What do you do?

Yesterday, in the midst of the Milkround Mayhem, there was finally an event for us, Industry people. Industry is the name that London Business School Career Services gives to people who are not going into Banking or Consulting. Apparently, we make up roughly 33% of each class. I personally don't like the name too much... sounds like I'm going to work on a conveyor belt or wearing a hard hat. Anyway, yesterday we had a panel of Industry people come in and talk about what it is they do, and how they got there. There were people from Pret A Manger, Tate&Lyle, Avaya, American Express, WPP and Yahoo and I thought it was very interesting. A few takeaways:
* don't bank too much on your MBA, a lot of industry companies don't know too much about it;
* network your a** off, you'll need the contacts later on, and you'll get a good feel for the industry you want to move into and who the main players are;
* Industry jobs on the whole are not advertised months ahead, so keep your head cool as all the others are doing their banking/consulting interviews, you'll get your opportunity later on;
* offer to do something for free/little money. At LBS we have to do a second year consulting project, and you could offer that to a company as a way of getting to know that company better;
* be conscious and aware of the pro's and con's of rotational programs: figure out what exactly they entail and think about whether that is what you want to do/need for your career.

For this year's employment report (that includes figures on the fulltime jobs of the 2005s and the summer internships of the 2006s), go here. There's some good news in there, but I'm not quite sure if past results in my case will predict accurately the future results ;-)