Important attributes recruiters look for

In a Wall Street Journal article from September 20, 2006 entitled “M.B.A. Survey: Something Old, Something New” discussing the WSJ ranking of schools granting an MBA, Ronald Alsop reported the percentage of recruiters who ranked an attribute as “very important” to them:

89.0	Communication and interpersonal skills
86.9	Ability to work well within a team
86.2	Personal ethics and integrity
84.3	Analytical and problem-solving skills
82.9	Work ethic
74.5	Fit with the corporate culture
74.0	Success with past hires
72.5	Leadership potential
67.1	Strategic thinking
64.9	Likelihood of recruiting “stars”
53.9	Willingness of students to relocate to the required job location
50.7	Well-rounded
43.2	Student “chemistry”
38.0	Content of the core curriculum
35.7	Students’ years of work experience
31.7	Overall value for the money invested in the recruiting effort
29.0	Incorporates experiential learning into the curriculum
27.1	Career-services office
25.9	Faculty expertise
21.0	Students’ international knowledge and experience
16.7	Commitment to corporate social responsibility

As someone closely affiliated with the Ross BBA Program, I found the above very interesting. While these are recruiters’ opinions related to hiring MBAs, these also apply quite nicely to BBAs, and should tell BBAs a lot about what they should focus on both inside and outside of the classroom. Let’s look at those attributes that at least 70% of recruiters thought was very important:

Communication and interpersonal skills

Your writing and speaking skills, and your experience working with a team getting things done. And working on a team not necessarily just as a leader, but also as a good team player.

Ability to work well within a team

This is amazingly important to companies. Most of your work, actually all of your work, involves working on teams. The more experience you can gain working in teams, the better you’ll be.

Personal ethics and integrity

It is a better situation by far to not have any ethical problems appear in your work or school record. Do not take the easy way out. At the end of the day, your integrity is all that you have. Don’t do anything to devalue it.

Analytical and problem-solving skills

This is one area in which our curriculum really gives the students a workout. We do this over and over again, in many different forms. Our BBA graduates should be top-notch by the time they graduate.

Work ethic

The more that you can show that you are diligent, organized, and committed to getting the job done, the more employers will be interested in you.

Fit with the corporate culture

This is what fly-backs are all about. This is also what internships are all about. Every day is an interview. They want to see what kind of person you are, and if you are a good “fit”. They’re not worried about whether you’re smart enough, they want to know if they want to have you around the office for a few years.

Success with past hires

Everything past hires (and past interviewees) have done influence what recruiters think about Ross. That is why you should be on your best behavior when you are interacting with recruiters. You’re not just influencing how the company feels about you — you’re influencing how the recruiter feels about Ross.

Leadership potential

Many times this comes shining through (or doesn’t!) in your extracurriculars.

What does this tell us? BBAs should work at their teamwork skills, their communication skills, and their analytical skills. They should work on doing “good works”. And they should look for experiences outside the classroom in which they can exercise and develop their leadership ability. This sounds like a good plan, and one which BBAs would be good to think about.

The top business schools: Recruiters' MBA picks

The Wall Street Journal just came out with its annual ranking of business schools. This ranking is based on evaluations by over 4000 recruiters (completed in early 2006). Ross again did well, ranking #1 for the second time in the last three years. While this is a ranking of MBA programs, it is the ranking that is most closely related to the BBA program. As such I see it as something that I am proud of and think reflects well on the BBA Program. I covered this topic the last time the WSJ ranked us #1, and I’ll repeat my comments here:

...We sell recruiters on the “one-stop-shopping” nature of the University. If they want MBAs, we got ’em; if they want BBAs, we got ’em; if they want engineering students, we got ’em; ditto for LS&A, computing, English, etc. Having a BBA program makes the University more attractive to recruiters than it would be otherwise. And it’s not like the BBA program is the weak sibling of the bunch: it's always ranked in the top 3 or so of any list that I’ve ever seen.

