Career Best
BBA Career Services creates a culture of success at McCombs
Story by Tracy Mueller ~ Photography by Sasha Haagensen
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Job Searching in a Financial Crisis
This fall, as the housing market continued its freefall, top investment banks folded and the stock market pinballed up and down with each day’s financial news, anxious alumni and students looked to McCombs for career resources. The phones really started ringing when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, said Sarah Dooley, assistant director for BBA alumni relations, in an October interview with the Austin American-Statesman.
Students and alumni have always had access to top-notch career resources. But in the wake of the international economic crisis, Dooley and Jennie Loev, director of alumni relations, worked with the BBA, MBA and MPA Career Services teams to expand their offerings to alumni. For example, to help recent graduates at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, McCombs collected and sent alumni resumes to recruiters with open positions.
“Many alumni reconnect with their alma maters during times of transition, so it was critical that we have robust career resources ready,” Loev says. “We had been developing a dynamic career Web site for three or four months, and the site went live the week before the financial crisis, so we were prepared at an important time.”
The site includes a job board, information on career coaching from McCombs alumni and networking opportunities.
Current students are concerned about their careers as well, but their job prospects have remained largely unaffected by the economic turmoil.
“Depending on a student’s anticipated career path, he or she may have to be more flexible, but we have plenty of interest from employers,” says Velma Arney, director of BBA Career Services, who notes that McCombs students are not as dependent on the financial sector as many students on the East Coast. “Even in the midst of the crisis, the undergraduate job board had more than 800 internship and full-time positions posted.”
MBA Career Services Director Stacey Rudnick says the situation is similar for graduate students.
“Less than 2 percent of our students have seen their job offers affected, whereas other schools may have 10 percent or more,” Rudnick says. “The state of mind I’m seeing in our students is one of caution, with some nervousness and urgency. But we are a core school for many companies, and recruiting has remained strong.”
Rudnick points to the annual Wall Street Trek in November, which took MBA students to New York to meet with investment banks. The trip went on as usual this year, and students visited nine companies.
“I don’t want students to be scared off from investment banking,” Rudnick says. “It’s not going away, it’s just going to be done by a smaller number of firms.”
As for accounting students, Jim Franklin, director of the Master in Professional Accounting program, says the industry has weathered the storm with few casualties.
“Within accounting, there are certain basic functions such as audits and tax returns that are always going to be part of normal business operations, so our program has been stable,” Franklin says. In fact, during fall recruiting approximately 120 accounting graduate students had more than 300 open positions available to them. And targeted career fairs and on-campus company visits mean students enter the market with a sophisticated understanding of their options.
Of course, even beyond what McCombs can offer its students and alumni is what they can offer each other, Loev says. With more than 80,000 alumni, the McCombs Alumni Network is perhaps one of the most valuable tools available to a graduate.
“McCombs alumni are passionate about the school, their experiences here and helping one another,” says Loev. “If we are doing our job well, then alumni are connecting with one another and leveraging one other as resources when the need arises.”
The largest bank collapse in U.S. history. The Dow’s worst ever single-day point drop. Unemployment figures creeping closer and closer to a 20-year high. These are sobering statistics for any worker in America, but the news this fall has been particularly alarming for recent graduates seeking their first full-time job.
Business schools across the country are scrambling to help students— and even some alumni (see sidebar)—who are concerned about their job prospects, particularly in the financial services industry. And while students at the McCombs School are not immune to the economic slowdown, they do have the support of a sophisticated career services team that keeps them connected to hundreds of employers.
“We are flush with interviews—scheduled for the rest of the year,” says Velma Arney, director of BBA Career Services, ranked the No. 2 program in the nation by recruiters in a 2008 BusinessWeek survey. “What makes McCombs unique is that we’re very diversified in our curriculum and recruiting. So right now, we can look at the financial sector and see that it’s not doing so well, but we have all these other industries that are hiring. Yes, our students go to Wall Street, but they’re also connected to energy, accounting, high tech, consulting. We’re not limited by a proximity to, or focus on, one particular industry.”
