If your primary reason for applying to business school is for career advancement, experts say it’s essential to compare the quality of career services at MBA programs.
Rebecca Zucker, an alumna of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, says conversations with career services professionals were one of the key factors that swayed her to attend Stanford instead of another top business school where she was accepted.
[Consider internship opportunities when choosing an MBA program.]
Zucker, an executive coach and partner at Next Step Partners, a leadership development firm, says she asked the career services professionals to describe their role in helping MBA students with job searches.
Their answers were revealing, she says. The one school’s career official told her an MBA student has personal responsibility to find a job after graduation.
“I forget the exact words that they used, but the message was basically you’re on your own,” she says.
Zucker says Stanford’s official was more reassuring. “They basically said our job is to find you find a really good job, so it felt much more supportive and collaborative,” she says.
[Define your career goals before applying to an MBA program.]
Here are three questions experts say prospective MBA students should ask to gauge the quality of an MBA program’s career services and support.
1. How successful are the program’s recent graduates? “One of the best tricks I have ever learned is to go on LinkedIn, for example, find people who got the degree that you plan to get and see where they ended up,” Kristen Zierau, practice director with Clarke Caniff Strategic Search, said in an email.
“If you see a certain school’s supply chain-focused MBA has led a large portion of their graduates into supply chain jobs, that is a positive sign. If you see a bunch of supply chain focused MBA’s selling insurance, then be concerned.”
Erica Zahka, a 2016 MBA graduate from Babson College’s Olin Graduate School of Business, says it is unwise to rely heavily on a business school’s marketing materials when evaluating how well it prepares graduates for the workforce.
“I think you miss a lot when you are just getting that second-hand information,” says Zahka, CEO and founder of Own the Boardroom, a company which rents professional attire.
Talking to current MBA students and recent grads is crucial, Zahka says. She adds that it’s also beneficial for MBA applicants to find out what proportion of a business school’s alumni work in their dream jobs.
Jeff McNish, assistant dean of career development at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, says that instead of just the most recent figures, prospective students should look at several years of salary data and employment statistics for MBA graduates at different programs.
Looking at a single year of placement data can give MBA applicants a distorted picture, McNish says, because of fluctuations in the data.
Erin Breslin, a 2009 MBA graduate of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, says one way to evaluate an MBA program’s career services is to look at its placement rates during the last economic recession and compare those rates to those of other MBA programs during the same time period.
“A good year can mask issues with job placement,” says Breslin, the CEO of All Set, a housekeeping marketplace. “There’s more variance in a really bad year.”
[Understand why to consider a school’s career services before applying.]
2. What do recent grads say about the program’s career services? Experts say MBA applicants should ask recent graduates about the quality of their program’s career services. Zierau suggests contacting MBA alumni through LinkedIn.
McNish says MBA applicants who are undecided about their career paths should ask recent grads how the career center helped them explore career options and discover a good fit.
High-quality MBA career centers offer guidance to students who are unsure about their career plans, McNish says.
3. Is there a significant amount of on-campus recruiting? Experts say MBA students at business schools with an abundance of on-campus interview opportunities are more likely to graduate with jobs. MBA applicants should inquire about which companies recruit on campus and see whether alumni frequently visit campus to network with MBA students, experts say.
Zierau says MBA applicants should avoid business schools that lack on-campus recruiters. Otherwise, she says, “you’re going to get stuck applying online to the same jobs thousands of current students and alumni are applying for.”
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3 Questions to Ask About MBA Career Services originally appeared on usnews.com
