nova news 4th edition
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Nova News 4th editionTRANSCRIPT
Edition #4 - November, 2011
NOVA News was granted an interview by the staff that can change your life. Find out what they do, why they do it, and how they can help you!
P. 11
P. 8
Interview with Prof. Daniel Traça
“It is up to the Portu-guese people to decide if they are going to take advantage of the crisis and actually transform the country and trans-form our society, or if we are going to remain the same way as before”
P. 8
Meet the Career Management Office
Elections at NOVA
P. 2Get to know your new Representatives
Visit our website at:www.novanews.com.pt
Send us an e-mail at: [email protected]
November 2011November 2011
Masters’ Representative ElectionsOn November 17th, our fellow represen-tatives were elected and on November 18th the results were announced: one Academic, CMO and Social representa-tives, for each Mas-ters program, a total of 9 representatives, each with different responsibilities.
Everyone comments on their opinion, political
parties appeal to every-one’s vote and the media does not stop for even a minute. This is a typical scenery for the months before an election. How-ever, if someone were to step inside Nova’s campus, that would not be the case.There were no campaigns,
no speeches, and, for that matter, very little compe-tition (only between the CMO Representatives of the Masters in Manage-ment program). While it creates the idea that you don’t have to win to make a difference, this could have been a good opportu-nity for activity from cam-paigns in campus, as can-didates would train their speeches while people would feel more engaged
in the NOVA community.But no matter the posi-
tion they applied to, their feelings are the same: “feel free to ask for help” or “if you have any suggestion”, let them know. Quoting Finance’s SocialWRepre-sentative João Bragança, “If you enroll in a proactive attitude towards us, our job will not only be easi-er but also better”. Pedro Castro, Economics CMO representative, also advis-
es students to be attentive “to their mail and take part in the CMO activities”.If you have a problem and
are unsure of whom to ask for help, then maybe these guidelines may give you some help. The academic representatives will be “the bridge between the Masters students and the CMO/Prof. Daniel Traça, in such a way that we can all together improve the way that things are done on the daily-life of the Master students at NOVA”, says Academic Represen-tative Tiago Correia. CMO Representative of the Fi-nance Masters Diogo Leite defines their duties saying they must guarantee that “the events of the CMO are well divulged and get good attendance among students from this Masters program, and, should any particular conflict with the CMO arise, serve as a
liaison”. Finally, “the So-cial Representative basi-cally helps promoting the events and groups from NOVA with MSN, coordi-nates the Graduation Ball and takes care of the Year-book”, according to Mari-ana Gameiro, Econom-ics Social Representative.Movitation as to which our new representatives took on such a challenge differ. For Adriana Ferro, Economics Academic Representative, to be “the voice of Economics stu-dents and to be able to get this community closer together” were the main reasons why she applied
to be a representative. Other reasons focused mainly on improving and contributing to the soci-ety in many areas, says candidate Rui Frias. Gen-erally, all candidates and
2 3NEWSNEWS
Adriana FerroAcademic Representative([email protected])
Pedro Sucena e CastroCMO Representative
Mariana GameiroSocial Representative
Masters in Economics
Francisco MartinsAcademic Representative
Diogo LeiteCMO Representative
João Miguel BragançaSocial Representative([email protected])
Masters in Finance
representatives were and are very optimistic about the possibility of making a difference in NOVASBE.I would like to thank
the representatives and candidates for their great
Tiago CorreiaAcademic Representative
Héllène XistoCMO Representative
Inês ViolanteSocial Representative([email protected])
Masters in Economics
and enlightening an-swers quoted through-out the article. Good luck for the future, guys!
Ana Lopes
Miguel Aguiar
Being Civilized...
You’re doing it wrong.
November 2011November 20114 5OPINIONNEWS
In the last months, Eu-rope has been continu-
ously focused on the same problem: the economy. Since 2008, and even more in 2009, when Europe re-ally started to suffer the consequences of the crisis, there have been increas-ing tensions between Eu-ropean nations, especially those that are part of the Eurozone. The most recent events – the forgiveness of part of the Greek sover-eign debt, the giant leap in Italian yields and the market speculative attacks now turning to Spain and France – have made the strain almost unbearable, and it is not crystal clear in which side some countries are anymore. The Euro-zone survival depends on the clarification of these and other questions. How much longer will Sarkozy stay by Merkel’s side?
