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An MBA Career Network for life - Top MBA Careers
Recruitment has changed dramatically in the past four years, and MBA students, alumni, careers officers have had to look harder and longer to find opportunities that fulfil the ambitions of the graduating class.
Another major trend is the closing of the US workplace to foreign nationals. “The decreased number of available H1-B visas in the U.S. has put the focus on really opening up the MBA-hiring market in the UK. This trend will most likely continue in the coming years while the decreased cap on H1-B visas in the U.S. remains in effect,” says Allison Pinkham, formerly a Careers Advisor at the Darden Graduate School of Business.
Since careers development is the number one reason why people choose to undertake an MBA, it is vital that business schools offer a comprehensive service to their students, yet supporting every individual student can be very time consuming. TopMBA Careers supports the efforts of the careers service, by building ties with alumni, between schools and recruiters, and supporting a technology platform to facilitate interaction.
Secure Technology
TopMBA Careers was launched by the publishers of The MBA Career Guide and organizers of the World MBA Tour – resources that are well known by business schools and MBA candidates worldwide. TopMBA Careers provides a service both as a technological platform provider and an active facilitator of MBA recruiting. The platform is constantly updated and revised by the in-house IT team, and the site is hosted on the company’s own servers to ensure optimal security and reliability. The IT team responds directly to queries about the technology, and uses input from users to provide additional functionality and enhance the design. The IT team is housed in “QS House” along with the business development team, which affords an easy interface between the two groups, to allow feedback from business school client to feed back into the IT development quickly and easily.
Worldwide Network
The networked job search has become an increasingly popular means of finding employment, particularly for job seekers outside of the standard MBA recruitment process. Many schools are justifiably proud of the strength of their alumni network, which can be well utilised to provide contacts, advise, and even employment. The network helps spread word of the school with employers, which in turn enhances the ability of a business school to deliver on its mission of career development.
TopMBA Careers provides a platform for MBAs of 100 partner business schools on 5 continents to post their profile in a members-only networking directory. The thousands of MBAs who add or update their contact details every year see a real value in networking amongst peer schools. "TopMBA Careers is a great job market. I regularly access the database to inform myself about open positions. Since I graduated in 2003 three members have contacted me based on my personal profile listed in the database. It is a great help both for current students as well as alumni,” says Markus Boelke, who earned his MBA from the Olin School of Business, Washington University. MBAs have proved great employers of their fellow MBAs.
The network has also proved useful when the TopMBA Careers Corporate Team ran the third annual “Top Asia Managers” virtual careers fair from 21 to 23 February 2006. Michael Yang, General Marketing Manager of Motorola China, says “More and more MBAs are joining Chinese companies from International MBAs and Asian business schools. I think the attraction for these MBAs is not the starting salary, but the growing opportunity. For example, the average MBA salary growth rate is higher than 15% per year here in China.” This event brought over 200 opportunities to the 900 registered attendees, and provided online expert recruitment panels to answer careers questions and offers country and companyspecific advice.
