B-School Grads Receive Some Extra Assistance

Business schools, with their newly minted graduates facing the toughest job market in years, are stepping up their efforts to help current students find jobs.

By Kemba J. Dunham
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

At the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, for instance, students typically engage in on-campus recruiting first and then turn to off-campus recruiting later in the year. But now, the school is telling its candidates for a master’s degree in business administration to use both methods right away, says Julie Morton, the associate dean of MBA career services.

The school also set up workshops to give students "a longer perspective on the job search," she adds. New programs offer MBAs advice on how to position themselves for a job several years down the road if they are interested in an industry where hiring is slow. Others help students package summer internships that were less-than-ideal and reassess their job-search strategy.

At the MBA career-management center at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, counselors are trying to focus students on practical, longer-term planning, with an understanding that the market for hiring has turned sharply downward in just a few years, says director David Bergheim. "Throughout their careers, [students] are not going to have on-campus recruiting to rely on, so they’re going to have to develop the right kinds of skills for the long term," he says.

Consequently, the career management center has been hiring more MBAs with industry experience — in areas such as marketing, consumer products, consulting, sales, financial services and hospitality — to work with students rather than the typical approach of using people with counseling experience. "We can talk at a higher level now," says Mr. Bergheim.

Other business-school career centers are turning to industry executives for guidance as well. The career center at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill., has recently hired a career counselor with corporate-outplacement experience to help its students find jobs. Now, MBAs are being given the same sort of counseling that is given to executives.

"It’s saying that regardless of where they are in their career trajectory, there are many things they can do to find a job," such as creating a time line for planning out a career, says Roxanne Hori, assistant dean and director of career services. "The skills necessary will not change, and we are trying to emphasize that these are lifelong skills."

Certain career centers are focusing on one industry. Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management is beefing up its expertise in the consulting industry. The school has hired a "consulting executive in residence" and has added several consulting-oriented courses and workshops to help build skills in this area.

"Even though consulting is in a recession at the moment, we want to strengthen our program now so that when it turns around, we’re ready and prepared," says Karin Ash, the director of Cornell’s career management center. "That’s why it’s more of a curriculum re-design than just reaching out to firms."

In many cases, schools are relying on student feedback to devise new ways to help MBAs land a job. But despite the myriad efforts, "it’s not easy to come up with a novel solution, and there are no silver bullets," says Gregory Hutchings, associate dean and director of the career-resources center at Washington University’s Olin School of Business in St. Louis.

Indeed, Norm Mushkot, 31 years old, received his MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles’s Anderson School in June, but he still hasn’t found a job. He doesn’t blame the school’s career center, though. "They have all the resources, and set up such a framework," he says, "that in an ordinary year, you’d be able to find a job."