Business First

Career Fair version of speed dating gives MBAs face time with employers

Forty-eight fast-track MBA students who are enrolled in UM’s new one-year program got their chance to impress potential employers at the School of Business Administration’s first MBA Career Fair in February 2005.

After separating into seven small teams that rotated every 15 minutes to a different company among the 12 stationed on the ballroom floor, UM students engaged professionals in informal chats that centered on company goals and expectations, as well as students’ academic prowess, skills and qualifications.

“This is a great opportunity they’ve set up for us,” says MBA student Coyote Marino of Colorado Springs, Colo. “UM’s MBA program gives us a solid background for what we’ll have to do. It has been intense, but it’s been good. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. It mirrors the real world, where you don’t have time to fall behind.

“I think this career fair sets people up for the work environment,” Marino adds.

UM business school leaders believe that promoting such gatherings is vital for talented students to land lucrative jobs.

“The students were pleased because this was specifically for MBA students,” says John Holleman, director of MBA administration at Ole Miss.

UM’s one-year MBA program, which was first offered to new students in July 2004, was first extended to MBA students who began their studies in July 2003. Previously, all MBA students were required to complete two years of course work with a specialization; the only difference is that students are no longer required to have a specialization, Holleman says. Class size will be selective and held to between 50 and 55 students each year, he adds.

“UM’s accelerated program is attractive to students who have been working and want to take a leave to get an MBA,” Holleman says. “That has been a large part of this curriculum over the last two years.”

Connecting these MBA students, who graduate in May, with prospective employers offers students the unique opportunity to get valuable face time—and subsequent interviews—to market their skills.

“Our MBAs are becoming more and more attractive in the workplace as we continue to get more MBAs with work experience,” says J.T. Tisdale, director of corporate relations for the business school. “We wanted to provide a place to showcase them. We feel very confident in our students.”

Schuler Griffin, a 1982 UM alumnus and manager associate at Strategic Financial Group, Inc., one of the biggest providers of group health insurance in the Southeast, says UM’s MBA students have earned a positive reputation that brings recruiters like him to campus.

The companies represented at the fair were AIM, AllState, Ashley, Autozone, BancorpSouth, FNC, Jannsen, Lane, Philip Morris, Strategic Financial, Trustmark and TVA.—Deidra Jackson