Bill, you're currently the acting director of Chicago GSB's career services, having replaced, at least for the interim, Eleanor Workman. Do you have plans to handle that role on a permanent basis?

Actually, I'll be moving on to another assignment shortly. We've had a search going for a permanent career services director for a couple of months now, and we hope to have an announcement by sometime in July. We're currently progressing into our second round right now.

Let's get right to it. In BW's 1996 B-school rankings, Chicago plunged five spots, largely because of the poor performance students and companies attributed to the school's placement office. In fact, 1 in 5 corporate recruiters who visited the school cited Chicago's placement office as among the worst. What, in your opinion, was the problem? And what has been done to rectify that situation?

One clarification: From the corporate side of things, we actually maintained a strong ranking overall, but our students did knock us. Over the years, the nature of placement has changed a bit, and I think we, as an organization, just didn't keep up. The marketplace became more competitive, more aggressive, and there was a greater need for both our students and the companies to have a greater amount of direct, personalized attention from career services.

We've done a number of things to rectify the 1996 situation. We have, for example, changed our office to form an account manager structure, which means that each company has its own Chicago GSB placement representative to work with. (Editor's note: Chicago's career services office divides its company-rep relationships along industry lines.) We've also made some significant facilities improvements and offered a number of improvements to customer services. For instance, recruiters now have greater access to phone and data jacks, and we've given more support to some simple things like parking -- which had been a major problem in the past. In general, recruiters have been pleased with our ability to service their needs. We conducted some research earlier this year to verify that the changes we made would have the projected effect that they would -- and indeed they have.

What sort of counseling or strategizing do you do with companies?

Well, for example, a new company that has never recruited MBAs at Chicago before might come in to our office to talk to us about the kinds of people and positions they're recruiting for. And we'll sit down with them and talk to them about the best ways that they can generate the kind of visibility -- whether that means participating in a job forum or talking with student clubs, for example -- to walk away with what they want. We also talk to them about the recruiting process we have in place here, about the nature of on-campus recruiting, and how to market and organize their recruiting functions -- how they should organize their day on campus to administer their interviews. Our bottom line is to work with companies so that they get their message out to the students, increase their visibility, and more efficiently recruit.

Has Chicago GSB's career services staff grown to provide this personal service that you just described?

It has grown by a person or two. We have more than 17 people working in the career services office, handling things across the board: providing counseling to companies and students, staffing the career resources library, and doing information resources and computing work. B-school placement offices are organized differently -- there is no uniform standard across the B-school spectrum. We, for example, do everything in this office. That includes handling the recruiting, doing counseling and coaching students, and running our own library (it is separate from the university's system).

How big a role do you play on the company side of things?

I'm a part of everything that goes on, but I have account managers who are the companies' primary relationship managers. Where appropriate, if there are some unusual circumstances, I'll step in. For example, if a company had a lower-than-expected turnout at its presentation last year, I'll come in to talk with them and strategize about what they can do to improve upon their on-campus performance.

What do you feel is your overarching responsibility on the student side of the fence? Is it to place students in jobs, get them the juiciest pay packages, or help them help themselves?

We try to help develop the students' lifelong career management skills. We don't view ourselves as a placement service helping students find jobs. Instead, we try to help students understand themselves better... help them develop skills and provide opportunities to put those skills to work by talking with companies.

How do you do that?

We do a self-assessment piece (using instruments like Meyers Briggs, Strong Interest Inventory, and Career Leader) as part of our leadership program that begins during orientation and continues on throughout the first quarter. The self-assessment instrument is administered during orientation (called the "core"), but the results of the self-assessment are used throughout the remainder of the students' two year stay, especially during the first quarter, when they work with our office to develop their own career search strategy. We feel the self-assessment piece helps students understand who they are, what their values are, and where they want to go. We use the self-assessment results as part of our one-on-one counseling program that just about every single first-year student participates in.

Typically, everyone will come through our office for a resume critique and the chance to meet with a career counselor to talk about their job search strategy more broadly. It's really self-initiated -- students take the lead -- but we advertise it heavily as well. Students also realize that if they want to get their resume into our regularly published resume book, they should come through our office to make sure that their resume is well thought out and designed effectively.