Although the crisis and tensions are interesting and much pertinent issues, in this text I will address one of their consequences. Namely, the so called “End of Democracy”, that many opinion makers are so worried about. They pro-claim that, following the recent evolutions in the (geo)political strategies of the most powerful Euro-pean nations – essentially the money lent to Portugal
and Greece and the mea-sures imposed to them – will lead the countries facing more difficulties to continue losing inde-pendence, and their poli-ticians (and consequent-ly the people) to have less and less freedom to choose the path they want for the country. Many even state that the cur-rent policies of the Portu-guese government are an unquestionable proof that democracy as we knew it is doomed, being the policy makers nothing but puppets at the service of the powerful men. Read for instance the article by Shawn Donnelly, Some-times you can’t have both: democracy and the euro.
Personally, I do not to-tally agree with this view. First, because I believe that politicians, and there-
fore voters, can still have a strong choice on the more important policies that can influence the short and long-term evolving of the economy. Secondly, because the politics and country relations (and the power of German and France over Eurozone countries) has not altered that much in the last 3 years – we are simply liv-ing an astonishing (and totally justified) media coverage of the happen-ings. And third, because I believe that we are walk-
ing in extremely troubled waters, but that it will not last forever. Let us think about the case of Portugal.
Is it true that the gov-ernment measures are tough? Yes it is. Is it true there is a lot of dissatisfac-tion about them? Yes it is. Is it true they are being imposed by foreign insti-tutions? Yes, since they are putting their money at our disposal. But, though there are strong guidelines about what we should do in the following three years, in order to meet our
The Same Democracy - Updated
“Our govern-ment still has
to decide what the best practi-cal approaches are for solving
the innumerous problems of the
economy. ”
The Chillout took place in the Masters’
Lounge instead of in Bar da Tenda, as it happened last year. The number of students that actually fit in the Lounge is much lower, but considering the previous attendance to the event, it probably was a better choice. To raise the attention of the students for this event, there was free BEER! After all, we are still college students.
The Halloween party organized by the MSN was very successful. Once
again, the choice of the location for this event was crucial – the venue was the hall of the auditori-ums A13 and A14. It was a dark place dur-ing that night, within the walls of NOVA!
The insect toys around the food ta-bles delivered a nice touch; not that they would really scare anyone (or would they?!), but at least was a funny detail
for a Halloween party. Another very useful idea available for the guests was a box with random masks and other scary ac-
cessories – like ties. For those who had a very busy week and didn’t buy any costume for this party, it was easy just to get a small accessory to join the party.
Words are pretty nice but can rarely describe parties. Our Peter Parker for the occasion, Miguel Aguiar, was there and took some nice photos.
José Cadima
A small chillout & a scary HalloweenThere were some nice social events for the Master Students this month! Those events – the Chillout and the Halloween party – already occurred last year, which challenged the orga-nizers to improve the standards of quality and fun, even further.
Remember, remember, the beggining of Novem-ber, when they installed new vending machines, with better coffee. And in times of crisis, to which even NOVA SBE students (at least some of them) cannot escape, everyone has the opportunity to bring their tupperwares from home and even ex-change food just like in picnics during school trips in the days of our youth. Despite this improval in the availability of food in our school, we do have to warn students to be careful about what they eat from the machines and to stay healthy. If you've been in Pedro Pita Barros' health economics classes, you will know that our health care costs have been ris-ing, and NOVA News does not want you to become a part of the problem.
Luis Fonseca
New FixedAssets
November 2011November 20116 7OpinionOPINION
deficit goals (and recover the confidence of the mar-kets?) how we get there is not a completely set path yet. Our government still has to decide what the best practical approaches for solving the innumer-ous problems of the econ-omy are. Should indeed the TSU decrease or not? (Though it is in the plan, the government did not
implement it yet). How to solve our problem with the legal system is still a nev-erending story, with only problems pointed out and no formal solutions in the horizon. The public ad-ministration has an astro-nomic size in this country, both in terms of workers and expenditure, and it has to be our government (the one WE ELECTED) to solve this problem, us-ing the means they think are the most appropriate.