Furthermore, if recruiters come here for MBAs and like, they are (more than likely) also here recruiting BBAs and enjoying the services of our top-notch Career Development office. Speaking of which, the high-quality service of OCD is shared by BBAs and MBAs alike. All of the corporate relationships and alumni and data that are available for MBAs are naturally available to BBAs. This means that you are the beneficiary of services that wouldn’t be there were it not for the fact that we have to support such a large number of students (BBA, Day MBA, evening MBA, MAcc).

Thus, while this ranking isn’t for the BBA Program, students in that program benefit from it.

I gotta tell you, it’s really nice to be able to re-run (with reasonable frequency) text that I use to celebrate one #1 ranking in another column celebrating another #1 ranking. It’s an abundance of riches that we have around here.

Why money doesn’t bring happiness

There was a recent press release by the UM News Service entitled “Why money doesn’t buy happiness”. This summarizes a study published in a recent issue of Science. Here’s a few comments from the author:

Citing evidence from a nationwide survey of a representative sample of people they conducted recently, they noted that people with greater income tend to devote relatively more time to work, compulsory non-work activities (such as shopping and childcare) and active leisure (such as exercise) and less time to passive leisure (such as watching TV and just relaxing).

“When someone reflects on how more income would change subjective well-being, they are probably tempted to think about spending more time in leisurely pursuits such as watching a large-screen plasma TV or playing golf,” the authors wrote. “But in reality, people should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure and other enjoyable activities.”

BBAs should think about this when thinking about a career. Certainly it’s the case that, all other things being equal, it’s better to have more money than less. The point of the article seems to be that it’s rarely the case that all other things are equal. It’s up to each individual to determine what trade-offs between earning money and other activities are appropriate.

Speaking up in class

I’m in the enviable position this year of being BBA Program Director while also teaching a BBA class. This allows me to hear more about what’s going on than in previous years. And that’s a very good thing.

A consistent theme that I am hearing from students is that they are having communication issues (not speaking loudly enough, speaking too quickly, or whatever) with their professor in a class. Professors aren’t perfect (did you know that we know that?) so this is to be expected sometimes. Because I use a fast feedback form in every class, it is easy for students to tell me about problems they are having. And because I’m Program Director, they also tell me about issues they are having in classes other than mine. If I hear a common theme in these comments, then I take them to the appropriate party.

This process adds unnecessary and confusing steps to the process. It should be the students who go to the professor directly either during (the best option) or immediately after (second best option) class. Professors generally would like to think that they are teaching you something during class. If they aren’t, and it can easily be fixed, then they almost certainly would appreciate hearing about it so that they can fix it quickly. If students address this in a calm and constructive manner, then this would work out better for all concerned. The best thing about it is that addressing it the first time makes it easy to begin a semester-long dialog about this with the professor so that he or she can find out if the situation is improving. If, for some reason, the faculty member does not respond well to such comments, then you should consider taking your comments to the chair of the department to get another viewpoint on your concerns.

I encourage all BBAs to take responsibility for their education. If you can help improve the educational process for yourself or your classmates, then you should take the steps necessary to bring about this change. It’s another way that you can leave Ross in better condition than you found it.

‘Any college will do’

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal by Carol Humowitz titled ‘Any college will do’ makes the following point:

Getting to the corner office has more to do with leadership talent and a drive for success than it does with having an undergraduatea degree from a prestigious university...Most CEOs of the biggest corporations didn’t attend Ivy League or other highly selective colleges. They went to state universities, big and small, or to less-known private colleges.

I consider this the best possible news for us, because I consider Ross to be a state university that is also in the position of also being able to be selective. This way you get the benefits of a larger school (resources, range of options, diversity in every possible dimension) combined with the high quality student body that selectivity brings.

The article goes on to say:

What counts most, CEOs say, is a person’s capacity to seize opportunities. As students, they recall immersing themselves in their interests, becoming campus leaders and forging strong relationships with teachers. And at state and lesser-known schools, where many were the first in their families to attend college, they sought challenges and mixed with students from diverse backgrounds — an experience that helped them later in their corporate climbs.

