Off Campus ... and On Line
Innovation and creativity are needed if companies want to combat the M.B.A. talent shortage. Recruiters need to broaden their target market, develop long-term pipelines and become more tech-savvy.
By Greg Ruf
Human resource managers might not have heard the rumblings of a talent shortage over the thunderous applause at M.B.A. graduation ceremonies across the country this year.
Yet, the threat of a shortage in highly skilled knowledge workers -- chief among them, M.B.A. graduates -- does exist. Top business media, including the likes of CNN Money and The Economist have cautioned that a dwindling work force, increasing worldwide demand for skilled workers and globalization of the economy will hamper the recruiting efforts of even the most successful and progressive companies in upcoming years.
The talent shortage poses significant risks to companies that rely on M.B.A. talent to fill leadership positions in their organizations. The question becomes what, if anything, can companies do to deflect damage from the shortage to their long-term success and profitability.
For thoughtful input on answers to that question, human resource managers can turn to
findings from a recent MBA Focus Leadership Summit
on M.B.A. recruiting. Thirty key decision makers in M.B.A. recruiting from leading corporations and M.B.A. programs rigorously explored key trends in their field and the challenges these trends present to businesses that hire M.B.A. graduates.
They also considered possible solutions to these challenges -- and ultimately set new directions for M.B.A. recruiting that can help companies survive the upcoming talent shortage and lay the groundwork for successful recruiting in the years beyond.
One of the most vital messages to come out of the summit is this: Companies cannot stay married to existing approaches to M.B.A. recruiting and survive over the long term.
Rather, they must open themselves to creative solutions that broaden the target market of M.B.A. candidates, develop a long-term pipeline of talent and address the world view of the tech-savvy millennial generation.
Following is a brief review of key conclusions from the leadership summit and their value to recruiters at corporations across the industries that now employ M.B.A. talent.
Factors in the M.B.A. Talent Shortage
Although the number of M.B.A. graduates has not decreased, the supply of graduates is insufficient to meet growing demand. Several trends foster this shortage: First, over the past decade, an increasing number of international students have been attending U.S. graduate business programs, but the country's restrictions against hiring foreign nationals bar U.S. companies from dipping too deeply into this fast-growing segment of M.B.A. graduates.
In addition, new companies and even new industries are entering the M.B.A. recruiting market for the first time, increasing the demand for M.B.A. graduates. Simultaneously, companies that traditionally recruit M.B.A. graduates plan to hire them in greater numbers in upcoming years. (In fact, the Graduate Management Admission Council's 2007 Corporate Recruiters Survey found that employers recruiting business graduates planned to hire, on average, 18 percent more new students in 2007 than in 2006.)
The dwindling pool of available M.B.A. graduates, coupled with an increased demand for them, will lead to fierce competition among companies that seek to hire this caliber of personnel.
The good news is companies can take steps to increase the likelihood of attracting M.B.A. talent to their respective teams. Here are some ways:
Build a permanent pipeline of M.B.A. talent
Companies cannot afford to view M.B.A. recruiting as a one-time event, built solely around campus visits; instead, they need to think about building a permanent pipeline of M.B.A. talent.
Starting as early as the undergraduate level, recruiters need to identify and target talented prospects over time. Rather than waiting until the moment they are ready to hire, they need to develop a pool of potential employees who can eventually fill key positions as they become available.
Widen the search across the full spectrum of M.B.A. programs
Many corporate recruiters continue to focus recruiting efforts solely on the traditional, full-time M.B.A. student. In doing so, they ignore the rich market of candidates graduating from the part-time and executive M.B.A. programs that have grown in size and stature over the past decade. These students typically are more experienced than their full-time counterparts and can be strong candidates for a variety of positions.
The challenge for human resource departments is to reach these candidates. They generally would not be available to take part in traditional on-campus recruiting. Furthermore, most companies leave the part-time and executive-M.B.A. markets up to experienced hire programs or executive search firms -- and these programs and firms do not tend to have relationships with the M.B.A. programs. As a result, these valuable prospects often are overlooked.
