Part-Time MBAs: Job Fairs for Us, Too

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Stern Expands Options

Now in the second year of a program established to permit part-timers to participate in on-campus recruiting for full-time positions, Stern administrators say that about 40% of graduating part-time students initially show interest in recruiting. Of those 700 students, about 130 complete the requirements to go through on-campus recruiting. And 20% of them received at least one job offer as a result of their participation in 2006. In 2007, about 260 part-time students originally signed up for on-campus recruiting, but the number has dropped to 140 because they did not all meet the requirements. This is an improvement from the 1% of part-time students who went through the on-campus process with full-time students five to seven years ago, says Gary Fraser, dean of students and associate dean of MBA student affairs.

Having created a career center exclusively for the part-time students, Stern administrators say the school will train students to reach their desired goals. "As long as someone's a Stern student, he or she has career services for life," says Fraser. The expectation, he says, is that part-time students will remain working professionals while in the program, which is why a summer internship is out.

Although Stern's restrictions are a little more stringent than many other part-time programs, they're not unusual. And many administrators at business schools say students know what they're signing up for when they join a part-time program. Julie Morton, associate dean of career services at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, admits that part-timers pay the same tuition as full-timers but adds that they are paying for a different service entirely. "You bought a different program," says Morton. "They're both shoes, but one is heels and the other is flats."

Chicago's Strategy

Morton sees her mission as facilitating job opportunities that are tailored for different students. Her team offers many of the same programs for part-time and full-time students—from self-assessment to résumé writing—but there are slight differences to account for the fact that part-timers are usually at work during the day (when much of recruiting and training takes place for full-time students) and tend to have more work experience.

About four years ago, Chicago opened on-campus recruiting for full-time positions to part-time students to better accommodate students and recruiters. Like Stern, Chicago GSB does not permit part-timers to go after internships through on-campus events. In 2007, 212 of 1,400 part-time students are participating in on-campus recruiting. But Morton stresses to them that the journey toward work satisfaction is much broader. "On-campus recruiting is one prong of a job search strategy," she says.

Indeed, some schools continue to believe that part-time students are a different breed with completely different needs. Part timers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign can participate in two large career fairs and attend company information sessions to network, but they are prohibited from on-campus interviewing. The school's argument, says Annetta Culver, senior director of MBA career services and student affairs, is that traditional on-campus recruiting is for full-time students, who have fewer roots and are willing to move anywhere and have less work experience.

A "Work in Progress"

The situation, however, is not completely stagnant. "As demands change, the level of service and response to those demands will have to change," Culver says. Some schools are already revolutionizing their part-time MBA career services. For instance, for the past two years, part-time students at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business have no longer needed notes from employers to participate in on-campus recruiting for full-time positions. They can even try to snag an internship, but they have to sign a professionalism form promising to quit their jobs before the internship starts. In 2006, at least 24 students chose to leave their full-time employer to take an internship they earned through on-campus recruiting, says Pat DeMasters, director of career services for the Evening &Weekend MBA program, the Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA program, and alumni at Haas. Since DeMasters was hired last year, she has made it a priority to create programs for part-time MBAs that match those for full-time. And the school is experimenting with a résumé database that will be free to potential employers and an annual career fair, both for experienced hires.

Each school and each school's students are unique. But most part-time students seem to want business schools to grow ever more open-minded about their career goals. Gary says NYU, for one, is moving in the right direction. "[Administrators] are listening and trying," he says. "Nothing is perfect, but it's definitely a work in progress."

Di Meglio is a reporter for BusinessWeek Online in Fort Lee, N.J.