And regarding these
and other political issues, the voters had the power to express themselves last June (maybe with no good alternatives, some might say, but with very different ones I have no doubt). And, most im-portantly, when the Por-tuguese voters opted for the current government, they knew their inten-tions right from the very beginning. These are just a few examples about how we are still independent in many ways, and how WE, as a nation, still have the power to decide what we want for our future.
As a final remark, I would conclude that it is obvious that, as the Eu-rozone matures and the European Union walks towards a federation – if it is the path Europe chooses – surely some countries will lose some sovereignty, mainly in economic and finan-cial decisions. After all, we cannot have a strong and common currency without centralized fi-nancial decisions. But regarding the rest, I don’t think that we should be too worried about be-ing ruled completely by more powerful nations – at least for now we still have options available.
Gonçalo Coronha
“As the Eurozone matures and the European Union walks towards a federation surely some countries will lose some sovereignty ”
The Root of All Evil
“The real ques-tion is for how
long will we keep getting
poorer until we become more productive ”
It is fairly consensual that the underlying
reason for the crisis faced by some European coun-tries is their chronic low competitiveness. It is also fairly consensual that this problem is linked to low levels of productivity. But when it comes to address-ing the reasons behind the lack of relative pro-ductivity in the PIGS not many voices are heard, and many of those that are, don’t focus on the main issue. It is not un-common for this topic to be ensued by discussions about culture divergenc-es and competence of employers or employees.
To truly understand why we are less produc-tive we must first estab-lish that this means we are creating less value per hour than our richer European partners. The most decisive factor in this situation, although obvious, is rarely put for-ward. Questions such as competence have very lit-tle to do with it. The truth is that the productivity of labor is intrinsically tied with the amount of capi-tal per worker. A farmer that possesses a trac-tor will be much more
productive that one that doesn’t, i.e., it will pro-duce more in less time. If we keep this in mind, it is easy to see why we are lacking in productivity.
Firstly, the richer Eu-ropean economies have managed to develop/maintain a solid industry, which is the sector where technological develop-ments and thus productiv-ity gains are more preva-lent, unlike what happened in Portugal where the ser-vices sector slowly started to take more and more space in our economy.
Secondly, most of the industries that operate in Portugal are, on average, low value added indus-tries. An extremely effi-cient worker at a screw fac-tory will always be much less productive than a lazy worker at a Mercedes fac-tory, simply because the screw market allows for very little profit compared to the automobile industry.
But to understand the problem we must go even deeper. Why do we pres-ent this capital per worker deficiency in our econo-my? Of course the histori-cal reasons that explain why the economic tissue of our country is the way
it is today are varied and complex, but, once again, I would like to point one out as the main “culprit”. The root of teh problem. It is obvious that capital increases productivity, but this assumes that the worker can operate the machines, devices or com-puters that make up what we call capital. An anal-phabet with a computer is just as productive as an analphabet without one.
The low education levels that Portugal faces today is perhaps the worst curse we have inherited from the small minded and pro-vincial Dictatorship that ruled Portugal for half of the twentieth century.
In the graph we can see the percentage of popula-tion that has attained at least upper secondary edu-cation in OECD countries. It is without surprise that we find Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece (PIGS) well below OECD average in both age groups depict-ed. Ireland presents better figures because the crisis
there was more finan-cial than economicalW.
Today, our economy does not possess the hu-man capital required to ensure that a significant number of our entre-preneurs engage in truly ambitious projects or that international high tech firms can encounter the sufficient labor sup-ply they require to invest.
Does this mean we are doomed to poverty? No. Korea, completely revo-lutionized their educa-tion system within half a century and today is the country with highest level of population with sec-ondary education and, as a consequence achieved high levels of competitive-ness. It is clear we must start do the same as soon as possible, because our potential for growth exists and it is immense. It is also clear this will take time.
Many state the question concerning the Portu-guese economy is wheth-er we want to overcome this crisis by becoming poorer or by becoming more productive. They are wrong. The real ques-tion is for how long will we keep getting poorer until we become more productive and, most im-portantly, what can we do to speed up the process?
