Cornell wooing recruiters-Flights to school offered in return for job interviews

Call it a sign of the times:

Prompted by a tough job market and Cornell University’s remote location in upstate New York, the university’s business school plans to fly corporate recruiters to campus March 28 to interview MBA students seeking work.

By Diane E. Lewis, Boston Globe Staff

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(Could a similar program be implemented at Montana schools to assist our graduates?- Russ)

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The offer, discussed in a letter e-mailed to thousands of Cornell alumni this week by Johnson School dean Robert J. Swieringa, appears to be the first time that a business school has offered round-trip air transportation to corporate recruiters in return for interviews and possibly jobs, a career service specialist said.

”I’ve been in this business for six years, and I have never heard of this,” said Mel Penn, president of the MBA Career Services Council, which represents career counseling professionals from 240 business schools. ”But having said that, this is the worst economy and the most difficult job market we’ve seen in six years. So, tough times calls for creative ideas.”

A survey by the group says that of the 51 business schools that provided recruitment data, only 23 percent said their graduating MBA students had reported having at least one offer by Jan. 31.

Three seven-passenger Citation jets provided by Samuel Johnson, chairman emeritus of Wisconsin-based S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., will be used to transport 21 recruiters to and from campus, said Karin Ash, director of the Career Management Center at the Johnson School.

The gift is unusual, but not a complete surprise: Samuel Johnson, a patriarch of the Johnson family, is a longtime supporter of Cornell University, as are other members of the family, said Jane Hutterly, senior vice president of worldwide corporate affairs at S.C. Johnson.

In 1984 Samuel and Imogene Johnson gave $20 million to the graduate school of management in honor of Johnson’s great- grandfather Samuel Curtis Johnson, founder of S.C. Johnson.

”At the last trustees’ meeting for the Johnson School, Sam decided to make three Citations available to let recruiters see how terrific the school and its graduates are. This was also done in recognition that the school had been receiving feedback that its location in Ithaca was remote and challenging to get to.”

Asked how much the jets would cost, she said one jet belongs to the company. The remaining two will be made available through a company called NetJet, a corporate jet company that operates like a timeshare program.

Ash said the school focused on recruiters in New York, Boston, and Chicago – cities that have been targeted by first- and second-year MBA students as offering the best job prospects. In all, 284 second-year students are expected to graduate this year, and many want to work in marketing or financial services, she said.

”When the economy was booming, we did not have enough room for the recruiters who wanted to come,” Ash said. ”The demand far outweighed what we could offer. Now, more and more companies are saying that they need to cut down on the number of schools they visit. So, if they are in New York City and they have schools like Columbia University and NYU or they are in Boston and they have Harvard, then they have no need to come to Ithaca, N.Y.”

In the March 5 e-mail, Swieringa said that the only criteria for the paid trip to campus is that recruiters ”have MBA job opportunities – either an internship or a full-time job – and that [they] are willing to interview our MBA students.” The e-mail also said career counselors at the business school would contact recruiters about prescreening resumes so that they can select the students they wish to interview before coming to the campus.

Johnson students described the plan as a positive way to lure recruiters to campus.

”It’s a great idea,” said Matt Trokey, 27, and a first-year student who heads the Student Council. ”The nice thing is that it gives people risk-free exposure to Cornell. They don’t have to spend any money. All we want is their time and, if they show up, they get a free plane ride, a brunch, and they get to participate in some organized events. It’s a way for their companies to do some cheap recruiting.”

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at [email protected].

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