Max Carnes' Business Blog

This week in class we talked about looking for internships and future jobs. I am only at the beginning of my internship search, but I was able to use my network to land an interview. A fellow student here at the University of Tulsa, Jack, is also from Kansas City like me. His dad, James, is the Managing Director of the Financial Advisory Services of Kansas City, or FASKC. They are located in Leawood, Kansas which is only a twenty minute drive from my house. I made the connection through Jack and emailed James and inquired about possible internships. I was in luck and they were looking to hire a summer intern, which I set up an interview for. This will be my first big interview with a company, so I will need to prepare this week for possible questions he could ask me. I am looking to get a job as a financial advisor in the future and this could be a great opportunity for me to get my foot in the door with a excellent company. This has been my first lead in my internship search and I pla...

This week in class we conducted mock interviews with a fellow classmate. My partner was Yating Lin, a finance major from China. I felt this interview was very similar to the one I did in high school for my job as a porter at Olathe Toyota. It was more laid back because it was done by a student, which my boss at Toyota was very laid back. With this level of comfortability, I was able to think clearly and concisely about my answers. I learned more from the interviewers perspective than I did from the interviewees perspective. This is because I was able to pick apart their responses, while also thinking about what I was looking for in an answer. This made me think more clearly about my own answers I would be giving to her. I felt it was hard to grade my partners performance because she is new to the country and still learning our complex language. She was able to give me some honest feedback, and she thought I took too long in preparing my responses. This will come easier with more practi...

This week in class we took a look at current business news and looked at how the different current events impacted our majors differently. The new event my team chose to look tat was the news revolving around the selling of the Los Angeles Times. It was bought by Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong among turmoil inside the business. The company has been having an increasing turnover  rate among high ranking employees during this time. This was helped fueled by having three editors in six months, its published being put on paid leave during a sexual harassment investigation and a vote to unionize the newsroom. This could impact my major in several ways. First, there will be a change in the stock market. Now that The Los Angeles Times and its sister company the San Diego Union-Tribune are under new ownership, there could be change in these companies stock prices. Another way my major would be affected would go through the new owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. He will have both of these compani...

This week in class we talked about building our personal brand through networking and professional documents. It is time for us to stop being looked at as students and to start being viewed as professionals. One way I ensure that I maintain a positive online presence is by keeping my social medias professional. I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. This means there is more ways for potential employers to view me online. I have increased my personal brand through jobs and friends as well. I worked at Olathe Toyota in high school as a porter, where I got in touch with the owner about potential finance internships and positions. I also have a friend that goes to school with me who's dad owns a financial firm fifteen minutes from my home in Olathe, and I have begun to contact him about potential internships. I was also lucky enough to have a friend recommend me for an internship with Northwestern Mutual and I will be interviewing with them next week! That means I ...

Last week in my Business 2001 course our class completed a personality quiz that gave us five signature themes. My five themes are competition, achiever, futuristic, significance, and command. I felt as if these themes reflected my personality very well. I would like to continue to improve these traits in order to be successful, and this blog post will explain how I plan to improve competition, achiever, and futuristic. I will start with competition. This a trait that I developed through sports growing up. One part of the trait that I would like to improve would be the last line of the description, which states that "over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seems unlikely". This is sometime that I would like to fix because this will lead to avoiding competition. To do this, I will actively seek challenges instead of looking for the easiest way to win. One simple way I can see myself improving my competitive drive is through pick-up basketball, where I catch mys...

This week in class we took the  CliftonStrengths for Students Assessment. This was a quiz that gave you five signature themes based on your answers. The signature themes I got were Competition, Achiever, Futuristic, Significance, and Command. I thought these reflected my personality very well. I have always been very competitive through sports and my career chose of finance reflects my futuristic attitude. We also interviewed one classmate who had a theme in common with us. My partner was Andrew Dreyer, who had competition in common, which we both felt was our strongest trait. Through this exercise I learned how these traits affect our work in group projects. Andrew uses his achiever trait when the project starts stalling and he needs to get the group together and back on track. I use my command trait to take charge of the project to make sure that everyone has a part to contribute to the final product. We also used these traits as a way to show a positive trait to future employer...