Rafael Barbosa
November 2011November 20118 9INTERVIEWINTERVIEW
NOVA News (NN): Pro-fessor, first of all you are an economist; what is your vision – in a few words - of Portugal’s cur-rent situation?Daniel Traça (DT): A few words for a very long question… I think Portu-gal is at a turning point, like it has been several times in its history and it is up to the Portuguese people to decide if they are going to take advantage of it and actually transform the country and transform our society, or if we are going to basically go back to where we were, once the crisis is over, and then start to slowly drift apart from the nations that grow sustainably. Which is something we have not been doing very well and that is why we are at this point.
NN: We know that there are professors from NOVA who are being consulted by the Troika. Are you one of them?DT: I am not being con-sulted by the Troika. No, I mean… sometimes groups of faculty partici-pate in discussions and I
am also there… That’s it.NN:Do you consider yourself a pillar for NOVA?DT: I mean… I have an important role. I am re-sponsible for all the pre-experience programs here at NOVA: this includes the undergraduate and the master program. These are the most important pro-grams. There are many other programs but clearly these are the most impor-tant! This said, I am the
one responsible for mak-ing these programs func-tion… I have quite an im-portant responsibility in this school!Why do I do this? I do this because my cause has to do with it; and there is nothing nobler than actu-ally having students that are good and students that have a lot of potential, and helping those students at least to use their potential for their own benefit and for the benefit of the com-munity where they are involved, of their country and perhaps of the world!
NN: So your main role here is…
DT: My job here is to, sort of, shape this school in the way that al-lows our students to actually be all they can be, and develop the skills that they need, the vision they need and the am-bition that they need to become all they can be!
NN: There is an idea around that
says that NOVA is becom-ing primarily a business school. Do you think that NOVA is losing its roots as an economics school? DT: We are also the best school in Portugal in fi-nance. We are actually much better than most schools in Europe! We are actually better now in Fi-nance than we are in Eco-nomics. So I do not have that vision of segregating economics and business. Most of our mission with students is to prepare the students for the world and the world now is always changing. You may have a career that may start at a bank, then you move to economics and then you move from the bank to a marketing company where you do marketing and then you may have to change again. The world now does not say that you are an economist and be-cause I am an economist I want to study econom-ics and then I become an economist all my life. This is not the way the world will work. The key point is that I think that this frontier between economics and
business and even between sciences in general are re-ally starting to disappear and what we really need to do is to train our minds, to train our students, to train our talents. And so, yes we are becoming more a business school, because the big difference between business schools is not that business schools do business and economics schools do economics, is that business schools are much broader. Business is something that captures what several fields are pro-ducing to generate knowl-edge that is valid for the ones that want to take de-cisions in an organization. That is actually what we are doing and what is hap-pening around the world!
NN: How is your daily work schedule? What do you do exactly at NOVA? To which things do you devote more time: teach-ing, research, promotion and school governance?DT: Most of the time I spend managing my re-sponsibilities here, I do quite a bit of teaching and I have not been spend-ing too much time doing research in the last few years. Actually managing the school has been my full time job and in the overtime I do teach, and that is it.
NN: Do you like to ap-
pear on TV?DT: To appear, no. I like to go on TV when I have things to say. Unfortu-nately that normally does not happen, in the sense that they call you and they ask you questions which many times do not make a lot of sense. I feel I do not want to answer these questions because I have more interesting things to say. But also you do not want to say no too many times, otherwise they stop
calling. So I like to go, when there is space to talk freely and you can actu-ally turn discussions into things where you feel you are saying things that can add value!
NN: Nowadays – and specially in the business world – it is not easy to balance work and fam-ily and personal life, and there is a trend to put work above everything else, which might not be a sustainable option... How do you personally deal with this issue? DT: I think it is a prob-
lem that everyone faces. I think it is not much a problem of time and time management. It is more a problem of people estab-lishing their priorities in the sense… where they want to take their lives. You have time in life to do the things you want to do. Maybe it may not make sense for people to start having kids so early, be-cause we all are going to live much longer. This again requires organiza-
tion, not just organization of your time everyday, but organization of the steps that you take.
