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New Hire Power: Finding the Magnets That Attract Recruiters

by Carlotta Mast

MBA career services departments around the globe have launched a variety of programs and initiatives to attract recruiters and help students compete in an intensified job market. Here are some of the highlights.

Hired executive search firms

• The Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland brought in Stanton Chase International to coach students and ferret out new career opportunities.
• The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University brought in two experienced executive coaches to help students with their self-directed job searches.
• The School of Business and Management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) hired executive search and coaching firms to work with students and conduct a series of career management workshops on such topics as “positioning yourself to potential employers” and “breaking into investment banking.”

Increased outreach to recruiters

• Fuqua launched the HIRE-UP campaign, which included reaching out to more than 10,000 company and alumni contacts.
• HKUST distributed books with student résumés to companies and created a Web site where recruiters can search student résumés.
• The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University held face-to-face meetings with more than 200 new corporate contacts.
• The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business sent staffers to recruit at businesses in person.
• The Rotterdam School of Management persuaded a handful of international companies to create internships specifically for its students.
• The HEC School of Management in France adopted a more flexible approach to recruiting, offering companies customized services based on their hiring needs and encouraging firms to get involved in classes and faculty research.
• The Cranfield School of Management, a one-year MBA program in England, encouraged potential employers to offer students a two-week in-company project as the final phase in the recruitment process.

Added to career services team

• Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) increased its career services staff from eight to 12 people and assigned every student a career services “point person” to work with throughout the two-year program at the school.
• The Johnson School at Cornell University hired an additional staff member to focus on prospecting new companies.
• The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School hired a new career services director from the investment banking industry to increase the number and diversify the type of companies recruiting at the school. The new director, in turn, hired new staffers to seek out new recruiters.
• The McDonough School hired an “executive in residence,” a Harvard Business School graduate with 30 years’ business experience, to assist in advising and preparing students for the career-search process.

Opened doors to nontraditional MBA opportunities

• George Washington University’s School of Business and Public Management invited government agencies looking for management talent to the school’s recruiting events.

• Using four private planes donated by the S. C. Johnson family, the Johnson School flew 25 recruiters to meet with students on its Upstate New York campus.

Paid for students to travel to companies and recruiting events

• Michigan State University’s Eli Broad School of Management hosted a series of “city treks,” during which students and staffers traveled to New York, San Francisco, and other cities to meet with recruiters and alumni.
• The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota created a National Search Fund, which provides students with up to U.S. $350 to cover job-search-related travel expenses.
• The University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business took students and recruiters together at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for its In a New York Minute half-day recruiting event.
• American University’s Kogod School of Business took students on recruiter “road shows,” visiting recruiters in New York and Washington, D.C.

Convened joint career fairs with nearby MBA programs

• Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management hosted the Old Oaken Bucket MBA Job Fair, named in honor of the schools’ annual football match-up.
• George Washington University, Georgetown, University of Maryland, American University, and Howard University, all schools in the Washington, D.C., area, joined to put on an annual MBA recruiting event called Career Quest.
• Fuqua, University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Wake Forest collectively hosted the first North Carolina MBA career fair.

Improved job-search resources for students

• The College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, produced the Tennessee200, an electronic goldmine of alumni contacts and other valuable job-search information on the top firms that hire UT MBAs.
• The Simon School and Stanford opened up their corporate databases to assist students with their job-search research.

Added career coaching seminars and classes to curriculum

• The Kelley School added a for-credit leadership and career-development component to its first-year MBA core curriculum.
• The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, created an elective course, “Finding Your Dream Job in a Challenging Market,” as a way to prepare students and provide them with class credit for enduring a rigorous job search.
• The Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago added job-search seminars on such topics as “how to leave a compelling voicemail” and “how to construct a list of target firms.” The school also works with incoming first-years even before they arrive on campus, providing online modules over the summer on self-assessment, writing that first MBA résumé, and networking.
• Stanford added two job-search related classes—“Managing Your Career at GSB and Beyond” and “Understanding Yourself”—to new-student orientation.
• The Smith School hired Next Step Partners to provide skill-building workshops for students.
• The career counselors at Boston University School of Management created a mandatory, semester-long course on career preparation for first-year MBAs; the class includes readings, assignments, and labs.
• IESE Business School in Spain launched a career week for first-year students before classes start. The program includes self-assessment and résumé-writing workshops and mock interviews conducted by actual recruiters.
• HEC worked with faculty members to develop a new career-building module that is fully integrated into the academic program.
• The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland created a seminar to teach students how to create their own perfect job opportunities.
• The University of Tennessee developed a mandatory career development seminar for first-year MBAs. The class touches on writing résumés and cover letters and networking at job fairs and other events.
• In response to recruiter feedback, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin added a four-week series on how to prepare for case interviews.
• Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management integrated a nine-class career-coaching course into the first-year core curriculum. Designed to give students an early edge and “extra polish” in a competitive job market, the course includes segments on self-assessment, networking, résumé building, and interviewing.

Altered their recruiting calendars and events

• George Washington University held a “just in time” recruiting fair three weeks before graduation to attract small and midsize businesses to campus and to help more second-year students land a job before leaving school.
• The Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University replaced its large career fairs with more intimate and focused recruiting events that allow companies to assemble the “best fit” MBA candidates without having to sort through the crowds at a general job fair.

Used technology

• The McDonough School and a consortium of 18 other business schools participated in a virtual career fair run by MonsterTrak.
• Working with a company called MBA-Exchange, Fuqua and the Johnson School partnered with 10 international schools to hold an online career fair.
• Rotterdam and 12 other business schools from Europe developed a six-month online recruitment event called MBA CareerForum@Europe.
• The Simon School invested in videoconferencing technology so students can do face-to-face interviews even when recruiters cannot make it to campus.
• University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business developed a search technology that enables students to scour the Web and proprietary databases to identify small- and medium-sized growth companies in specific metropolitan markets.

Increased networking opportunities with alumni

• The Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University launched the Executive in Residence program, which brings senior alumni to campus during the spring to conduct career coaching sessions with students still looking for jobs.
• The McDonough School hired a Harvard Business School graduate with 30 years’ business experience to assist in advising students and preparing them for the career search process.
• The Broad School created the Broad Career Coach Program, which matches alumni with students and includes a faculty research component for determining whether and how such programs benefit students.
• George Washington University added wine-tasting and other alumni-student networking soirées to its recruitment calendar.

Focused on internships

• London Business School switched the order in which courses are taught to better prepare students for internships.
• In an attempt to better prepare students for finding the perfect internship, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College now requires first-year students to compose their first MBA résumés during orientation week in September.
• The Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University created the Summer Scholars program, which paid 23 students a U.S. $2,500 stipend to take unpaid internships at companies that did not have the budgets to hire MBA talent for the summer.

Reorganized career services staff

• Fuqua reorganized the responsibilities of career counselors along functional/industry lines.
• The Kelley School divided its eight full-time staff members, who once had overlapping roles, into teams that focus solely on career coaching or company outreach.

Partnered with other school departments

• The director of the business career center at the University of Illinois at Chicago partnered with the business college’s development office in soliciting companies and firms for internships and jobs. The director also worked with the college’s Family Business Council and other business centers to approach business leaders in the community for internship and job opportunities.

Partnered with students

• Tuck’s career services office partnered with the school’s student-run Biotech/Healthcare Club to create the Student Ambassador Program, which seeks to forge stronger ties with firms that are of interest to students.
• HEC called on students to help generate ideas for recruiter outreach and to assist with company mailings and with welcoming recruiters to campus.

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