This sounds like it comes directly out of the playbook of our BBA advisors. What we want you to do is to do well in class, but also be sure that you have a well-rounded extracurricular experience that allows you to lead teams, manage projects, and get things done. It’s all in a day’s work for Ross BBAs.

Giving of yourself

I was just watching a show on The Food Network (while I’m waiting to watch the UM/ND football game) that had a great lesson for BBAs. It told the story of a working mom who quit her job and wanted to become a chef. She did not have any background in cooking (other than cooking for family and friends) — just like BBAs have little background in business when looking for their first jobs (other than the education they receive here and any experience they might have from internships). After a bunch of looking, she found a cooking school where she donated her time to help out the chefs in the kitchen. She wasn’t looking for anything other than a way to learn about the business. She quickly attracted a mentor. Her mentor was excited to work with her because she came with the attitude that she was looking for ways in which she could help, doing whatever was necessary, instead of looking for ways in which she could shine.

She donated her time and learned from professionals for four years. When a position opened at the restaurant next door (owned by the owner of the cooking school), they offered her the job. Why? Because they had observed her for four years. They knew her work. They knew her working ethic and her attitude. It was a natural fit.

BBAs should think about this approach. Go into a job with a humble attitude. Look for ways that you can help. Know that you are competent and able to contribute but that you are a beginner. Realize how much that you have to learn from people who have been doing their jobs for years. Think about and work on giving of yourself, and you might be surprised by the gifts you receive.

Facilities for BBA classes

I’ve been quite busy in my role as BBA Program Director this week. Many of the issues have had to do with classrooms — specifically, the classrooms that we are using in Mason and Dennison Hall during the construction of our new building. This post is simply to let students and faculty know that we are aware of many of the problems (projectors, temperature control, acoustics) and that we are working on them. I’m fairly confident that you will be hearing about or noticing changes in the near future.

We won’t always be able to address concerns in a way that will satisfy everybody (or anybody!), but we certainly are not able to fix a situation that we don’t know anything about. The most important thing about this whole process is that students and faculty are using the BBA Program Office as a resource to improve the educational process for the BBAs. Which is exactly the point of this office. So I’m a really happy camper right now.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that changes will be implemented soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Survey of new BBA Juniors

I recently completed a survey of the 362 new BBA Juniors in my BIT200 class. Its purpose was to help me understand them better, and to understand their technical interests and capabilities better. I learned a lot about them, and I think they learned a bit about me in the process. I’ll share some of the results with you now.

Concentration (or major)

I asked each student to list the one or two areas that he or she is most likely to get a concentration in. The three most popular areas were finance at 43.5%, accounting at 20.1%, and marketing at 10.4%. Of course, these can change by the time they graduate, but it still shows where their thoughts are at when they enter the program.

Computers

These students have access to computers at their residence while they are here, that’s for sure. 99.7% have access to a computer at their residence with 85.7% overall being laptops. 97% of the students have access to a personal (versus shared) computer, and 92% have high speed Internet at their residence. 87.6% of the students have Windows on their primary computer, and 11.8% have Mac OS X.

Cell phones

This one was the first sign (to me) of the wide generation gap between me and them. (What was my first hint?) 99.2% of the students have a cell phone, and 83.2% of the students use their cell phone to send text messages. Wow! The next text message that I send using my cell phone will be my first. I’m just not there.

Social networking software

I found this to be an interesting category. I thought that flickr would be higher, and I had no idea that Facebook was that popular. Concerning Facebook, I would guess that half of my class had at least 100 “friends” and 3-4 students per section had at least 400.

Software	Currently use
Flickr	0.8%
Delicious	12.4%
Myspace	12.7%
Facebook	90.4%

Collaborative software

This set of questions turned up a surprise or two. About a fifth of the students have written a blog and the same percentage currently read a blog. I was surprised about both of these values being as large as they are. What I should have asked is whether they wrote the blog because they wanted to or because they had to. Very few students have contributed to a wiki; I’m not too surprised about this because I haven’t heard about too many academic situations in which wikis are used. Another surprise is that 70% have used wikipedia; I would have thought that more would have used it.

