Stanford B-School Pitches a "Premium Product"

Even though on-campus recruiting isn't the focus at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, MBA students get the jobs they want, says Andy Chan, assistant dean and director of the MBA Career Management Center at the B-school. Chan earned both his undergraduate degree and his MBA at Stanford, in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He then made the rounds in the business world, working in consumer products for Clorox (CLX ), consulting for Bain & Company, and helping run a technology business, the Learning Company, before returning to his alma mater four years ago.

Chan is especially fond of the business school's small size, which fosters close ties among students, encourages alumni to help each other in the job market, and allows for personalized career services. Of the 301 students seeking full-time employment in the class of 2005, 95% had jobs three months after graduating. Chan recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online Project Assistant Meredith Bodgas. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Why doesn't Stanford have as many companies recruiting on campus as other schools?
I like to describe what we have as a premium product. There isn't a large supply and it's fairly high priced, so it's not for the general market. Coming on campus to recruit may not be a good use of companies' time, because they won't be able to hire many people at once since our class is small. Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School are in a corridor of the country with many businesses around, but we're out in California. Still, many big companies hire our graduates, just not necessarily through on-campus recruiting.

How do the students feel about that?
Students who come here will learn to go about the job process on their own, which is most likely the way they're going to do it for the rest of their lives, so it's helpful to them. They realize that on-campus recruiting would pit students against each other for spots, but if they go out to get the jobs themselves, they're not competing with as many other Stanford students.

So how do they get hired?
Almost one-third are hired through on-campus recruiting. But our students have discovered that there are many interesting jobs out there, and the best way to get one is to...

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