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APRIL 12, 2000 B-SCHOOL Q&A: PLACEMENT Meet Michigan's Placement Director "With the New Economy companies, it has a lot more to do with who you are connected to, what exposure you have to a certain industry or to venture capital, whether you have failed before, or whether you have done anything on your own previously."
Q: You've been at Michigan for two years — two years when the economy has been going at top speed and grads haven't had to worry much about getting a job. But they do want the right job. How have their needs changed since your arrival? A: We provide more education on the informational interviewing that happens when the students are networking. That was always part of the game, but if a student was not aggressive, he or she could settle back, wait for companies to come to campus, go through the interview grind, and have a reasonable shot at securing an offer. With the New Economy companies, it has a lot more to do with who you are connected to, what exposure you have to a certain industry or to venture capital, whether you have failed before, or whether you have done anything on your own previously. Q: Michigan serves 862 full-time MBAs. How do you personalize the career search process for each one of them, and keep them happy all the while? A: We utilize a group of 35 trained, second-year MBA students. They're available and hold counseling hours for the first-year students and their own classmates. When we form that group of counselors, we work hard to ensure that every possible interest and demographic is represented. So if you want manufacturing, technology, brand, or if you're an international student, we want to have it represented in our counseling team. We've found that the personal touch of people who've had some experience, coupled with coaching, personalizes it for the students as they conduct their career search. We also formed Career Search Groups, which are teams of from five to nine students that get together weekly to network for each other. The task is for each member to come each week with two or four new contacts, connections, or conversations, not so much for themselves, but for their group members. They really learn how networking takes place, which is a lot of what's driving the New Economy. Q: In 1999, 5% of Michigan's graduates chose jobs with companies of less than 100 employees. What do you expect to happen with that figure in 2000? A: At least 65 students will go to work in such companies — probably 12% of the class. Already, at least 45 of the graduates are consciously graduating without a job so that they can come out west with us to interview next month. Q: So Michigan will continue its West treks after graduation, which is on April 28 this year? A: Absolutely. We told them that we'd be providing a framework out there. This group of students went through the traditional interview process somewhat and knew they wanted to do something different. So we established the fact that we'd go to Palo Alto in mid-May.
Q: What have been the obstacles for the old and the newer companies in recruiting Michigan's first and second-year MBAs? A: For the old companies, [the obstacles] are the allure of the new companies. More of the students are waiting to go out to California to startup [companies], so they won't interview until the last second. The older companies are changing their pitches to combat the perception [that they're Old Economy]. A lot of the recruiters are setting up the opportunity [for the candidate] to do something that feels more entrepreneurial within the existing corporate structure. Q: Dot-com and startup recruiters get a lot of slack for being late to the recruiting game. Many wait to hire graduates until the minted MBAs are ready to start work. How are they faring as novice recruiters at Michigan? A: They're relying on networking, as they have for so many years. The New Economy companies use their alumni effectively that way. And the Michigan alumni at New Economy companies seem to be more focused, helpful, and driven to hire Michigan students than the alumni from Old Economy companies. Q: Are any startups mimicking what the more traditional MBA recruiting companies do to snag bright talent? A: Not really. Transitionally, the Old Economy technology companies that have been around and are now big - Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, 3Com, and Cisco - recruit on the traditional schedule, and start coming to campus in the fall. But the smaller, entrepreneurial startups don't recruit on campus. They've got everyone working as hard as they can and want to talk to graduates when they're ready to start working. Q: How else is Michigan accommodating increasing demands for assistance with the independent job searches of its MBAs? Linking MBAs to startup companies can't be easy if you're not familiar with the company to begin with. A: Startups don't have the time or the wherewithal to conduct nationwide searches, so we accommodate them by setting up "bookend" events in the fall, and again in the spring. At these forums in Silicon Valley, our students and alumni meet with recruiters invited from companies in the area. I call it "bookend" simply because we go in the fall and then we go back in the spring. We also have a "Michigan Web Recruiter" that is enhanced every year to make resume and job searches easy. Virtually all of our students will use our Web Recruiter or our alumni network to get a position. If you want to focus just on New Economy companies, nobody who gets a job does so without networking with our alumni and using the Web Recruiter. Q: Last year, Michigan graduates received an average of $20,000 each in signing bonuses. That's before the average base salary of $80,000. First years got $18,000. With such a high demand for management talent, are you noticing an upward push on salary levels? A: Yes, even for the New Economy companies. Two or three years ago, there was a strong dichotomy between the old and New Economy companies. Old Economy companies were clearly salary, plus bonus, throw in security, and that's what you were going to get. For New Economy companies, salary was not part of the equation, but there were [stock] options and allure to make students willing to take a risk. Now, New Economy companies have begun to elevate salaries to get a bit more competitive. Still, those companies are not going to come back and offer you $100,000 base and a $25,000 signing bonus. They're so tied in with venture capital money, that they just can't. And I've started to hear some of the Old Economy companies talk about getting creative with equities and options. I haven't seen anyone do that yet, but you're starting to hear the rumblings. We're really seeing a convergence. Q: How about evaluating the stock-option packages that the dot-com folk promote as compensation? I'd bet that your counselors have to use their calculators more often than they used to. A: There are formulas that the MBAs all know very well that try to gauge what the market value of an option at a given moment in time is. It's still, admittedly, an estimation. It's especially hard as some of the older, bigger companies start to acquire smaller companies. That's a whole other variable to factor in and to make students ask, "What will happen to these options if I'm acquired before anything happens?" Q: Michigan has traditionally attracted larger consulting firms to campus. Among the heaviest recruiters are PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. Who are the newest players? A: On campus, we continue to see technology companies such as Cisco, 3Com, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. Dell has been a big employer of ours. From the smaller New Economy companies, it runs the range, and there's a lot of variety. Those are the ones that the students are expressing interest in. Q: You've mentioned a lot about networking and even venture to say that it can be taught to shy MBAs. Tell me more. A: Part of it is our career search guides. Part of it's taking the mystery out of it. We do it by example and role-play. It sounds basic, and for a lot of people it is. It's a natural thing that they do. But by going through and opening up their eyes as to how positive a practice it can be, it really seems to help and open it up for a lot of students. Q: Looking ahead to the next academic year, what will your office do differently? A: We will enhance our Web Recruiter again. We've also changed our on-campus presentation format. Students have become more focused on the kinds of jobs that they want. For example, investment banking, consulting, or technology. So we're going to set it up so that the students don't have to make a choice between two consulting, investing, or technology firms on a given presentation night. We'll continue our bookend visits in the fall for a pure networking session, where our alumni host a reception and area recruiters and employers can stop in. The point is not to interview in the fall, but to get to know people, and learn a little bit more about the companies. Then we'll bookend again next spring during spring break. That's when we'll conduct our interviews. Q: Do you have any advice for pre-MBAs, job seekers, or recruiters? A: First, stay focused on what you are going to find satisfying in a career. And it's been an interesting thing: Students over the last year have felt a different pressure, and that is that they don't want to be the one who says, "I got my MBA during the best economy in the history of the world. And I blew it on a bad career choice." I sense that it's almost a panic for them to choose. It seems like a very pleasant problem to have. But my advice to them is, when you're feeling that way, go back to your basics, and decide what kinds of things you'll find satisfying. Stay focused on that. Talk to somebody in the field, so that you can stay focused on that. And then, once you pick an area, stick with it, and go after it. People need to realize that they're going to be working a long time, and a lot of options and opportunities are going to offer a change in direction. So don't fret about it now. Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | APRIL Learn about your online education options |
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