In recent years, there has seen a growing interest among IESE MBA students to explore careers in the startup world. To cater to this demand, IESE Startup Career Fair was launched. Ines Ures, MBA Class of 2018 who served as President of the Entrepreneurs Club writes about this event.
The second edition of the IESE Startup Career Fair was held in April in our Barcelona campus. It was a great turnout with more than 100 IESE students as well as 10 startups, investors and incubators from Barcelona and other European capitals. The participating companies were Berepublic, Cooltra, Eccelerate, Force Manager, Innocells, Red Ventures, Seed Rocket, Snappy Research, Trovit and Ulabox.
Students appreciated the didactic format of the event, starting with an elevator pitch introducing each company and their projects. For example, Timo Buetefisch, founder of Cooltra and IESE MBA 2004, explained his vision and growth plan and the areas in which they need IESE talent. After one hour of presentations, students visited the stands that fulfilled their interest in terms of industry, stage of growth and project offering.
Overall, companies were impressed by the student body. Xavier Porras, People & Operations Director of Innocells hub mentioned “I am impressed by the energy, diversity and quality of students”. As a result of a growing interest in startups by MBA students, the number of attendees keep increasing each year. Students with a wider range of backgrounds who are inspired to be part of fast-growing company attend the event eager to develop a marketing plan, solve an operations strategy riddle or look at an investors deck.
Representatives from Cooltra looking forward to interacting with students at IESE Startup Career Fair
From the companies’ perspective, timing of the fair is optimal. In spring they have sorted out their hiring needs for the summer. Recruiting companies in different stages of growth offered various opportunities. Students had the option to join a just-after seed, growth, or expansion phase company.
A second-year student commented, “Having IESE alumni among recruiters is really valuable from both sides to manage expectations: alumni fully understand what the student is going through and how they can add the most value, meaning an extremely valuable learning experience for students and successful performance.”
The event gave students not only the chance to gain a summer internship, but also to network, learn about the founder’s experience, their challenges with growth and the specific needs startups might be facing. With a very satisfied audience, we hope the fair will keep growing in numbers and diversity next year.
Thanks Ines for your coverage of this event!
To find out more about Entrepreneurship at IESE, you can listen to this webinar presented by Eddy Zakes, Director of IESE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre. Here, he talks about the resources and support available to students who are keen to pursue careers in this area. This webinar is part of our Career Services Insider Webinar Series. Find out about careers in finance, strategy consulting and technology in the next editions coming up.
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