Career Services Can Keep You on Track

This article is sponsored by EMLYON Business School. Learn more about EMLYON's MBA program.

The economy is improving. So are opportunities for newly minted MBAs.  This year’s global survey of corporate recruiters conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) would suggest so at least (as would the QS Jobs & Salary Trends Report).

On the organization’s web site, CEO and president, Sangeet Chowfla explained the survey’s results. “More companies in all sectors and across the world plan to hire business school graduates, with projected hiring rates the highest for all degree types since the Great Recession started in 2009,” Chowfla noted. “MBAs have always been valued by employers, but this survey shows that as the economy improves, employers see MBAs as a good investment into their future.”

The GMAC survey showed that some 80% of the companies responding plan to hire MBAs this year – up 30 points since 2009. Of course, improved hiring does not mean MBA students can relax. Even in a reviving economy, students who make the most of their school’s career services department are often the ones with the best internships and job placements.

Consider an MBTI questionnaire         

Even before applying to business school, you’ll want to imagine your ideal MBA career. It might be as specific as working for a Paris-based fashion label or as general as a position in finance. Know thyself is good advice. It is also frustratingly difficult for many to put into practice. Fortunately, there are questionnaires and other assessment tools that can help you find answers.

Marc Pérennès, is the head of career services at EMLYON. His department advises admitted students to begin with a MBTI questionnaire.  Widely used since its first publication in 1962, the MBTI questionnaire can help determine your personality type based on a series of questions.  Your answers can determine if you have more of an extroverted or introverted attitude, if you are more thinking or more feeling.

“The goal of knowing about personality type is to understand and appreciate differences between people,” the Myers & Briggs Foundation explains. “As all types are equal, there is no best type.” Understanding your type can reveal your ideal work style and career track.

“With the admissions process, the more you know yourself and the career track you're heading on, the better you'll be at answering the [application essay] questions,” Graham Richmond explains in a BusinessWeek article. The MBA admissions consultant believes this not only improves applicants’ chances for admission but also their success in a program.

At EMLYON, Pérennès also prepares students by sending them a questionnaire before they arrive on campus. “They are asked to tell us, for example, about company-location-position ‘dreams’ and may add any comment that can help us to better know their expectations,” he explains. “It is the first step for us to start our individualized approach.”

As Pérennès succinctly explained in a recent video posting, “The final objective of your master’s at EMLYON is employment.”

Don’t get derailed on your career track

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. With a heavy academic load and a variety of first year requirements, MBA students sometimes ignore the forest for the trees. Yet at EMLYON Business School, Pérennès points out that your MBA career track starts on day one. “Of course, there will be different steps in the process,” he points out, “from redefining your career goals to preparing a perfect pitch and targeting the right networking contacts.”

Being on a first name basis with the staff and director at the department will help you to meet deadlines for workshops and other events as well as assistance with internships and career placement.

Although the career services department is there to help, you must construct your own career track. So instead of connecting you with the opportunities, the best advisors help you find them on your own. “We want to make [students] responsible for their job search and career,” Pérennès explains. “After the first post-MBA job, they will know other job search experiences.”

Despite the range of programs your career services department might offer, from group workshops and conferences to meetings with recruiters, Pérennès believes, “The greatest part of the work should be done by the participant… defining and adapting the milestones of the career track.”

He points out “[MBA students] need to understand that this is not a quick and short-term approach. As a career advisor, you can easily see the difference between a participant doing that work and another. At some stages, both won't have immediate results but at the end the first one will transform his/her work into opportunities while the other may experience a less comfortable situation.” The university assists its students by helping them along a dedicated MBA career track.

Landing an MBA job

EMLYON career services works closely with the corporate partnership team in organizing the careers forum to help its students land an MBA job. For three days, over 100 companies visit the Lyon campus to recruit EMLYON MBA students.  Meanwhile, EMLYON’s I-Careers Platform displays over 20,000 different job offers and internships in the last year. “Then it is up to you to apply and make the difference,” Pérennès explained in an online video. “Nobody will find your internship in your place. Companies will search for a profile, a personality and you are the only one being able to play this role. Our ambition as career services team is to best prepare you for this.”

Although Pérennès concedes that “some participants will think we will bring them a job on a plate, we are not placing participants, we are supporting/helping them. It may be different in other places but it is our approach.”

 Besides helping them land their first MBA job, many career services departments help students negotiate salary. By offering workshops dedicated to the subject, specialists and coaches, students are able to get not only the MBA job they hoped for but a good salary as well. “It may be the best part of our job when a participant visits you three months before the end of the program with three job offers to ask you advice regarding salary,” admits Pérennès.

Don’t wait for alumni services

It is a sad fact that despite the exhortations of career services advisers, most students wait until the last minute to use their department. “We don't want them to start looking for a job at the end of the program and they discover they could have used our services before,” explains Pérennès.

Most of what career services departments do involves helping students find their first MBA job. These departments have limited resources and cannot always help graduates.

At EMLYON, Pérennès points out that, “A big part of the services offered to participants is integrated in the curriculum... Even if the alumni services contain workshops and conferences, it is more ‘on demand.’...there is no class anymore regarding the way it is delivered.” This is why advisors tell incoming students to make use of the career services departments before it is too late.

This article is sponsored by EMLYON Business School.