NN: And what more can you say to NOVA’s stu-dents regarding this?DT: I think you cannot do a job that you do not like. If you do a job that you do not like, you basically need time for your job, time to do things that you like and then time for your family, and then you do not have enough time. If you do a job that you actually love and that you feel that you are enjoying it, then if you
are organized and do it at the right time, you can have time for your fam-ily and for your kids. And obviously you are going to make some sacrifices but I think you can manage it, well as long as you are or-ganized.
NN: What do you think it is the role of ethics in nowadays’ economic and business environment? Again, does NOVA ac-count for this variable?DT: I think we do. I am not going to tell you what you are going to do and what you are not going to do. You have to build a strong ethical structure you can live with, and what is un-ethical is what you can-not live with. If your mind is well structured this is the way it should work. So what we try to do at that level is to work with students so that they can actually understand that, and be aware of the im-pact they have on people when they have to take a decision.
NN: You surely have to deal with thousands of different people. Is there a big share that you be-come really friends with? DT: Most of the people I have to deal are more like acquaintances… It would be hard to be true friends with all of them. There are different levels of friends.
Prof. Daniel Traça This time NOVA News’ reporters were in the office of Professor Daniel Traça, a man who needs no introduction for NOVA stu-dents.
November 2011November 201110 11CMOINTERVIEW
As you grow up, you will have friends that you made as a student to which you talk about your personal life, about almost every-thing. As you get older, it is more difficult to make those kinds of friends. But there are other people that you meet at your job or business and some of them are good people.
NN: Do you think that the deepening of the cri-sis in Portugal will affect the effectiveness of the CMO in helping the stu-dent to get their first job?DT: In a normal economic crisis we are not very af-fected. It is a bit like when demand goes down, the guys affected are the mar-ginal guys. We do not have that. Most of our students are not the marginal stu-dents; most of them are placed among the best
jobs, so in a normal crisis we are not very affected. This crisis is going to be extremely strong, so this will somehow have an impact on our capacity to place students in the mar-ket. Next year will be a very difficult year, but we are going to try to help the students in the best way possible.
NN: Have you already saved anyone’s life?DT: Yeah, I think I have, I probably have, I mean… I have to have had in this job! Every time I have students coming with a certain situation where they are ready to go and I picture them, and I feel that I have changed their situation... I do not know if I have followed all the iterations or how their lives would have happen if I had not made that deci-
. A cause you stand for: The people, to be able to improve their lives
. Football Club: Benfica
. Married, 2 children
. Vacation spot: Island near Malaysia with no elec-tricity, where services are open only for three hours per day, with a desert beach where a person can read and relax. (Now I have children, I cannot do it anymore)
. People you admire: Charles Darwin and Nelson Mandela
. People that admire you: My children
. Reference University: My alma mater: Columbia University
. Favourite drink: Coke Zero
. Preferred course as a student: Macroeconomics (Prof. António Pinto Barbosa)
. Hobbies: Gym, my work (has to do with my favou-rite cause… impact on students’ lives)
André Agostinho and Diogo Carvalho
Curiosities
sion. But this is the nature of my job, some students come and say I have to do this or otherwise I have to leave University. Some-times I can help them, sometimes I cannot help. When it works, then I would not say that I saved that person‘s life… but I hopefully made it better!
NN: Have you ever thought on entering poli-tics?DT: I thought about it, maybe it will hap-pen, maybe it will not. I
am not sure. It has to be something where people are involved. It has to be something where I can be proud to go back to my table to have dinner ev-ery day with my kids, and tell them daddy has done this; and you should feel proud about what daddy has done.
NN: Has anyone told you that you look like Barack Obama?DT: …?? No!… No.
Career Modules
Meet The CMO
NOVA’s Ca-reer Man-a g e m e n t
Office (CMO) should be seen by every student as their first step to-wards their profes-sional future. The CMO has two main goals: to provide quality professional career counseling, career planning pro-
grams and practi-cal opportunities to all students and to develop a close re-lationship between students and the marketplace in or-der to guarantee a successful job place-ment and a reward-ing career – in prac-tice this means that this office helps stu-dents to get in touch
with companies and various institutions by guiding, advising, preparing for inter-views and co-elabo-rating with students their CV and Cover Letter needed for each interview.
In next few pages we will get to know a little about the peo-ple who work there and how they can
From left to right: Rita Mendia, Carolina Magalhães, Sofia Cília and Margarida Boavida
set you on course for the carreer you’ve al-ways dreamt about.
