This January, Cambridge MBA students have received a record number of job offers at this point in the academic year compared to previous years – and this trend looks set to continue.
“The job market for MBAs is really picking up,” says Conrad Chua, Head of Admissions and Careers at Cambridge Judge Business School. “There are a lot more interviews and a lot more students are getting offers, particularly in the sectors of e-commerce, consulting and technology. And there is still a lot more recruitment activity to go as we are only a third of the way through the year.”
So, what makes students successful at getting job offers at this or any other stage of the course? Chua says “The key thing is that successful students have focussed their job search. They’ve found out about the company, about the industry, and their motivations are strong and sound. Students who are successful have done a lot of preparation, they’ve done small group case studies, been to behavioural interview workshops and attended at least one employer presentation.”
Cambridge MBA student Somesh Dwivedi has just received an offer from Amazon to join their EU MBA Leadership Development programme. He says “The Cambridge MBA Careers Office partners with organisations to help MBA candidates gain visibility among some of the most sought after employers in the world, such as Amazon. Amazon is one of the organisations that is all set to define consumption patterns in the wake of the technology revolution and I’m excited to be a part of that journey.”
Chua echoes this when he says that “The Careers Office plan a programme of activities, and because we go through an intense process of understanding each student as an individual, we can then recommend pathways for each student that will help them, based on what kind of career transition they want to make.”
Current student Willem Schol, who has also been offered a placement, says “It’s really motivating to see that every member of the Careers team knows your name and your background, so you know that they are working on your future as you would be doing yourself. There is no doubt that the most important piece of advice I received was from my one-to-one advisor, whose help was critical to achieve my objective of being hired. The Personal Brand workshops were really important to prepare for tough interviews and provided the right approach to telling your story.”
What are the strengths that employers see in Cambridge MBA students? Chua says “Our students tend to have more years’ experience and some employers value that as well as the added maturity that brings. There is also the collaborative ethos, as work becomes increasingly cross-functional, that’s the skill they look for.”
Companies who have visited the School this academic year include: BCG, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, AT Kearney, Uber, Expedia, Barclays, Amazon, Infosys, Gallup and Sanford Bernstein.