To meet their challenging M.B.A. hiring goals, firms must cast a wider net, in a time- and cost-efficient manner, across all M.B.A. programs. Great M.B.A. candidates are enrolled in many regional and international M.B.A. programs, and recruiters need to identify and pursue them.
In the end, recruiters simply need to look beyond customary approaches to avenues that enable them to introduce their companies to the thousands of prospective employees enrolled in part-time and executive M.B.A. programs.
Rethink on-campus recruiting
Many recruiters long have relied upon on-campus events and interviews to present themselves to graduating M.B.A. students. Yet, this approach is expensive and time consuming for companies -- and, more to the point, increasingly ineffective.
Recruiting events are not drawing the number of students they once did. Decreasing attendance is due in part to increased demands on students' time. The M.B.A. curriculum continues to expand, requiring more student time.
Furthermore, many schools now require travel and study abroad as well as more course work in personal and leadership development. M.B.A. students simply do not have the luxury of time to attend multiple recruiting events -- no matter how exciting the events themselves.
At the very least, recruiters need to focus on quality, not quantity, in planning their on-campus events. Beyond that, they need to consider other avenues to identify and touch, in a personalized manner, prospective employees.
Meet the millennial generation
The millennial generation, so-called because its members entered adulthood at the turn of the millennium, now is entering business schools. Millennials are a different breed of student -- but, because they constitute the upcoming market of M.B.A. graduates, corporations must be able to relate to them.
Several key findings about the millennial generation lend insight to the profile of these prospects. Millennials are self-assured, civic-minded and, perhaps most important to this article, technologically adept multi-taskers. They grew up with the Internet. Raised with laptops and cell phones, they are at one with all things technological, and they expect their employers to connect with them on that level.
Millennials are, in fact, ideal candidates for a revolutionary approach to M.B.A. recruiting: Personalized Virtual Recruiting.
Personalized Virtual Recruiting
Although the overall field of talent sourcing and recruitment has found its way to the Internet, M.B.A. recruiting generally lags behind. Currently, M.B.A. recruiters continue to rely on the old mainstay -- campus events and interviews -- versus ongoing, on-line communication.
Now is the time for M.B.A. recruiters to catch up and employ technology to appeal to the millennial M.B.A. students -- while also meeting additional recruitment objectives as outlined above (i.e., developing long-term relationships with up-and-coming M.B.A. students and reaching both part-time and executive M.B.A. students).
Personalized Virtual Recruiting, so dubbed by the M.B.A. Focus group, capitalizes upon technology tools to reach out to students in an individualized and targeted manner, customizing the firm and its job offerings to each student's needs. It enables companies to better communicate their culture and values to prospective employees.
Some of those tools include:
Student resume/CV databases that allow the recruiter to search and target candidates for specific jobs. Savvy recruiters use these to gain insight into the personal and professional characteristics of potential candidates, enabling them to personalize job information and messages.
Direct-branded e-mail campaigns. E-mail is a powerful tool for communication with today's student. But e-mail campaigns must be personalized and targeted to be effective.
Podcasts. Recruiters can take advantage of new podcast and videocasting technology to engage prospective candidates. Either through a link in a personalized e-mail or through the company Web site, students can listen to or view a short talk on the advantages of working in a specific company.
Blogs. A well-targeted blog can help engage the potential employee in a more emotional and direct manner. Blogs can be managed by an employee who is an alumnus of the target school.
Personalized virtual recruiting can help corporations gain the critical competitive edge in M.B.A. recruitment.
It is time for companies to take the technological leap in M.B.A. recruiting -- as they have in all other aspects of their recruiting and general operations -- to keep the talent pipeline full and their management staff superior. Those who do not fully embrace technology to reach future and new M.B.A. graduates might not, in fact, reach them at all.
Greg Ruf is the chief executive officer of MBA Focus LLC, a Dublin, Ohio-based consulting company serving corporations that recruit top M.B.A. graduates. It has partnerships with more than 50 top M.B.A. programs and M.B.A. professional associations, and offers a proprietary software platform and consulting services. This article is based upon the findings in a white paper,
New Directions in MBA Recruiting: Managing the Talent Pipeline in a Changing Environment
, released earlier this year by MBA Focus.
October 16, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications
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