Does Chicago GSB have an open-door counseling policy?

Given the number of students here (approximately 1,300), people are expected to make an appointment to see a counselor. We are very much interested in letting students know who we are, however, and encourage everyone to see us early and often.

Do you personally do a lot of student counseling? Or is that left largely to staff?

I do some counseling, though not full-time. We have two -- soon to be three -- full-time coaches who do the bulk of the counseling, but I schedule appointments as well. I do, maybe 8-10 hours of counseling a week, particularly during the fall (October to December). After the fall passes, I do a little less. Whether the new career services director cuts back in student counseling as the year progresses will be up to that person.

When does Chicago GSB start working with students to get them those dream jobs?

Well, we have our career services orientation and self-assessment workshop during orientation, and then offer a number of workshops throughout the entire first quarter. So it starts very early on. The whole recruiting process has gotten earlier and earlier over the last five years. That, in and of itself, has really pushed the need to begin doing career services functions earlier in the year. It's now more important than ever to develop the students' strong sense of identity -- they need to understand who they are and what they want to do almost right out of the gate.

How early do companies start recruiting at Chicago?

They start their formal presentations at the end of October, and we don't even start our classes until early October! So the recruitment schedules have certainly moved up.

Is that situation becoming unmanageable?

It's not becoming unmanageable, but it's definitely challenging. Company presentations start happening at the end of October. This past year we ran 193 presentations from October through the first week of November -- that's the highest it has ever been. The actual recruiting for full-time positions starts in October and goes through December. Then it carries on into the winter quarter. Internship recruiting starts in February.

What types of things is your office doing to prevent the situation from getting out of hand?

We try to make sure that both students and companies know what our policies are regarding accepting offers. For instance, it's part of our policy that companies must allows students enough time -- into January -- before setting a deadline on a full-time job offer. We're really disturbed when that policy is not adhered to.

Is there a penalty meted out for those companies that break with that policy?

We will talk, and have talked with a couple of companies in the past, about adhering to our policy and giving students enough flex time to seriously weigh their offers. It has not been a big problem, however. That's one of the many advantages of having good company relationships: We can talk candidly about their recruiting approaches and what the tendency toward earlier recruiting does to our students. Ultimately, we try to balance company needs with the needs of our students. And frankly, early offer deadlines may not be in the best interest of the companies.

There may be a company out there who initially comes in and says, "I want to interview during the first week of recruitment." They might be a great company with great opportunities. But the kinds of students that they are going to most attract may also be the same ones focusing on the investment banks -- which have a history of recruiting heavily during the first week. If this particular company is not as well known, they might get lost in the shuffle with the bigger recruiters. In that case, we would say, "Hey, why don't you interview a week or two later to give your company a little more visibility and a better shot at getting your message across."

Has this newfound pressure exerted by companies forced your office to change any of its student counseling techniques or workshops?

Over time, we've tried to provide more information on companies to the students. We try to provide opportunities for companies to come in and make their pitches or presentations whenever we can, whether it be on campus, or at a career fair. We try to maintain a good set of resources in our career library with new directories like the Wet Feet Press, which provides overviews of various companies in different industries that students find helpful. In selected instances, we'll collect newspaper and magazine clippings of job opportunities that we've come across and post them. But the biggest thing we've done recently is add a mountain of information to our Web site (gsbwww.uchicago.edu). We now have more links to companies, online versions of corporate resources, and a number of electronic databases that contain thousands of companies stored in them. And that just makes it easier for our students; they no longer have to come to our office to access that information, but can now do it from the comfort of their own home.

In addition, we've developed more workshops on resume writing, networking, and interviewing. We have an elaborate mock interview training program that happens around January, where we select a group of second-year students who have done well in a specific industry to sit down and do practice interviews with first-years. For example, a first-year can say, "I'm interested in consulting." In that case, we'll set up a practice interview with a second-year who has just worked in that industry over the past summer. In some cases, we can even be firm-specific. Let's say a first-year is interested in working for a Deloitte & Touche or Merrill Lynch -- we might be able to hook him up with a second-year who has just completed a summer internship there. That has proven to be really helpful because our second-years have really just gone through the recruitment process. Last year, about 70 to 80 students participated. It's a very popular program, and one of the most effective ways to build your interview skills.