Indeed, nearly 400 companies, from Accenture to Zales, were on campus to recruit during Undergraduate Career Week, held Sept. 8-11, with 15 more on a waiting list to participate.
So what keeps employers coming to campus, even in a down economy?
“The students here are just always of a higher caliber, and their self-initiative sets them apart,” says ExxonMobil recruiter Brandon James, BBA ’99. As an alumnus, James admits he might be a bit biased, but he says the array of career services programs that have sprung up at McCombs since he graduated mean today’s students present a professional demeanor that belies their age.
“When I was a student, we did mock interviews with career services staff,” James says. “It was helpful, but I would have loved the opportunity to interview with actual recruiters, the way it’s set up now. These students are just so much more prepared for the job market.”
“HOW DO I CLEAN MY SUIT?” and other freshman questions
To ensure that preparedness, Arney and her team of six advisors reach out to students before they’ve even been accepted to McCombs to set expectations for four years of thorough training.
“This isn’t just to get them a job and get them out the door,” says Arney, who earned her BBA and MBA from McCombs. “It’s giving them the tools to help pick the right major, which leads to an internship, which points them towards an industry, and that eventually turns into a career that, hopefully, is a perfect fit.”
Career advisors begin e-mailing admitted freshmen the summer before they start classes. It’s an effort to help them start thinking about a major, but also to prepare them for the career fair and other events that take place a mere two weeks into the fall semester. For many students, getting ready for the career fair may mark the first time they purchase a suit or even tie a tie, so the advice is welcomed.
“Definitely, walking in as a freshman, I didn’t know much of anything,” says Albert Chen, a business honors senior and president of the McCombs Diversity Council, a student organization that hosts a dinner with recruiters during Career Week. “I worked hard, but I was unpolished.”
That sentiment was the inspiration for BA 101, a one-hour, forcredit class created in 2002 by BBA Career Services for all incoming business students. The syllabus includes lessons on résumé writing, perfecting a 30-second introduction, researching companies and interview follow-up.
“In BA 101, I learned tips and tricks on how to succeed and land the kind of internships I wanted,” says Chen, who has held summer positions with Merrill Lynch and Microsoft. “Basically, I just listened very carefully and did everything they suggested.”
In addition to teaching etiquette tips and tweaking résumés, the career advisors—who each teach a section of the course—encourage students to start thinking critically about a major and to look for internships in industries that pique their interest.
“One of the best things I learned in that class is to use your summers wisely,” says finance and business honors junior Farah Ahmed. Ahmed took that advice to heart and spent her summer in 2008 interning with Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, which earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for its micro-financing and community development efforts. The experience affirmed her interest in finance while opening her eyes to the prospect of using her degree for social justice, a career path she says she might want to pursue.
Ahmed is also the logistics coordinator for the BBA Women’s Council, a networking forum for female undergraduate students that hosts a recruiter roundtable and speaker series, among other events throughout the year. Armed with such meaningful credentials, Ahmed had no trouble approaching employers at this year’s career fair and pitching her skills and experience to recruiters.
“I walked into the career fair confident and with a résumé full of experience,” says Ahmed. “If it had been my first time at the career fair, it would have been so overwhelming. But I’d been through it before, and I had a set plan and targeted companies I had researched.”
Accounting sophomore Kelsey Durham can attest to the firstyear jitters that can paralyze a student who is unprepared.
“When I attended the career fair as a freshman, I didn’t even know you were supposed to wear a suit jacket,” Durham says. “I had to run home and get one. I talked to a few companies, but I didn’t really know what to say, so I left. I didn’t use any advice from Career Services, and that was a mistake.”
Durham has since volunteered at the career fair, making her more comfortable with the format and recruiters. She also went to Career Week sessions on résumé writing and how to work a career fair.
“This year, I felt like a different person,” says Durham. “Career Week is like one big how-to guide, and it’s such a relief to have someone provide this guidance.”
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