With an eye on the softening job market, some B-schools are staging course events earlier in the calendar

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A job hunter looks for work during a campus employment fair KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images

by the agency of Alison Damast

Clutching freshly printed business cards, a group of incoming Johnson School at Cornell University MBA students nibbled on cheese and crackers while mingling with recruiters at the New York offices of Deloitte Consulting final week. The scene was typical of an MBA career event, but the timing was not. It was early June, and students who hadn’t even set foot on the Ithaca (N.Y.) campus were already worrying about securing an internship because of the following summer.

Business school students used to marvel that internship recruiting—a rite of portion of a tune in spite of first-years—began as soon as school started in the fall. But the hiring is slowly starting to creep into the summer months. And with the softening of the do job-work market, race services officers are urging students, especially first-years, to start thinking over their internship and job hunts earlier than ever before. To help them, business schools are ramping up their offerings. Career services officers are planning summer career panels, opening up alumni databases to first-years and incorporating career activities into orientation programs.

The schools are responding to a demand from students for targeted career programming during the off-peak times of the school year, says Randy Allen, the Johnson School’s associate dean of external relations. Cornell piloted a "career explorations" panel last summer and students responded so positively that the school decided to expand the offering this summer, he says. There are now three internship networking events during June, focused on consulting, financial services, and marketing.

"This gives students more occasion to prepare, as opposed to saying, ‘I’m gong to spend the whole fall semester deplorable to figure out what I want to do,’" says Allen. "And this year, we think that with the job market the way it is, it is probably equitable other important to subsist focused steady the kind of their options are."

Early Birds and Second-Years

Other career services offices have similar mindsets. The University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration will have being offering a new conduct assessment and career finding program the week in the presence of school starts. Students can start networking earlier, as well similar to more clearly enunciate. their conduct goals to recruiters this fall, says Everette Fortner, Darden’s director of career development.

"Obviously in the financial industry sector there will be softness, and students will have to drudge harder according to perhaps fewer summer intern slots next summer," Fortner says. "Even the top students be inclined own to work harder to make strong they realize an internship this year."

Career services officers’ business extends to second-year students as well, especially those who don’t secure a job offer from their summer internship. The University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business will have being offering online "Webinar" meetings this summer for small groups of incoming second-year students. They can talk with a work at jobs probe consultant, who will offer advice and networking leads. And once they arrive on campus, career programming command excitement earlier than usual.

The school has planned an "all hands on deck" interviewing blitz day for returning second-year students, scheduled for the pristine Friday of the school year, said Patty Phillips, the exercise’s charged with execution counsellor of career management. "Our goal is to help our second-year students get back into the swing of interviewing as forward as possible, so they grow their chances of winning a second-round interview right begone," Phillips said in an e-mail.

Ramping Up Online Resources

Some business schools are starting to make up more online resources available to students over the summer months. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business is giving students summer solstice avenue to data bases they have power to use to explore different careers before they arrive on campus. An instructional program called Introduction to Career Research, typically presented to students after the deviate of the platonistic year, leave be available this summer for the first space of time as an instructional screen cast.

At Columbia Business School, students have paroxysm to an online library, where they can watch a line of videos that follow a Columbia student’s piece of work search, like well while videos featuring recruiters offering interviewing tips. The school is also introducing a new coaching program to students this fall, where alums from different industries will have existence available to aid students prepare for interviews.

"Hit the Ground Running"

In the meantime, motivated students are not decay any time preparing for their internship hunts. Jennifer Nicholas, 27, an incoming first-year student at the Johnson School, has already started reaching into her Rolodex, contacting alumni from her alma mater and friends she used to work with. Attending the Cornell career panel at Deloitte was just part of the process, she says.

"I’m definitely looking, but I’m not too worried," says Nicholas, who mingled by recruiters and passed out business cards at a happy hour thereafter at the nearby Stone Street Tavern. "With the job market the way it is, I privation to get a clear idea of the pathway I want to follow so at the time that I get to school, I can hit the ground running."