The Best MBA Schools: Are There Any?

Posted by Jim Stroud

January 24, 2007

Because I am one of the owners of CollegeRecruiter.com and my daily work with college and university students who are searching for internships and recent graduates looking for entry level jobs and other career opportunities, I’m often asked by our employer clients for a list of the “top” schools from which to recruit MBA’s, undergraduates, or other types of students. Any list that you find of the ‘top’ schools from which to recruit is a list that you should not place much stock in. The reason is that the best schools for your organization may be the worst for another organization. What is important isn’t the prestige or name recognition of a school. What is important is whether the students at that school will be a good fit for your organization.

Many and perhaps most organizations which are new to college and university recruiting make the mistake of assuming that they can just show up on-campus the first day of the first year of interviewing there, open the doors to the interview room, and hire the candidates they want from the most prestigious schools. Wrong. College and university recruiting is strategic. It can take years to develop the relationships and name recognition at those schools that are necessary before you can succeed.

Don’t recruit at a school simply because senior management wants you to recruit there, even if they went to those schools. Do recruit at a school if the types of employees you want to recruit graduate from those schools. Also, don’t just send a recruiter to any on-campus event. They should always be accompanied by a hiring manager and preferably a senior level manager. Those managers should have attended or have some strong connection to the school and they should be aggressively networking for months and even years beforehand with the school’s faculty and staff.

College and university recruiting is a fantastic way of recruiting tomorrow’s leaders today, but it is not simple and it is not a silver bullet.

Steven Rothberg is the President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading career site used by college students who are searching for internships and recent graduates who are hunting for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

This CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap article is courtesy of Recruiting.com at http://www.Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students and recent graduates who are searching for internships and entry level jobs.