PART ONE: Dr. Tessa Recendes, Oklahoma State PhD in Management Alum, talks about her PhD experience

Hi, I'm Tessa Recendes. I'm an assistant professor at Penn State in the management and organization department. So for my undergrad, I went to Baylor.. Sic 'em Bears, sorry I just kind of had to do that. Then I did my undergraduate degree there in economics and in sports sponsorship kind of sales degree and then I worked in professional sports for a while for soccer teams while doing my graduate degree at the University of North Texas. Then from there, I really found out that I was really curious about the business world and what was going on there and kind of wanted to explore some questions that I had and started to look at a PhD program and in 2019 I graduated from Oklahoma state with a degree a PhD in Business Administration, specifically focusing on strategic management.

In general, I focus mainly on strategy and in Strategic Management specifically on leadership and how the strategic leaders, like the c-level executives and the board of directors, what factored into like their decision-making process, how they influence their firms, that type of thing. So very much on the strategy side, but still kind of drawing on like some OB principles and linking it to strategy. So that's really one of the things that I like a lot about Oklahoma State, is the diverse skill set of a faculty, and the idea that they actually collaborate across macro and micro domains. Like that's something that's unique and I think that that benefited me a lot throughout my program.

One of the things that I really enjoyed besides that was the faculty, mentor relationships at Oklahoma State. I was fortunate enough to work with several faculty members, but a couple of them, I worked with very closely and they were instrumental in my development. Federico Aime, who is a rock star on the strategy side, really was incredibly helpful guiding me not only through my first and second year process but also through my dissertation, throughout the program. So it was really great to be linked up with such good faculty that really are interested in mentoring you, so it wasn't just like giving me orders and letting me go out and do something but, also walking me through the process. At each step of the process, treating me like I was a collaborator and not a student which is so helpful in kind of that relationship with the mentorship, because when you're getting your PhD you're really in training for your career and what you're going to do, and the last thing that you want to feel like is like you're just another student, so having that collaborative relationship was super important.

That's a great question so one of the things that I really uh also enjoyed was with Federico early on, I think it was about my second year, we actually had a meeting about my goals and what I wanted to do, and what kind of school I wanted to go to. I wanted to be at a really top level research institution and so with that, we kind of mapped out the things that I needed to do from that point on to be able to be attractive on the job market. So we kind of had benchmark goals year by year, that we were aiming for and we developed projects with those goals in mind. Not just developing projects, but also going to conferences, networking those types of things. So I received a lot of support that helped me perform well on the job market so when it came time uh to go on the job market, I had a pretty good CV, so a body of work. Already had some R&R's at top level journals, which was super helpful. But all of that started with the preparation that we did like in year two, and the work that that it took to get there.

Outside of that when the job market was actually happening, the entire faculty was like super supportive. I had people both in OB and in strategy looking over my CVs, giving me feedback, sharing with me some of their personal statements. Those types of materials that go into your job packet. That's super important. Then also just doing practice job talks and getting everyone's opinion and feedback. I felt super supported throughout the whole process so that was awesome.