The Millennials Invade the B-Schools

(page 2 of 4)

Browse Issues

Browse the BusinessWeek Archive

Related Items

• Interactive Table: Return On Investment

At No. 1 Chicago, multitasking Millen­nials are making their presence felt at the B-school Michael L. Abramson

At Harvard, social enterprise has become the most popular club on campus Porter Gifford

At Wharton, students have the option of majoring in sustainability Jennifer S. Altman

Story Tools

• post a comment
• e-mail this story
• print this story
• order a reprint
• suggest a story
• digg this
• save to del.icio.us

And they're not going to wait to do it. Millennials are showing a far greater interest in B-school at a younger age than previous generations. Most B-schools prefer applicants who are 26 to 28 because they have enough work experience to contribute to class discussions. But last year, 38% of those who took the GMAT B-school admissions exam were under 25, up from 30% in 2004. Some programs have been inundated with applicants. Last year, SMU Cox, which accepts no more than five under-25 students a year, got nearly 300 applications from that age group—nearly 40% of the applicant pool—and accepted four. For B-schools, such decisions are difficult, since they know Millennials are unlikely to take no for an answer. "We either get them now, or we don't get them at all," Armstrong says.

Darkening Clouds

One reason for the flood of young applicants may be the looming recession, which in years past has sent many scurrying for the relative safety of B-school. Another might be the surprisingly high salaries reported by the outgoing class of 2008. Among graduates who responded to our survey, average salaries were up 9% from 2006, to $104,000, and that doesn't factor in signing bonuses or other compensation. But a lot has changed since those numbers were reported this summer, and it's hard to tell how many of these newly minted MBAs are still in the positions they started in just a few months ago—or how many may lose their jobs in the months ahead. Either way, it's safe to say that current MBA students won't be so lucky, with the current market for MBA talent unstable at best.

With a recession threatening, the class of 2009 and beyond will need to work harder to land their dream jobs—and they'll be looking for B-school placement officers who work just as hard on their behalf. For two years, Lisa Feldman, director of recruiting at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business (No. 10), has been experimenting with new approaches to the old-fashioned recruiter information session. Large and impersonal, these sessions held little appeal for Millennials, so Feldman adopted a "speed networking" approach that allows small groups to spend 10 minutes with a succession of company reps. Each one fields questions and discusses a specific aspect of the company, such as pay or benefits. "It's more of a give and take," Feldman says.

Such a "high touch" approach will be more in demand as Millennials begin occupying more B-school slots. Students are demanding more hand-holding from advisers. In the past, MBAs would meet with a career adviser once or twice a semester. Now they want weekly meetings to go over career strategies. At Berkeley, MBAs participated in 1,800 advising sessions last year, a 37% rise over the year before. Interest in more frequent sessions is also up at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management (No. 30), where students want to consult with their mentor advisers even during summer internships. "It seems that there is almost a professionalization of their career management starting in high school," says Tuck Dean Paul Danos. "Maybe even earlier."

To meet this voracious appetite for career information, some schools are turning to technology—a natural fit for Millennials. Roxanne Hori, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at Kellogg, was struggling to find the best way to communicate job-related information to students. E-mail wasn't working; student in-boxes were stuffed. So last month she began blogging. Her posts cover job market updates, on-campus events, and what she's hearing from recruiters. So far, feedback from students has been positive. "It's another tool to give this generation of students information they want as fast as they want it," Hori says.