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MAY 27, 2003 B-SCHOOL Q&A: PLACEMENT The Road from Tuck Dartmouth's MBA program director Steve Lubrano says graduates can't afford to let geography limit their job search
Q: Can you give me some sense of what the job market is looking like, especially compared with last year?A: Yeah, it's really tough. Nothing comes easy. I think the silver lining is, students are looking at what they want to do rather than what they think they ought to do because they have an MBA. That has led to stronger focus, which I think will lead to greater retention in the jobs they do select. Historically, it used to be pretty easy to attend a place like Tuck, get an interview with a consultant or a banking outfit, and just take the job, even though it might not be quite right. They're not doing that this year. Last year at this time, I think we were about 61% placed for second-years. Currently, we're about 57%. It's only four percentage points down. For first-years, we were at 62% placed for internships last year. As of today, we're at 76%. So the numbers are comparing pretty well to last year, but certainly aren't as good as three or four years ago. Q: How are you doing in terms of companies coming to campus? A: We've booked 100 firms recruiting on campus. We've had 177 correspondence opportunities for the first-years and more than 320 correspondence opportunities for the second years. Back in 1996, about 55% to 60% of our students found their jobs through on-campus recruiting. Now, with consulting and banking hiring down, students are less inclined to look at firms that know their personnel needs 12 months ahead. Q: What are some examples of companies that are doing "just-in-time" hiring? A: Real estate is one. Students need to be very targeted, because it tends to be a very local play. There aren't any national real estate firms in Hanover, N.H. We've got a student who's looking at the luxury condo business down in Florida. That means he goes back and forth to Florida every other week in order to interview aggressively. And these companies aren't making simple hiring decisions. The companies need a lot of face time, a lot of exposure with the prospective hires. That's the price you need to pay to find a job you want. I would far prefer that a student do that rather than take an easy job for a year or two and grow tired of it. We also see a significant hiring increase in pharma, biotech, and in health care services. Bristol-Myers is going to take six of our students, which for us is a huge number. Wyeth, Guidant, and Johnson & Johnson are looking. Those are all firms that two, three years ago had a tough time capturing any student mind share. We also see growth in classic, general management jobs, if you will. General Electric hired three of our students for its leadership development programs. John Deere is doing the same thing. Three years ago, to find five students that would go to Moline, Ill., from Hanover -- that was a tough sell. Now students are less inclined to eliminate a company for geographic reasons if everything else is pumping on all cylinders. Q: How is the banking industry? A: It's down a little. But all the firms are recruiting on campus, or at least they're looking at students. UBS, for instance, never had much of a presence at Tuck, but this year it's our No. 1 recruiter, hiring at least 14 students between both classes. This has a lot to do with the fact that the chairman of UBS is a Tuck alum, and that's wonderful. The cool thing is that they're hiring for banking, sales and trading, fixed income, and equities. They even have a kid working in the operations group. That means they've taken a comprehensive look at their talent and their recruiting needs. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Prudential -- they all have a presence, but they're not hiring double digits. They're hiring one, two, three students. And that's fine. Frankly, I think with what's going on out there, students are lucky that such companies are even looking. Q: Consulting has always been a big draw for Tuck students. What's going on with hiring in that industry? A: We're seeing a slight uptick in consulting now, a little bit later in the season. I think that bodes well for next year. Q: Have you had to do anything extra to entice companies to come to Hanover to recruit? A: Well, I wish I had a corporate airplane like Cornell does. But the notion that in order to find talent at Tuck you need to be in Hanover is just wrong. Students aren't looking only at on-campus recruiting, although that's the most efficient method. In an ideal world, what I'd like to see is not a student with 15 offers, but rather a student who thinks carefully about what he or she wants, knows why, who goes after an employer and gets the interview. If that firm is in Poughkeepsie or Cleveland or Seattle, all you need to do is pick up the phone, articulate the reason why you're right for the job, and get on the plane. We tell students not to limit themselves to on-campus recruiting. You leverage the alumni database; you leverage the board of overseers; you reach out aggressively to executive education contacts.
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