Software	Currently use
Have written a blog	21.8%
Currently read a blog	18.2%
Have contributed to a wiki	3.3%
Have used wikipedia	69.7%

Computer skills

All of the values in this section surprised me. Along with just about every other person, I am susceptible to thinking that everyone else must think and be a lot like me. Well, the data here certainly confirms that this is most definitely not the case. Only 9.1% of students are comfortable writing in HTML (I write raw HTML almost every day --- when I’m not using LaTeX), only a fifth of the students have taken a programming class in high school or college (my favorite languages to program in are python, lisp, and prolog but I can program in many others), and only 4.1% are comfortable using an ftp program (I use one just about every day, and have used one for at least 15 years). If I need any more evidence that the world isn’t a bunch of Scotts running around, then I’m not paying attention.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
HTML	9.1%	30.0%	57%
ftp	4.1%	10.7%	79.6%
Programming course	20.1%

Excel skills

When interpreting this data, realize that this is self-reported. About 3/5 of students report that they are comfortable using Excel with another 37.5% reporting that they have used Excel a few times. Almost 90% of students report that they have created graphs or charts in Excel at least a couple times. However, about 4/5 of students have never used PivotTables. By the end of this class, students will all report in the left-most column.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
General usage	60.1%	37.5%	2.2%
Graphs	42.4%	45.5%	11.6%
PivotTable	5.5%	13.5%	79.9%

Access skills

Finally, the following table can be summarized by saying that almost all students know very little about databases. Again, by the end of this semester, all students will report back in the left-most column.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
General usage	3.0%	22.3%	73.3%
Forms	2.8%	8.5%	87.3%
Foreign keys	1.4%	3.0%	93.7%

Don’t do your best

Nicholas J. Cotsonika wrote an article in the September 8 Detroit Free Press about the Head Coach Rod Marinelli and the Detroit Lions titled “Your best isn’t enough”. While this was about one of the beliefs of a pro football head coach, I believe it also applies quite directly to BBAs, especially incoming BBAs. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s not about doing your best; it's about doing what is required.

It’s not about doing your best? I have always been taught to do my best, and I have always tried to do my best. I have always assumed I would teach my children to do their best. Why wouldn’t I?

Because when you set out to do your best, you have good intentions, but you limit yourself to whatever you feel — deep down — your best is. ...

How do you know what you’re capable of?

If you set out to do what is required to win, your only limit is being the best. You might achieve things you would not have otherwise.

“A little extra effort, a little extra energy, a little extra study, it may be bigger,” Marinelli said. “It may be more.” ...

Some players have made peace with doing their jobs amid the losing. Others don’t understand the level of work expected of them — like Charles Rogers before he was cut, like Mike Williams.

Rank work on a scale of one to 10. Maybe you’re so talented that you’ve always gotten by working at a two. Then a coach pushes you, and you work at a four. You say, “Hey, I’m working twice as hard as I ever have before! I’m doing my best!” But you’re still not working hard enough. You’re still not doing what is required.

This is what life is going to be like for you at Ross. Our professors, and other students, will push you to perform and work at a level you may never have had to reach before. Before you push back or withdraw emotionally or reduce your commitment to the program because you feel that you’re being asked to do things or perform at a level that you are not capable of, ask yourself if you are giving your full effort. You shouldn’t be focusing on the fact that you think you’re doing your best and still coming up short, You should focus on figuring out what you can do, how you can change, to ensure that you will be able to do what is required of you.

You don’t know what you’re capable of until you give yourself an honest chance to complete a task with full commitment, attention, energy, and attitude. It’s my guess that, given this honest effort, everyone at Ross is fully capable of succeeding at a high level. It’s up to each student (with the help of the vast support staff and advisors here at Ross) to determine how to draw out the level of work that is expected of them.

