How is on-campus recruiting different from off-campus recruiting? You’ll hear a lot about ‘on-campus’ and ‘off-campus’ recruiting once you start your MBA program.   On-campus recruiting refers to the structured and organized recruiting process that a school schedules with firms that happens, as the term implies, on-campus.  Typically occurring in January – March for internship opportunities and September – November for full-time positions (depending on the school), the actual on-campus interviews will occur after several weeks of recruiting events held by firms, including corporate presentations at the school, informal meet n’ greets or coffee chats, formal dinner with company reps and other social events, depending on the firm.

Key advantages and disadvantages of on-campus recruiting include:

Advantages

• These firms have the strongest recruiting relationship with the school and are actively targeting the school’s MBA talent. 
• Opportunities to network with on-campus firms are essentially planned and scheduled for you.  All you need to do is show up prepared to meet with company reps (although additional individual networking is also highly recommended).
• In general, offers given from on-campus firms are competitive as compared to market rates, as these firms value MBA talent and understand they have to pay for that talent.

Disadvantages

• Many students will be competing for the same opportunities, which makes it more difficult to differentiate yourself from the pack.
• The ‘herd mentality’ of MBA recruiting is very prevalent during on-campus recruiting.  This is the phenomenon of students gravitating towards popular job functions (e.g. consulting or investment banking) because they see many of their classmates focusing on these opportunities.
• On-campus recruiting doesn’t simulate a ‘real life’ job search in the sense that all these companies will be coming to you.  This translates into limited opportunities to develop MBA-level networking skills outside of a controlled job search environment.

Off-campus recruiting is a different beast that is comprised mainly of companies and opportunities that you uncover through your own efforts.  This can take the form of reaching out to target companies on your own, applying to opportunities through job boards, and heavy networking to support the above.  This takes a lot more self-discipline and networking skill to execute effectively.

Key advantages and disadvantages of off-campus recruiting include:

Advantages

• You direct your own job search, which means you’ll likely uncover amazing opportunities you would never have known about if you just focused on on-campus recruiting.
• When you go off-campus, you often compete with a smaller pool of candidates, so it’s easier to differentiate yourself to firms and use your school’s brand as part of that differentiation.
• During the off-campus search you develop very sophisticated networking techniques that will serve you well throughout your career in many different types of business situations.

Disadvantages

• Because the search is self-directed, it’s tempting to put off your search or not put in as much effort as you should.
• A prolonged off-campus search is tiring and it’s easy to get discouraged, particularly if you have reached out to a large number of firms and you don’t hear back from them.
• Given the heavy networking required in the off-campus search, if you’re hesitant to reach out to people, this will undoubtedly hurt your search and limit your effectiveness.
• Off-campus firms that do not have a formal MBA recruiting process may give offers that vary widely from MBA market norms.  This could work in your favor or work against you.

Most new MBA students don’t realize how competitive the recruiting process is at the MBA-level until they find themselves in the middle of recruiting season.  The smart student will be sure to plan for both an on- and off-campus job search, which will increase your chances of landing an offer you’re excited about.

—————————————————————————————–

Thanks to ZoomInterviews for this article. Zoominterviews.com provides you with an insider’s view to the admissions interview process. MBA Podcaster listeners will save 10% on the purchase of any video package by using the code “MBAPODCASTER” on zoominterviews.com 

—————————————————————————————–