Katty Ooms Suter is the director of MBA admissions and career services at IMD (No. 3 on BusinessWeek's 2002 ranking of schools outside of the U.S.) in Switzerland. Ooms Suter started her career in marketing at Proctor & Gamble in Cincinnati and later in the Swiss market. She started teaching marketing courses part-time and that drew her into academia. Finally, a P&G colleague recruited her to work in admissions at IMD.

The school recently decided to put admissions and career placement under the same umbrella. Ooms Suter now aims to admit MBAs who will represent the school well with recruiters. She spoke with BusinessWeek Online's B-school project assistant Francesca Di Meglio. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: What is the typical job search at your school?
A: The job search starts during admissions. We try to find people who have a clear vision of what they want to do, and how the MBA, especially the IMD MBA, will help them get there. Once accepted, they have to do an online test to help them think through career possibilities. They walk into the program on Day One with a final version of their profile.

We have specific days fully dedicated to career-services courses [and] when we bring in experts or alumni. We teach students how to position themselves, how to network, how to interview, anything you can think of. Before companies come to campus, students write a full job-search strategy. I look at all of those, and then we sit down with every student to make recommendations, offer help, and identify those who might have more difficulty finding their ideal job.

Q: It has been a tough couple of years for the MBA job market. How did your MBAs fare?
A: In general we fared really well. Last year, 84% of students [had] job offers by graduation. We were up to 95% a couple of months later, which was extremely good considering the market.

It's so easy for students to be pulled into the content of the program, and their projects, and forget about the job search. Now, there are a lot more slots in the program that are mine so I can schedule either a speaker, a course, or talk to them myself. They can't ignore me! We're telling them to focus on networking, and we're helping them with that. We also give them access to the executives who come on campus. In the end, it's their job search and they need to lead it. If they just wait for the 50 companies that we bring on campus, then it's not going to be an ideal situation. They won't get the job that they really wanted.

Q: Which types of companies are missing from your list of on-campus recruiters? What are you doing to attract them?
A: If you only have 90 MBAs to offer to a company, it makes no sense to bring 200 companies on campus. We have to be very selective. We try to focus on those companies that really can recruit a couple of people out of a diverse group. These 90 people come out of 40 different countries and want to go to 60 different countries. You really need companies that have international recruiting that's at least focused on one or two regions.

But I don't think I have to attract companies to campus. I feel as comfortable making the right match between an MBA and a company that doesn't come on campus as I do with an on-campus recruiter.

Q: Has there been a lack of diversity among recruiters, as some students have griped in the past? If so, what are you doing to change that?
A: Ninety people want to go in ninety different directions and that's probably why there were complaints about a lack of diversity. We have the main consulting companies, and then we have quite a diverse range of companies from [different] industries.

In addition, we have something called the Corporate Development Team that sells the IMD executive programs. They're in touch with companies on a day-to-day basis, as are our faculty...[and can tell when] companies [have] an interest in hiring. That company might end up coming on campus or someone there will have a phone conversation with me to tell me exactly what he needs. Then I'll forward three or five or ten [Curriculum Vitaes] to them.

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