We also have what's called the Alumni Career Coaching program, where we use alumni to give advice on industry-specific issues. They'll do resume critiques as well as provide advice to students on the best industry-specific interview techniques, etc.

Many B-schools have or are in the process of mechanizing or automating their placement process with systems like Exeter's and those of many other outfits. Has Chicago GSB automated any facet of its career services division?

Years ago, we developed our own in-house placement system called PBS (placement bidding system). If you're going to interview on campus, then you have to use PBS to place your bids. But PBS does a lot more than facilitate the bidding process for interviews. It also provides information on correspondence interviews, information on alumni and contacts at companies, and job descriptions at companies that are coming to recruit. It generally lets us more effectively manage the contact that is a vital part of recruiting.

Many schools try to have their recruiters balance their schedules with both open and closed opportunities. What is Chicago GSB's policy?

We're very committed to having as many open schedules as we can. We have a sliding scale here, where no company can have all closed schedules if they come to recruit on campus. But they can have an increasing amount of closed schedules depending on how many schedules they bring to campus as a whole. So, if you bring two schedules to campus, we'll advise that you have one be open and the other closed. If, however, you're running 20 schedules, then we'll let you run as many as 75% of them closed. McKinsey and Booz Allen, for example, will run 20 to 30 schedules here annually, so they have a bit more flexibility. Some firms like having closed schedules and some just don't care. If you look at hiring figures here though, we're finding that just as many of our students are being hired from open schedules as those from closed schedules. Statistically there just isn't much difference.

Are students for the most part happy with Chicago's sliding scale?

I think so. They want open schedules so that they can bid and not be shut out of the process. But it all works itself out.

What type of an effect has the surge in MBA demand had on the number of interviews being conducted at Chicago?

Over the past year, we've done a total of 12,100 interviews on campus for both first- and second-year opportunities -- which has been comparable to interviews in the past. (Editor's note: In 1997, 12,650 on-campus interviews were conducted at Chicago GSB.)

Are interviews falling as students are becoming more focused on where they want to go, and know who they are earlier in the game? Or are MBAs, because of the leverage they're enjoying, apt to interview with more companies?

The numbers have been pretty consistent, on the order of 11,500 to 12,500 a year. We are trying to encourage students to be more focused because they are more effective that way. That encouragement really the runs gamut between doing the self-assessment, one-on-one counseling, different workshops, etc. It's getting a sense early on who the student is and trying to draw a match.

How much more do you feel Chicago is working with companies on the recruitment process?

We've always worked a lot with companies, but my guess is that over the past couple of years, we have developed much closer relationships with recruiters than in the past.

How many companies do you visit on an annual basis?

I actually visited about three to four other companies over the past couple of months. But being out of the office between January and now (June) is very tough because it's prime recruiting season. The biggest time for travel is in the summer. We do try and see as many firms as we can when they're here on campus recruiting or coming in to meet us for a strategy session.

Do you see companies now hiring their own consultants or strategists to help figure out the best ways to net the top Chicago MBA prospects in this hot job market?

Companies are definitely trying to learn more about the best hiring and recruiting practices. They work with us quite a bit to advise them on how they can do a better job recruiting Chicago MBAs. And, of course, we are very pleased to do that -- the better the relationship, the better everybody is going to do. Advising companies entails meeting with them to go over the kind of success they've had in the past year or two, discussing new ideas for recruiting events, working with them on how to target students differently -- as well as how to create greater visibility and handling some strategic, logistic, and operations issues. Another big issue we face is how to get student organizations involved. In most cases what we do is partner a company representative with a student group. It's not uncommon for our student clubs to bring in speakers to panel discussions. The clubs will also involve industry reps in other ways. For example, our marketing club has run its own set of practice interviews administered by marketing professionals.

You raise an interesting point. How big a role do student clubs play in recruiting and placement?

