BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : OCTOBER 2, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY It's Not Just about MBAs Anymore Corporations are bending over backward to get the best recruits--with or without a B-school diploma Earlier this year, some of the best marketing minds in America trekked to Cambridge, Mass., for one of the hardest pitches they'd ever had to make: convincing Harvard Business School grads--many with more job offers than business suits--to join their companies. In this battle of the PowerPoint presentations, companies spent up to a quarter million dollars creating MTV-style videos with corporation-flattering graphics and racy story lines about the adrenaline rush of working for them. Flash back 10 years ago and it was the students doing the auditioning. No more. In a labor shortage-induced role reversal, it's the companies who are hustling--and not just at primo business schools. The young and the skilled can pretty much write their own ticket these days, and it doesn't always include a graduate degree. In fact, business schools' toughest competition may no longer be each other--but all those start-ups and blue chips willing to hand out MBA-sized salaries and job titles to those who've never read a page of Peter Drucker. Applications to the top 25 B-schools fell 7% this year, with the falloff at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley, both located in dot-com land, down more than 20% since 1998. ''I think this industry got a wake-up call,'' says Rex D. Adams, dean of Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Today, younger workers with the right stuff can slow down, drop out, and still come back to a hot job. Just ask Lynne LaCascia. She's an MBA admissions director's dream. At 25, she had logged three years as an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, one of several firms that wooed her after she earned a BS in economics and applied mathematics from Yale University. But B-schools won't be getting her application anytime soon. She left Wall Street for a year of downtime--and then landed a plum assignment as head of strategy at a startup. Given the booming economy, it's not that hard to do. Younger job seekers are coming to interviews ready to negotiate stock options, signing bonuses, and a list of life-enhancing perks, such as months of vacation, sabbaticals, and 1950s-era hours. ''They have a confidence that is unique to not being in the labor force during a depression or a recession,'' says Healtheon/Web MD Corp.'s ( HLTH) senior vice-president for human resources Theresa L. Dadone-Carlsted. BODYBUILDING, ANYONE? Companies can offer a lot of things MBA programs can't. When recruiters at Minneapolis-based General Mills Inc. ( GIS) attempt to dazzle the CEOs of tomorrow, they brandish pictures of mint condition Victorian houses--ones that junior execs can afford, vs. the dumpy starter homes they'd get in Silicon Valley. They also tell prospects that most days they'll leave work at 5:30 p.m.--and at noon on summer Fridays, leaving them plenty of time to windsurf or boat across one of Minneapolis' lakes. The strategy helped General Mills snag four Harvard B-School grads this year, when most companies are thrilled to get one. That's nothing compared to what other outfits are handing over. At PricewaterhouseCoopers, twentysomething consultants have brokered deals to play in the Women's National Basketball Assn. and to train for Olympic bodybuilding. At Phone.com Inc. ( PHCM) in Redwood City, Calif., Gen X and Y engineers often take time off for flying lessons. Certainly, a downturn would end the reign of the unwrinkled. When that happens, ''We'll still be here,'' says Michele Rogers, admissions director at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Until then, however, the young are proving that it's possible to have a great job, a great life, and lots of money, all without the hassle of student loans. By Francesca Di Meglio and Michelle Conlin in New York _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The Best B-Schools Table of Contents The Best B-Schools COVER IMAGE: The Best B-Schools TABLE: How the Report Cards Get Graded It's a Whole New B-Game A Global Report Card Building a World-Class Business School in Japan (int'l edition) INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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