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MAY 29, 2003 B-SCHOOL Q&A: PLACEMENT Chicago Gets MBAs to Focus First Chicago B-School's associate dean of MBA career services tells students to embrace their pasts, and focus on their transferable skills
Q: The last time BusinessWeek Online checked in with the career services office at Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB), the office's biggest issue was that recruiters were leaving campus empty-handed because graduates were fielding numerous job offers. How would you paint the recruiting picture at Chicago this year? A: It has been a tough market -- a tough slog for our students. We had [slightly] fewer companies come to campus, and those companies made fewer job offers than in the past. On the positive side, we've seen a small uptick in recruiting very recently. We've seen students stay remarkably positive and focused about their job search. My gut says that we're on par with last year. And in 2002, three months after graduation, 82% of the class had offers in hand or had accepted offers. But the jury is still out. Q: Where have you noted this uptick? A: A couple of consulting firms have asked if there are still students seeking jobs. We've seen more job opportunities from corporations than from the service industries, such as investment banks and consulting firms. The major functions that the "corporates" are hiring for are finance, marketing, and strategy. It's a small uptick. We've also been doing a lot of outreach to companies through our faculty, alumni, [participants in our] executive education and part-time programs, and via our council, the Council on the Graduate School of Business, which is like a corporate advisory board. We've gone out to current students in our executive programs, and graduates of those programs, saying, 'We have students looking for jobs who have the same kind of training that you got while you were here. If you're interested, here's how to reach those students.' And it has been quite successful. From September to May 1, our correspondence opportunities -- or companies posting jobs online with us but not coming to campus -- have been up 40% over last year. Q: Chicago's full-time MBA program was ranked No. 2 by BusinessWeek in 2002. Does a B-school's ranking make a difference to recruiters when they choose schools to visit? A: Frankly, I don't know. The GSB hasn't changed what it stands for. It has always been strong academically, and employers have always come here to seek that kind of academic rigor. They come here for the quality of teaching, and the quality of the students. Q: Are job search trips, such as Chicago's West Quest, Bank Week, Euro Quest, Power Quest and the Media and Entertainment trip, an entry into a soft job market? Or are students turning up in Silicon Valley only to find themselves with more free time on their hands than business meetings? A: These trips are organized by the students. They've gone to London, to the West coast, and there's a group that goes to the investment banks on Wall Street in December. We've seen a broadening in treks, or quests. In the past year, they had a brand week in New York City, where they visited consumer packaging companies. The Latin American student group went to Sao Paolo. And at West Quest they didn't target just high-tech companies, as they might have a couple of years ago, but also visited an investment management firm and a consulting firm. Q: When BusinessWeek surveyed Chicago's grads in 2002, about 35% said that they found their full-time job through their summer internships. How strong is recruiting for summer interns this year? Is there any indication that an improved job market will reward Chicago's class of 2004? A: Our first-years are in good shape regarding summer internships. Classes here don't finish until early June, and we're ahead of where we were last year in terms of internship offers. Last year, 98% of those students who sought an internship landed one. Typically, the number of students who get offers from their summer internships has hovered around 35%. That percentage is a reflection of the companies that make offers to students after internships. By and large, those are the companies recruiting on campus, many of which are management consulting firms and investment banks. So it doesn't surprise me that that number hasn't shifted dramatically. However, the number of students accepting a job offer from their internship firm has shifted from 25% four years ago, to 50% in 2002, to 95% this year. Q: What attitudes among the students does that reflect? A: It's a direct reflection of economic uncertainty. If I had a good summer experience, and I got a job offer, then I'm going to jump on it. Q: What's your outlook for next fall? A: We're on target for where we were at this time last year with the companies that have booked to be on campus in the fall. Two telling pieces of news are that 90% of the companies that made offers to students this year have already booked to return -- which means that our largest hirers are returning -- and four new companies have signed up for on-campus recruiting. Four might not sound like a lot, but to have four companies in May say that they want to come interview next fall is really exciting. The companies include two investment management companies, one investment bank, and one retail company. The retail company is a relatively new spin for us, since it's not a company that typically would come to recruit.
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