for me. Open new doors, show recruiters that I have potential and the ability to learn and be good at anything I apply myself to. Kinda want to prove that to myself too.



So many points that I can relate to. After the citizenship, I intend to move back to GCC region which has a tonne of traditional orgs, with traditional hiring mindsets. It is not that I need an MBA to learn good management skills or anything, its just that in that region of the world, a degree is door opener. Opposite is true for Canada though.

Can you expand on the Google ads thing a little bit?


Also to all: I am looking for professional career/guidance counsellors who specialize a bit on the mature side of things. MBAcrystalball is well known, but i am still on the look out. Once I am through with it, I will post the results here.

Stay safe out there!

I think if you want to go back to the GCC then the MBA is a good idea, mainly because they have a strong preference for people with Western education and experience, so they don't mind paying a premium in terms of salary to bring someone on board with that kind of background, because they feel they will enrich their organization. They've also always been snobby when it comes to treating and paying Western nationals compared to nationals from the developing world, it's always been part of their mindset.

I don't really know how others get along with Indian qualifications here in the job market, I'm assuming if they have good experience from large internationally known corporations, there is less of an emphasis on where they get their educational credentials from. Do you feel you're primarily disadvantaged because your institution is not well known in India or because it's an Indian qualification in general?

 

[GandiBaat]

I think if you want to go back to the GCC then the MBA is a good idea, mainly because they have a strong preference for people with Western education and experience, so they don't mind paying a premium in terms of salary to bring someone on board with that kind of background, because they feel they will enrich their organization. They've also always been snobby when it comes to treating and paying Western nationals compared to nationals from the developing world, it's always been part of their mindset.

I don't really know how others get along with Indian qualifications here in the job market, I'm assuming if they have good experience from large internationally known corporations, there is less of an emphasis on where they get their educational credentials from. Do you feel you're primarily disadvantaged because your institution is not well known in India or because it's an Indian qualification in general?

I am also very curious as how will they treat a person with Canadian passport and Canadian degree but with Indian roots. I doubt our friend @imransyed will have to tell them his place of birth but guess some of it will show up in his resume and past degrees.

That being said, pay is usually good in GCC in traditional businesses.

 

[Islander216]

I am also very curious as how will they treat a person with Canadian passport and Canadian degree but with Indian roots.

I am too, but at least in terms of salary, you will be on the scale the Westerners are on. As long as you're getting paid like a Canadian/American/Brit/European, the other stuff shouldn't be an issue.

No one goes to the Gulf for the work environment, they go there for the money and lifestyle.