The  Management Career Week 2021: Spring (MCW) at the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) has had a record number of participants. Individual consultations, panel sessions and workshops, as well as an HR buffet, brought together 678 students of the Business School.

GSOM has traditionally hosted the MCW twice a year, starting in autumn 2017. Spring 2021 events were the most in-demand events in the history of career weeks.

 

This year the MCW team began planning the program for the first time with in-depth interviews with students: the goal was to identify the needs of the participants. As a result, the focus has been shifted from the number of events to their quality. Numerous panel discussions have been replaced by specialized workshops that help students develop the necessary skills. As a bonus, students could receive a certificate confirming their participation in the event.

 

Among the digital innovations, this year students, alumni and employees were able to connect automatic reminders for events on the Vkontakte social network and the Telegram messenger. Also more than 450 people used the chance to ask  questions via a special chatbot that worked on the Vkontakte and Telegra platforms.

 

One of the key events of Management Career Week (MCW) was the Meetup with Olga Dergunova, Deputy Chairman of the Board of VTB Bank, Director of GSOM SPbU, on the topic Corporate DNA: Evolution of the Organization's Value System based on the Example of GSOM SPbU. The speaker discussed the importance of defining the values ​​held by a successful organization, as well as their formulation by the Business School in particular.

 

Topics of the MCW's events included digitalization, human resource management, smart cities, data visualization and much more. Thus, Andrey Sebrant, Yandex Director of Marketing, spoke about technologies and their impact on humans; Tesla Target contextologist Andrey Baranov showed the participants the peculiarities of working at Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords; and representatives of the recruitment agency Kelly Services Kristina Ageenkova and Zhanna Volkova discussed with students the digitalization of the HR department's processes and the impact of technology on this area as a whole.

 

Students took part in a pizzeria management business simulation from Dodo Pizza and in a logistics business game from Russian Railways, where the participants developed an idea to improve the company's customer service. Following the presentation of solutions, 17 students received an internship offer at Russian Railways.

 

During the week, leading experts from McKinsey & Company, Kelly Services, Apple, VTB Capital, Mars, GEROPHARM, Gazprombank, P&G and Changellenge conducted individual career and mentoring consultations and coaching sessions for students. In addition, a new format of demo interviews was launched, during which students could have an hour-long trial conversation with an HR specialist, and then receive professional feedback. The 99 slots for individual consultations were filled in just three hours.

 

On the final day, several interactive events took place at once. As part of the business hackathon, which this time took place in a hybrid format, 40 teams spent four hours solving a case — Development of a limited edition concept for the AX brand. Nine winners were fast-tracked for an internship at Unilever.

The traditional HR buffet round table was held on the interactive platform Spatial Chat. Students managed to communicate with representatives of more than 25 partner companies: Avito, L'Oréal, Gazprombank, CLS, SIBUR, Amcor, Alfa Bank, Unilever, BIOCAD, EY, VTB Bank (PJSC), Lenta, Sveza, Baltika, Mars, P&G, BAT Russia, GEROPHARM, PwC, Nexign, AMI, Danone, Air Gates of the Northern Capital ("Pulkovo"), Mail.ru Group, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Russian Railways..

 

You can view a video of these events >> (available in Russian only)

 

Last week the MCW team was announced as winners of the Petersburg LOUD Communication Prize.