A business school is full of MBA students on the lookout for jobs.Surprisingly, many don't know the best way to find them.
But John Gurskey does.
At Melbourne Business School his title is director of the Career Management Centre. Call him the job whisperer.
MBA students at the school spend a lot of time at his centre. It's not a formal part of the course but what they learn there is as important to the ultimate goal of their MBA – finding the right job – as the knowledge they gain in class.
"Often times people don't understand how they need to dress," Gurskey says.
"So we evaluate them literally from head to toe. Are their shoes polished? Do their socks match? Does that suit fit? Is that tie tied correctly? First impressions are so important in the business world."
He says students also have to understand how to fit in with the type of company they want to work for.
"Uber. They rock up in hoodies, jeans and runners. So you have to reflect that culture when you go and interview with them. Or it could be McKinsey, which is business casual," he says.
"You have to know this stuff. We know it because we are constantly out there talking to companies and observing their culture."
At MBS the students in the full-time MBA course spend six full days in the first six months of their course working with Gurskey's centre.
Personal effectiveness
It's called the personal effectiveness program. As well as dress and presentation, it also covers the range of soft skills – communication, writing, structured thinking, emotional intelligence and the ability to handle ambiguity, uncertainty and volatility.
MBS is not alone in giving MBA students the chance to learn the out-of-classroom skills they need to succeed.
At the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW they have a similar scheme. There it is called the career development program.
"It sits side-by-side, it's almost partnered with the academic program," says AGSM's own job whisperer, Robyn Gleeson, who directs the school's Career Development Centre.
Student's spend a "very significant" amount of time in the program, she says. It could be up to 25 per cent for some.
"Those who are doing a big career switch – they've got a lot of work to do preparing themselves, presenting themselves and really exploring themselves," she says.
They need to go deep. "Some of them start at the exploring stage, what am I going to do, where am I going to go."
AGSM is in the midst of careers month, when it connects students with the employers its MBA students are looking to join.
"We've had Microsoft this week. American Express last night, we've got Uber tonight and tomorrow a group of students are going to Google," Gleeson said last week.
Personal pitch
Careers month at AGSM follows the earlier career showcase held in June, when the school announces the winner of its annual competition for the best 30-second personal pitch from an MBA student.
Preparation for it starts earlier in the year with students being offered coaching on technique and content for the pitch video.
The school also used the June career showcase to launch its annual AGSM eYearbook. It's filled with one-page resumes of all the MBA students about to graduate that year. (All of the students in the full-time one year MBA feature, alongside those in their last year of the part-time Executive MBA or the online MBAX.)
"Recruiters wait quite hungrily to get their hands on that," says Gleeson.
Both AGSM and MBS give MBA students training in doing job interviews.
At AGSM there are workshops and one-to-one sessions with career coaches.
'It's about anticipating the questions, how to present your stories, your background stories, how to give really substantial, practical and relevant examples. There's a lot of technique to learn," says Gleeson.
Boot camp
MBS utilises its alumni base to coach its MBA students as well as those in its master of business analytics.
They will practice different aspects of the interview. For example, in learning how to handle a behavioural-based question ("Tell me about a difficult problem you have experienced leading a group of people and how you solved it?") students might go to a workshop in the morning.
"Then in the afternoon we run a behavioural-based interview boot camp with our alumni who come in and act as the hiring managers," said Gurskey.
Alumni also volunteer to help out in the MBA students' Consulting Club, which students run on Saturday to practice techniques for case interviewing. ("Company A is considering changing its product line from Y to Z. How would you structure your advice to them?")
"They bring alumni in from all of the top-tier strategy firms. They teach students how to do case [interviews] their specific way," says Gurskey.
"Our alumni are fantastic at saying 'yes I will make two hours for that student to get them up to speed'."