Clara Gil and
Miguel Aguiar
November 2011November 201112 CMO 13CMO
The aim of the mentor-ing program is to connect students with profession-ally experienced alumni from various areas that will help them during the transition from academic life to the job market by providing advices and sharing their knowledge to help students choosing the right path for their future. According to former stu-dents who participated in this program the relation-ship with their mentors helped them to know the job market better, develop their social network and face important decisions
NOVA students have the opportunity to partic-ipate in Business Games from diverse areas such as Marketing, Innovation, Energy, Banking and General Management. Besides being a fun and practical learning experi-ence, they allow students to develop soft skills such as initiative, achievement, working under pressure, team work and coop-eration which are funda-mental to be successful in the professional envi-ronment. Moreover, the added value of participat-ing in these games is rec-
The Business Forum, organized by the CMO with the collaboration of students and currently on its 10th edition (with increasing success), gives students the opportunity to be directly in contact with companies from dif-ferent industries for one
for their future with more confidence. The impor-tance and usefulness of this program is also rec-ognized by the mentors. According to Miguel Águas from McKinsey, who described his expe-rience on this program as rewarding “The MYTA program brings corpo-rate life experience into campus (…) and I wish it was in place back when I was still a student!”
Mentoring Young Talent to Achieve (MYTA) Program
ognized by recruiters.The results of NOVA
students in the last years are nothing but encour-aging. Besides wins in the national Business Games “Primus Inter Pares”, “Richard Bran-son EDP” and “CEO for a day”, NOVA students have also shined abroad: in 2010 the team “NOVA Five” won the interna-tional final of the “Danone Trust” in Paris and last year the NOVA team “The Dempsey Hairstylist” rep-resented Portugal in the international final of the “L’Oréal Brandstorm”.
Business Games
Business Forum
• #8 for success in Placement within NOVA Masters in Finance in Financial
Times;
• #10 for success in Placement within NOVA Masters in Management in Fi-
nancial Times;
• 95% of Masters students graduated in 2010 were employed 6 months after graduation – 53% accepted a Job offer before graduation;
• 39% of Masters Students were placed abroad;
• 1000 job postings per year;
• 85 on and off campus events per year;
• 74% of Masters Students found placement through the CMO’s services.
CMO in Numbers
The CMO staff always works as a team and they believe that this modus operandi is the secret to their clear and established success. In rough terms, Rita Mendia and Sofia Cilia are more allocated to working with the students and frequently circulate the corridors to meet and advise students in their everyday life. Carolina is CMO’s Corporate Rela-tions and Margarida sup-ports all the subdivisions – though, at the end of the day, all four of them work in an extremely inter-col-laborative environment.
CMO proactively col-laborates with the stu-dents. With this purpose, Professor Daniel Traça has developed the Career De-velopment program which the CMO’s team imple-ments, adapts and devel-ops with each student in-dividually.
NOVA’s Career De-velopment Program, that was considered an Inter-national Best Practice by the AACSB Accredita-tion Team, supports itself in a “triangle” of personal and professional success: Career Modules – which consist in self-discovery, market knowledge and job market skills, Re-
cruitment Activities – which involve the Busi-ness Forum, mentoring, on-campus presenta-tions, business games and the elaboration of the CV Book, and Recruitment Support – involves coun-seling to students, online tools and corporate links. All these several initia-tives and activities re-lated with the CMO will be thoroughly explored throughout this article.
The CMO currently offers three career mod-ules. Career Vision, the most general of these modules brings presen-tations of a big variety of Portuguese and multi-national firms to NOVA allowing the students to gain insights on different careers in the corporate world and to also learn directly from experience of employees that a few years or even months be-fore were in their shoes, facing indecision regard-ing what professional path to pursue in the fu-ture.
The second module, Careers in Economics, is directed towards Masters in Economics students and gives them the op-portunity to know more about various careers in institutions and com-
panies in the Economic sector and also very inter-esting personal and pro-fessional paths of former Economics students told in first person.
The last career mod-ule, Careers in Invest-ment Banking and Stra-tegic Consultancy, puts students in contact with some of the main players of these sectors who will share valuable informa-tion on their recruitment processes and Alumni’s testimonials on their ca-reers and life experiences.
