A New Degree Of Competition

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In a Tough Job Market, Placement Wars Spur Business Schools to Give MBAs an Extra Push

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 12, 2003; Page E01


Jay Gelfman heard the voice-mail message from a company between classes. The caller from a potential employer wanted Gelfman, a 27-year-old MBA student, to come in for an interview. After listening intently to the message to make sure he heard correctly, he ran "like a 2-year-old" upstairs to find Patty Buchek so she could listen to the message and give her own assessment -- and perhaps a pat on the back.

Buchek is a consultant with the executive search firm Stanton Chase International. But for three months this spring, she is part of a team of executive placement specialists working full time with graduating MBA students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business career services department.

Smith's strategy -- bringing in a shock troop of specialists to make sure its 200 graduating MBAs have the best shots at good jobs -- is part of an escalation in the job placement wars going on at the country's top business schools.

The heat is on to get graduates into high-paying positions at major companies, and job placement statistics play a large part in an institution's national ranking among the best schools.

Also, companies that once hired MBAs by the gross are now tightfisted and increasingly fickle, making the pressure even more intense, both for the students and the schools sending them out into the world.

Today's graduating MBA students are facing one of the toughest job markets in years. Many MBA students, in fact, went back to school two years ago in an attempt to wait out the slump. Now, with no place left to go, their nail-biting anxiety is at its peak. Buchek has become part adviser, part den mother as students figure out how to improve their odds.

At the University of Maryland's Smith, four full-time executive search consultants from Stanton Chase International were hired temporarily to head up weekly strategy sessions with job seekers, work their own contacts for the students and advise the soon-to-be graduates on dilemmas such as how many times is too many to call someone with whom they interviewed.

"This is a natural progression of where our industry is going," said Mike Agnew, assistant dean for career services at the school. "We understand that we cannot just sit in our offices and wait for companies to come to us."

The strain on MBA students is high. Sau Thong Lee, a student at the Smith school, said the job "just kind of monopolizes my mind."

In Buchek's group, the seven students sat in desks in a semicircle a couple of weeks ago, some with notebooks in hand, others with half-finished Mountain Dews to keep them awake throughout their day as full-time MBA students -- and perhaps into the night, as full-time job seekers.

When Gelfman recounted his job search, he told the others that an interview that week had gone well. "Granted, I thought the others went well, too," he said to laughter. The company told him that he was the front-runner for the job but that they would still interview a few other candidates.

So while he is waiting, what he wants to know is this: How many times can he follow up without annoying the company?

"You want to give the impression that you still want it. But you don't want to be a pain," he said, voicing a common worry of all job seekers. "Granted, I am desperate, but I don't want to sound desperate."

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Hiring four top consultants full time for three months is not cheap, but Agnew is sure it was the right thing to do.

"How could we not afford to use every resource available to help our students launch careers? It's novel and bold, and we're not doing other things because of this," he said. "It was a sacrifice to our community, but we thought this was the right step."

Not only does it help students, it also adds to the school's ranking on lists, such as those put out by Business Week magazine. The lists are a key recruiting tool for the best students and faculty.

"It so happens that the rankings measure placement rates and these kinds of things that rate how well we're doing. But I wouldn't say this is driven by rankings," Agnew said of the consultants.

Whether for rankings or no, top-rated schools around the country are taking extraordinary measures to improve their students' chances.

Agnew said that the Smith school is not able to release this year's placement figures but that the students are slightly ahead of last year's, when 50 to 60 percent of the class accepted offers. Among the 100 students in the Stanton Chase program, 33 students had job offers as of May 6.

The recent trends are not encouraging. In 1998, 80 percent of Smith's MBA graduates seeking employment had jobs by the time they graduated. In 2002, 54.4 percent did.

Harvard Business School's career services office this year also hired outside consultants to work with MBA students. Those who are interested can call and work with the career coaches throughout their tenure as students. The school pays for the consultants.

So far, 80 percent of the graduating class have job offers, and about 65 percent have accepted them.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania hired Peter Degnan this year to be its new director of MBA career management. He brings to the job the perspective of having worked as an investment banker for 20 years. Wharton's career center, which is tapping search firms to help students this year, expects the same percentage of graduating MBA students -- about 76 percent -- to have jobs as last year.

S.C. Johnson, the namesake of Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, paid to fly recruiters in on his corporate jets in March.

Other schools are footing the bill to take students to the companies, instead of waiting for recruiters to come to them. Almost all schools have beefed up the staff in their career centers, or fired and hired new directors.

American University's Kogod School of Business boosted job search efforts and took students to companies this year, now that many companies have reduced on-campus recruiting.

"We've taken students on a roadshow," said Kristine Korva, director of graduate career services.

For spring break, 25 students visited five companies in New York. Another 20 to 30 students visited D.C. area companies and organizations recently.

"They have smaller staffs, less bandwidth to go to campuses," said Korva. "We need to make it easier to see our students, so we come to you."

At George Washington University, MBA students were recently treated to what was billed as a "Just in Time" recruiting fair. Thirty companies that have last-minute job openings or internships to fill came to the school to recruit job seekers in what was a kind of speed-dating event for grads.

"Many companies are waiting longer to do the hiring," Korva said, a common complaint among those who tried to get a job earlier in the semester. But as companies tighten budgets, they often hold off on hiring until they are sure they can afford it.

Georgetown University has an entirely new staff at its business school career center. With that came new ideas. Amy G. McNamara, assistant director of employer relations, said they are doing anything they can to introduce their students to potential employers.

Companies that used to be charged a fee for access to the school's books of student résumés are now given them free. Executive search firms came to a fair in April where they offered their services to students. And Georgetown, along with 18 other schools in an MBA consortium, has access to a virtual career fair, run through MonsterTrak. "We're doing it because we're in a market where companies have the upper hand," said McNamara.

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The schools and students are seeing results from these efforts.

Nicole Welch, 27, is to graduate this spring from Smith with her MBA -- and a job. She went to a presentation a few months ago that explained what Stanton Chase International would do at the school. She decided right then to sign up. "Why wouldn't you?" she asked.

The school is footing the bill, and the only effort required of her was once-a-week sessions with fellow students to discuss exactly what she was doing in her job search.

She and Mickey Matthews, a consultant with Stanton Chase, put together a list of companies that interested her. Matthews knew contacts at two of the firms and forwarded her résumé. She received one offer in writing and one verbal offer.

"They've been good about helping to expand my network," Welch said.

"And there's nothing like peer pressure to get you going."

She feels very fortunate that she found a job in this economy. "I knew I had to be a little more persistent this year," she said.

Which is much the way Agnew felt as career services dean.

"Acting the same way as when we were not in this [economic] situation seems unwise," said Agnew.

"Those students are facing those challenges. We need to encourage them in this market and give them hope, which I think we've done."