There has been a lot written lately about how business
schools can better match their graduates with prospective employers. The March
6 Wall Street Journal article “In Job Hunt, B-Schools Play Matchmaker,”
by Melissa Korn is a recent example of this conversation. For me, seeing a
major national publication give this issue some ink was like breath fresh air.
Although the article focuses on large schools, it vindicates the thinking we
have championed at Lynn University—a small, independent school in Boca Raton,
Fla.
Bringing business students out from behind their desks
and into the real world is a key aspect we champion, and I’d like to continue
the conversation on this topic by pointing out that you don’t have to be one of
the elites to do this. Any size school, such a Lynn, can reorient their
thinking to put “matchmaking” high on the priority list. Here are some thoughts
on how it can be done.
We’ve been working with regional and national businesses,
meeting with leaders and introducing our B-School and our students. As part of
this process, our understanding of the importance of introducing the right
student to the right company has matured and become more subtle. As the article
mentions, businesses are not hiring large numbers of students at once so
they don’t want schools sending them 100 resumes. Schools need to work hard to
understand what a business wants and find the right students for them. To help
do this, we’ve moved one of our executives-in-residence who has years of
experience in the HR field over from a teaching position to a staff position to
lead these efforts.
From our experience, preparation should also be a key
part of the process. We’ve built a class, together with the business community,
into our January Term (our mini semester) that has as its theme, Career
Preparation and Internship. We tested that class this year and had overwhelming
positive feedback not only from students who took the class (we thought we
would have around 15 students in the class and ended up with 37 students) but
also from our business partners who participated in the class.
It’s also important not to wait until a student’s senior
year. Our program also includes, in a class for freshman, Entrepreneurship and
Innovation—a section where we get students to think of their own personal
brand. They have to think about what that means to them in terms of the things
that they need to do over the course of their college and how their brand can
help them prepare for their career.
To ensure we make any needed adjustments to adapt to the
ever-changing conditions in the business world, we are working with members of
the business community through our College's Board of Advisors to further
extend and enhance the program.
We understand that the job market has changed, and we
believe that part of our responsibility includes not just helping to
prepare students for that first job, but also to help make some of those
introductions. Ultimately, as the article argues, it’s up to the student to get
the job, but we as educators have to do much more to help them get that first
job out of school.
And finally, prospective parents love this initiative, so
it’s great for our marketing. Students entering B-school today have a higher
expectation of assistance as they know the job market still lags the recovery
and landing that first job may require a team effort.