Clubs play an extraordinary large role in the recruiting process. They sponsor events and are one of the best sources for learning about the specific attributes of a certain industry or career. We encourage companies to get involved with specific student groups. For example, a marketing conference is put on every year by the marketing student group where they invite companies to talk about their marketing careers.

We've also run a high-tech career fair with Kellogg for the last couple of years, and our high-tech club has been integrally involved with that. Our West Coast student group helps put on a job fair, and our high-tech student group attends an annual forum in Silicon Valley. We sent 110 to 120 students out there last year. In addition, our corporate management strategy group will be running a conference focused on general management careers; some of the international student groups have sponsored international student fairs here on campus which focus on careers outside the state; and an international career forum in October was launched by our MBA students.

Does Chicago GSB cater to a specific niche? The school, of course, has a reputation for being top-flight in finance.

We're interested in maintaining a broad and diverse set of companies for our students. Our focus in a particular industry is the result of what students are most interested in. We try to market a little more aggressively to a particular firm according to the wants of our students. That said, investment banking and consulting have historically been our two largest industries, and marketing is our third-largest. Now there's more interest being voiced by our students in venture capital, investment management, high-tech, and entrepreneurship. Those are the three particular areas that have grown in importance over the last couple of years.

How many firms came to recruit on campus in 1998?

About 315 to 320. (Editor's note: 264 companies came to recruit on campus in 1997.) In addition to that, we had close to 2,000 companies submit correspondence opportunities, which they can do by sending us a fax and having us post them on our Web site or our bulletin board. We're still getting them in as we speak and usually receive about 2,000 to 2,500 a year.

Where is this company growth coming from? Has there been a considerable increase in new companies recruiting -- small to midsize firms, for example -- or are you seeing more divisions of companies that already recruit visiting Chicago GSB for the first time?

First and foremost, the economy is very strong. On the one hand, there is this consolidation in financial services, but there's also this unbelievable growth occurring in consulting, for example. We're seeing growing interest in companies that may not have historically been interested in hiring MBAs. By that, I'm talking about media and entertainment companies like Sony, Disney, 20th Century Fox, and the California high-tech startups. I think that's because they're now recognizing the talent of the MBA pool. The nature of the business is changing with all of these mergers and the diversity of activities that companies are now involved in. They just need people with broader business skills. They're not hiring the number that consulting firms are, but they're starting to pick up.

Are more small to midsize firms coming to campus with increasing frequency?

I think some are becoming more frequent visitors. There's definitely more interest from students about going into the high-tech industry. And high-tech firms I think are recognizing that MBAs can develop talent. Having an engineering plus a business background offers a lot of upside. I'd say probably 20 to 25 students here have engineering backgrounds.

What are the top 10 companies recruiting at Chicago GSB in 1998?

McKinsey Consulting (34 full-time hires), Andersen Consulting (18), Goldman Sachs (18), Lehman Brothers (17), A.T. Kearney (18), Deloitte & Touche (14), Boston Consulting Group (14), Merrill Lynch (15), J.P. Morgan (14), and Booz Allen (12). I'd say probably 65% to 70% of our second-year class will be going into investment banking and consulting jobs.

Do you see the school branching out into other industries?

Sure. If you go out farther on that top 10 list, say to the top 25 companies that hire our grads, then you get a much broader view of where students are going. You start getting into the marketing firms, the Krafts and Cloroxes of the world. Procter & Gamble, Sprint, Microsoft, Dell, and other high-tech companies also weigh in and get between two to eight hires a year. And there are a number of general and investment management positions that get filled, as well as venture-capital slots. It just so happens that I-banks and consulting firms hire many more MBAs individually than other industries do. McKinsey, for example, hires more MBAs than Sprint does. I-banks are at the top simply because of the sheer volume of students that they hire. That doesn't mean that we're more focused on trying to get them to come here.

Can you break down where students are going by industry?

About 42% are going into financial services, 34% into consulting, 8% to 10% into marketing, and the rest into a smattering of general management, high-tech, and other positions.

In which industry have you seen the largest growth over the past couple of years?