In all of these modules the students learn how to improve their CV and cover letters, train mock interviews and an elevator pitch using the knowledge shared by the speakers and by the CMO team.
day of the spring semester during which they can at-tend presentation, contact with HR people of recruit-ers, sign-up for intern-ships and apply for jobs, hand-deliver their CV, make networking contacts and attend several turbo networking sessions (4
Carrer ModulesOverview
companies from different sectors, 15 minutes each) plus networking oppor-tunities – these are going to be, for the first time, launched this academic year.
November 2011November 201114 CMO 15Opinion
Recently in Portugal (and other countries
in Europe), many groups have been copying the slogan from the Occupy Wall Street Movement that sprung this year in the USA. This movement is a protest against the growing disparity in the distribution of income in America in the last de-cades and the overwhelm-ing influence of the finan-cial industry in the real economy. If under a nor-mal scenario this would be a cause for concern and debate, under an eco-nomic (and political) cri-sis, there is no doubt that such problems have to be rapidly addressed.
In Portugal, the slo-gan and movement, like
almost everything that comes from the other side of the ocean, were copy-catted right away. The re-cent austerity measures put in place by the newly-elected government fu-eled the spirits and many demonstrations swarmed the streets, rallying young people under the 99% flag. But this uncalled and pre-cipitated bootleg of the movement is no cause for concern when compared to other episodes in our country. In the last general strike promoted by the la-bor unions, we saw many people shouting words against “fascism” and call-ing for “revolution”. Do we live under a fascist re-gime? Are we not a demo-cratic republic?
The generations of the majority of the pro-testers have enjoyed top public education for all their lives, they have en-joyed freedom of speech and union and, most im-portantly, a social safety net that, despite being far from perfect, improved the conditions and op-portunities for many so-cial levels. This is why our young and newly-found white-knights of the op-pressed people should know better. I will not in-cur into discussing why they feel like this, although I have a pretty good idea (maybe a future topic). The point is that, with all the possibilities and re-sources made available to them, they should under-stand that all the concern and discontent has to be institutionalized, rath-er than thrown into the street. I am not referring to the strike per se, which is a constitutional right, but to the way in which it gets misrepresented – the way society has evolved in the last century focusing on institutions, political or apolitical. These are the agents that will achieve the changes longed-for by the general public in the most effective and frictionless way. Our job, as an edu-
cated young community is to place ourselves – and our knowledge – at the service of these institu-tions, which shape the very foundation of mod-ern society.
In a nutshell, I believe our generation can do better. I believe the con-straints put in place by the financial and subsequent economic crisis should not engage our generation into outdated (but not ir-relevant) ideological con-cepts and prejudices, no matter how appealing they seem. If we do so, we will have failed in every single aspect of what was ex-pected from us. We must stand down from the easy polarized sides and solu-tions and face the chal-lenge of any modern and democratic society: the challenge of compromise and commitment. We must break with both the old and backward look-ing labor unions and the unfair lobbying power of prominent, rent-seeking corporations.
João Francisco Almeida
A Message for the 99.9%In their intranet area students have at their disposal various useful online resources provided by the CMO. The CMO booklets contain useful information and tips on career planning, how to write CV and cover letters and preparation for job interviews. In addition, there are two Job Packages provided by the Nova Investment Club and Nova Consulting Club directed to candidates to the investment banking and consultancy industries. In conclusion, CMO always has its door open, and every NOVA student has and should take the oppor-tunity to “use this resource” in order to be informed, be closer to the job market and take the first step towards the rest of their lives.
Online Resources
Symplicity is a perfect link between students and companies. Students can create their profile with their CV and cover letters to which recruit-ers will have access. It should be noted that the more complete and up-dated profiles are more likely to appear in search results done with differ-ent filters by the compa-nies. When uploading your CV to Symplicity you can (and should!) choose to include it on NOVA’s CV book that will be sent to the school’s corporate partners. Also available on Symplic-ity are job and internship offers in a wide range of professional areas.