Back in the saddle again

For a variety of reasons I haven’t taught in the BBA Program since Fall 2002. Well, this semester I get to teach BIT200, “Personal Productivity with Information Technology”, a 1.5 credit hour course for BBA Juniors. (This coming winter semester we will begin teaching this class to BBA Sophomores.) I am tremendously excited about getting back into the classroom with BBAs again. In my opinion, they are our smartest and hardest-working students. Why wouldn’t I want to teach them?

In any case, I’m simply working like mad getting ready for class. I was up until 5am last night preparing. And I’ve been working just as hard all day today. I can’s wait until the first day of class.

“Co-creation” and the BBA Program

One of the four core values of the Ross School is “Co-Creation”. You might ask, “What in the heck is that?” I’m glad you asked! According to the School’s strategic positioning statement, this is defined as the following:

Our commitment to innovation in business education together with our relationship to the University of Michigan supports our philosophy of co-creating robust and diverse individual experiences for faculty and students across all programs — from BBA to Executive Education. Co-creation means that each person participates actively in the educational process; that the process is not a one-way delivery system from professor to student.

This core value also recognizes that we have forged and will strengthen cross-disciplinary programs, research partnerships and intellectual affiliations. For example, faculty grapple with the complex, often multidisciplinary problems that challenge our society and students can customize their education with a variety of opportunities.

After reading that you still might ask, “What in the heck is that?” For a long time, you could have put me in that camp, too. But now I’m getting a much better understanding of what it means. And it turns out that it’s really important for understanding all that Ross has to offer to BBAs. Let me take a shot at translating what this means to our undergraduate population.

Co-creation is all about creating a program of study that fits you as an individual rather than simply taking some pre-defined course of study. It’s about taking diverse pieces from around Ross and around this great University and constructing an educational experience that fits you. It’s about working with an advisor, working with representatives of the school, creating with them (get it?! — co-creating!) a set of courses and extra-curriculars that support your goals.

This is a big deal for Ross and the BBA Program and is one of our core values because we have such a set of absolutely fantastic programs surrounding the academic classes. There’s the Dare to Dream competition for those with an entrepreneurial bent. There’s the Washington Campus program for those who are interested in pursuing a life in, or simply understanding a life in, public policy. There’s the Erb Institute for students who emphasize the importance of sustainable enterprises. Study abroad programs in Germany and China for those who think that international business is what deserves emphasis. Double majors in business and music or economics or engineering or ... whatever. It almost doesn’t matter what a student wants to do. If he or she takes the time to define the interest, the Ross School has programs in place that the student can take advantage of.

This is a strength in diversity and a strength in context that is not easily duplicated elsewhere. I have always matained that the strength of Ross is that it is located within the University of Michigan. And this is one way in which the BBA Program fits the strategy of co-creation better than the MBA Program: BBAs have a diverse set of resources throughout the University in which to co-create their educational experience. If another undergraduate business program were to want to compete with Ross in this dimension, it would almost certainly come up short unless it was part of one of the world’s great universities as Ross is. Further, since business schools (any school, for that matter) have little influence over the rest of the university in which they are located, they have little ability to change their competitive position in this dimension.

This same philosophy manifests itself in the Ross BBA curriculum. Yes, students have a core curriculum that they all must complete; however, this is not a large number of hours, leaving a good chunk of the students course work for electives in Ross, electives in LS&A, minors, and double majors. In this case, the co-creation is primarily between the student and his or her advisor who brings a deep knowledge of possible courses inside and outside of Ross.

In conclusion, though co-creation sounds like a theoretical concept, it can actually be seen and felt in many different parts of a student’s experience while they are here at Michigan.

Discussion of BBA Program at a faculty meeting

For any of you who were around Wyly 2740 at 12noon Friday, you would have had the distinct pleasure of seeing about 75 of our faculty members gathered for a Ross Faculty Meeting. It was our first one of the year, and we certainly had good attendance for it. It’s generally pretty hard to get that many of our faculty members to come to our meeting. And it was good to see so many familiar faces after the summer.