Things have been pretty consistent over the last year or two. Financial services and consulting remain strong -- as I said, they are the predominant hirers of MBAs across the board. We're also seeing continued strength in marketing, which waned a couple of years ago, but has rebounded of late. There's also growing student interest into media/entertainment and venture capital.

What companies are you actively recruiting to come visit Chicago GSB's campus and interview students?

We are working hard right now to increase the number of venture-capital and investment management firms that are recruiting on campus. The big firms are already recruiting here, such as Fidelity and Vanguard, and other smaller companies send us job postings. Now, we're trying to develop relationships with smaller regional players. Some of our targets include: Hambrecht & Quist, NationsBank, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens, Cowen & Co., and Scudder, Stephens & Clark.

Despite the recruiting growth, not every recruiting relationship can be a happy one. Which companies have recently stopped coming to Chicago because their recruiting dollars were just not paying off?

I haven't had anyone actually leave yet. But there are some companies that we have worked with to try and develop new strategies -- do things other than their traditional presentation. We've worked with Procter & Gamble and Kraft for example, both of whom have done well here but want to do better.

Are many grads placed regionally? Where are Chicago grads opting to settle out of school?

Chicago graduates are being placed worldwide. Usually one-third of the graduating class settles in the Northeast. This year it looks like 12% to 14% of our students are going to work outside the U.S., though most of that group is comprised of international students.

On average, what percentage of Chicago's 1,300-person student body gets a summer internship?

Practically everybody who wants one, but sometimes that's hard to tell. We don't hear from the folks who haven't found an internship and take classes instead to finish their studies early. But that's really only a small minority of the student population, and there are a number of folks who take summer courses in tandem with their internship.

Just how important is the summer internship?

That really depends on what it is that students want to do. If you're interested in making a career shift, then an internship is a great way to verify to yourself that that career is something you want to do. In some industries, the internship plays a more prominent role toward getting a full-time job -- that's particularly true with investment banking. For I-banking, the internship can act as an extended interview in many ways. Though it's not impossible to get into the I-banking industry without an internship, it certainly gives you a big leg up. If a student has a corporate background, sometimes we will encourage him or her to get involved in another industry during his summer internship to build upon his skill set. In doing so, you use the internship as the tool for gaining a familiarity and view of that "new" industry and can leverage that experience into a job in a particular field of interest.

Have you seen more companies hiring their summer interns into full-time jobs?

Yes we have. Many firms today are hiring their interns back into full-time positions; they're using the internship process as a preliminary screen for full-time hiring. I'd say that about 20% of our students accepted jobs out of their internships. My guess is that's the highest it has ever been.

Everyone is well aware that pay packages are still climbing. From my conversations with other directors, base salary is growing at a modest rate, while total compensation packages are rising at a brisk pace. Is that what you're seeing at Chicago?

Indeed, base salaries are staying fairly flat but have gone up a bit in some industries. The average base starting salary across industries is about $80,000. The average base salary for I-banking is $75,000, and for consulting it's $90,000. But when you then take a look at total compensation, that average jumps to $120,000 for across the board -- that includes base salary, sign-on bonus, guaranteed bonus, tuition reimbursement... anything considered taxable income.

Base salary packages are slightly higher in consulting and investment banking, and slightly lower in general management and marketing. From a straight salary standpoint, the average base consulting salary is in the low 90s, in the mid-70s for both I-banking and marketing, and in the low-to-mid 70s for general management positions.

Do you find that total comp packages that companies are now offering are becoming more creative?

They're definitely getting higher and more creative, inserting new incentives that they haven't previously included. High-tech firms, for example, are pouring in more stock options into their packages that ever before. We've also seen some companies including some low-interest or no-interest loans for the purchase of homes -- that's happening across industries. Most everything else is broadening across industries. Consultants were the first ones trying to pick up second-year tuition for interns, but that has now spread across industry boundaries.

Is this creative compensation the result of consulting and investment banks -- the traditional front-runners in MBA hiring -- taking much of the MBA talent?