Vault’s Career Insider, the world’s leading source of career information, will help you know more about the different careers you can pursue and the com-panies you want to work for. Just like in Symplicity, you can create your profile and apply for innumerous jobs on different areas but what distinguishes Vault from the other online re-sources is the information it provides on careers and companies from two im-portant perspectives: the companies’ and the work-ers’. For each industry there is an overview that, besides providing a gen-eral description of the in-dustry, gives information on the most important characteristics and skills required to be successful in it, the career oppor-tunities and the current employment conditions.
In the Career Advice area you can find inter-esting and valuable in-
formation on the daily life of professionals from different areas, job search advices by experts who are used to hire talented professionals and also in-sightful interviews and advice from top executives
For each company list-ed in Vault you can find a general description of their history and activi-ties, opinions by its em-ployees, the pros and cons of working there and the position of the company in various rankings for different characteristics of professional life such as prestige, satisfaction, diversity and relation-ships with managers.
Another very helpful tool to help students are the career and profes-sion discussion boards where you can interact with other members of the Vault community and clarify doubts regard-ing specific information about the companies.
The other main online tool provided by the CMO is Goinglobal, directed to students interested in an international career. Be-sides the daily updated 600,000 international job and internship opportuni-ties and the 450,000 listed corporations, the most important sources of in-formation available in this platform are the career guides for 35 countries and 45 U.S. and Canada cities.
Each career guide in-cludes specific informa-tion on various subjects such as job search, main industries and employ-ment trends, the top com-panies, financial consider-ations, work permit/visa regulations, professional and social networking, CV and interviewing advices.
NOVA News TeamExecutive Staff:Gonçalo Coronha, Luís Filípe and Rafael Barbosa
Journalists:Ana Lopes, André Coelho, André Agostinho, Clara Gil,
Diogo de Carvalho, João Francisco de Almeida, José Cadima, Luís Fonseca
and Miguel Aguiar
November 201116 HUMOUR
Yes, I will talk about management students. But don’t be fooled by the title, I will not make fun of them. Quite the contrary, I will praise them because I would never be able to be as courageous as they are or to do the fantastic things they do. For exam-ple, I would never be able to apply for a management course. I don’t like power points that much!
Power point guys…sorry…management guys are the best. They are nothing like those econo-mist nerds that only know about the theory of things. In a power po… manage-ment course one person really learns something useful and gets used to put that in practice. It is such a practical course that even theory seems practi-cal in the sense they learn practically nothing. As for real practical issues, they learn about projects, power points, marketing, branding, strategy, power points, human resources, finance and…hum…did I already mentioned power points? Summing up, they put a lot of knowledge, that only a fool would call common sense, into prac-
tical use, as long as it does not involve mathemat-ics. But do not think I am saying they are not good at math. In fact, they are very good, even because they have almost the same mathematical background as economics or finance students. They just don’t see fit the mathemati-cal formulas in a beauti-ful power point. It would obviously mess with the magic and symmetry of a colorful, animated and
stylish presentation. Another point (this
time a powerless one) that amazes me every time is the sense of brotherhood they have in a classroom. When a person says some-thing wrong (or not), the classmates don’t hesitate in pointing out the errors (or not) or to add some in-formation. Some misun-derstand it with flashiness and excess of competition, but the truth is they just want to make sure their colleagues understand ev-erything.
Another thing I love in management is the most wonderful and miraculous tool ever to be invented in humanity. No, this time is not power points…I am talking about marketing. With marketing you can do whatever you want (besides pancakes). And, for me, it is so nostalgic! It makes me remember the time I played football in my local football club! Every time someone had
an injury (even if it was a broken leg) they would say: “put some ice on it”. In management is exactly the same! If the project has some problem, just
“do marketing” and it is solved.
Last observation, man-agement students are so confident and determined! Unlike economic students, they already know what kind of job they want and they know they will get it. And most of the times they want the best jobs with the best wages. They want great multinational companies or strategic consultants that pay very well. I am even tempted to say that most of our great management students will be accepted in one of these companies and receive an amazing hourly wage al-most as big as one receives for frying ships in Mc-Donalds.
Why was I born with-out the talent for power points?
Luis Filipe
My Power Point is Better Than Yours
“Mathematical Formulas would
obviously mess with the magic and sym-metry of a colorful,
animated and stylish presentation”
“I would never be able to apply for a manage-ment course. I don’t
like power points that much!.”