In any case, the exciting thing about this meeting (from my perspective, anyway) is the amount of time that Dean Dolan and Associate Dean Anderson spent talking about BBAs. You have to realize that this faculty meeting time is very valuable time. There are only eight faculty meetings during the year, so to spend it on the BBA Program is exciting. What they talked about, and what faculty members asked a lot of questions about, was the quality of the incoming classes. Rightly, they are pleased to hear about the high quality of these students and our plans for doing all that we can to ensure that it does nothing but increase.

At next month’s meeting I will address the faculty about the funds that the Jones Center has at its disposal for funding the creation of senior capstone electives and leadership development for BBAs. It’s another opportunity for drawing senior faculty members to the BBA Program. Once I get them interested, I have generally found that the quality of the students keeps them coming back.

Meeting with Tom Jones

Today I had the privilege of meeting again with Tom Jones, the first BBA Program Office Director and the man who gave $10 million to the Ross School which now fund the Jones Center for BBA Education. I had the distinct pleasure of working with him a couple of years ago when he was the outgoing director and I was learning the position from him. I only get to see him intermittently now since he is working up north so I look forward to seeing him around the office.

This was such a great meeting because of all the great things that have happened with the BBA Program over the last year. Let’s review for a minute:

• Admissions: we admitted three separate great classes of students
• Curriculum: we are about half way through the process of implementing the new 3-year curriculum ordering
• Outreach programs: we have implemented significant outreach programs for high performing high schools in the Detroit area
• Mastery Project: we started up this program for at-risk students that was quite successful at preparing students for Ross who probably would not have been able to make it without this support
• Orientation: we just had a fairly successful orientation that informed over 700 students of many of the exciting programs that we have around Ross
• Workshops for BBAs: in the last year we put on workshops about law school, getting an MBA, getting a PhD, personal finances, business etiquette, speed reading, stress management, business presentations, living in NYC, living in Chicago, and venture capital & private equity.
• Student advising: we have three student advisors who have done a great job of reaching out to and connecting with students
• Washington Campus: this new program for BBAs educated students for a week in Washington, DC.
• Study abroad: we have planned two programs for up to 70 total students in Germany and Beijing

Given the above list of accomplishments by my staff, wouldn’t you think that it would be a good meeting?

Welcoming new students

Wow! What an exciting and exhausting two days that was! Over the last two days I hosted the last class of incoming junior BBAs at a full day of orientation, hosted a dinner for the first class of incoming freshmen preferred admit business students, participated in the new student convocation for the University, and then hosted the first class of incoming sophomore BBAs at a full day of orientation.

My overriding reaction to meeting all of these students is that they are a quality group of kids, and that we should expect a lot out of them in the years to come. These are smart, well-spoken young adults who professors will enjoy having in class, and I think they're going to have a great experience while enrolled at Ross.

We had a productive and informative orientation for the students at the Michigan Theater. They got to hear from Dean Dolan and me to start things off. The rest of the morning was spent on what I termed the “necessities”: ensuring that you graduate (Evonne Plantinga), ensuring that you take classes that you’re interested in (Rob Koonce), and ensuring that you get a job (either Al Cotrone or Lisa Hurst). In the afternoon, we got to spend some time on more interesting topics. First John Kim (BBA ’83), president of Prudential Retirement, spoke for 45 minutes on his reflections concerning work, life, and balancing the two, and then took questions from the students. It was valuable time for the students. After his address, the students heard several short pitches related to interesting opportunities that they will have during their time at Ross. I will discuss more about this topic later but, suffice it to say, many students found something or the other that got them even more excited about their upcoming time at the school. Finally, we closed with a reception and the ever-popular chocolate fountains.

While the day was long, I believe that the students received a useful introduction to their next few years at Ross. At the same time, I got quite excited about the overriding quality of these students, and even more than before I look forward to working with them.