They have historically been the highest-paying industries. And if firms are hiring a lot of students, and they're paying well, then other industries have to increase their salaries a bit to successfully compete.

Salary compression, which has always been a problem, might also now be more directly dealt with. Whether these creative compensation packages are a direct response to that, I don't know. But it's not hard to see how work may be disrupted when a group of veterans meets a freshly minted MBA hire who, off the bat, is pulling in higher salary than they are.

Do you see this upward trend in compensation continuing for quite some time? Or is the specter of a downturn on the horizon?

I don't see it abating in the next couple of years. I-banking and consulting remain strong. What's happening in Asia could have a potential impact on the U.S. economy and on MBA demand, but I don't see that happening for a couple of years. We have had such a strong economy for the last five years, however, and as the economy goes through a downward cycle, we'll start to see some moderation.

Does the school's 32,000-person alumni base play a large role in Chicago's placement process? (The school's MBA program was founded in 1935, and has the third-largest alumni base -- behind Harvard and NYU Stern -- of BW's top 25.)

Our alumni have helped a great deal in our placement process. All the students have access to an alumni database, and in fact, many of our company recruiters are alumni. Needless to say, they've been a big source of kick-starting new company relationships with us. We also started working with local-area alums to have them coach students in writing their resumes and honing their interview skills.

What if any service do you provide for alums? Can they work with the school in finding that next job down the line?

Our office doesn't work with alumni in that capacity. But we have a separate office called the Office to Advance Career & Corporate Alliances (OACCA) that is devoted to alumni career management. It puts out a biweekly newsletter with job postings, provides personalized counseling, and offers a number of workshops. In addition to working with alumni, the office also works with part-time students.

Chicago GSB has historically had a comparatively low female student population. In 1997, just 22% of the class was made up of women -- the lowest in BW's top 25. Do female students suffer when it comes to placement? Or do they flourish because they are such a small minority?

I think they do very well here. And whether they are a minority or not, I don't know if that status gives them any advantage in terms of recruitment.

Do you provide any unique services for women on the placement front?

We do have a women's MBA student group that we work with to talk about career and placement issues. And we're also planning to do a special workshop with women on salary negotiation, as well as provide more one-on-one counseling on that topic. We've had a couple of female students voice that they weren't comfortable with their salary negotiation skills. Because many things are done by student initiative, we really try and act on student needs. So we plan to have that salary negotiation workshop available by the fall.

Who do you report your placement numbers to at Chicago GSB?

I report to the deputy dean for the full-time MBA program, and we publish an annual placement report every year.

How do you determine whether the school's placement record is successful?

From my standpoint, I measure our success in two ways: One, have the recruiters been pleased with the services we deliver; and two, are our students pleased with their employment results. Have they found the kind of jobs that they really want, and have they developed skills useful in developing their long-term careers? That's how I know if we've done a good job or not. And we learn all of that information through our annual exit survey as well as the day-to-day conversation we have with students.

Bill, despite your one-year tenure thus far, I'm sure you've seen a bunch of unusual events transpire on the placement front. What was one of the more interesting situations you've found yourself counseling a student for?

Well, we had a second-year student arrive at our doorstep this year who hadn't been in touch with our office at all during his first year-and-a-half of school. He had a background in institutional sales and trading, and had worked in that field prior to arriving at Chicago GSB, and also did a summer internship. But he decided by the time February rolled around that he didn't want to pursue that for a career anymore. So we worked with him to go through the self-assessment process to find out what his particular interests and strengths were. From that, we deduced that he was interested in working with other people, doing things like counseling and mentoring. We helped him identify that and sat down with him to figure out what opportunities were available. Together, we looked at organizational development positions and training roles.

We worked with him to develop a functionally oriented resume that did the job of translating his prior work experience. We worked with him to demonstrate a link between what he had done and what he's interested in doing. Well, to make a long story short, we continued to strategize with him and ultimately came up with the idea that executive search might be his best match: It built on his financial services and catered to his people-oriented side. And ultimately, that's what he was able to do. He got placed in a search firm in Connecticut.

Thanks, Bill, for taking the time to talk about Chicago GSB's career services situation.