The business school careers office used to display a firmly-closed door to EMBA students.
While their MBA counterparts were able to take advantage of resumé posting, on-campus recruitment, careers fairs and general careers advice, none of these opportunies were open to part-time students.
Sponsored by their companies, the EMBAs were expected to remain with their employer at the end of their degree programme. Moving to another company was seen as a betrayal.
But times are changing. Penny Oslund, executive director of the EMBA programme at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says the change took place at the beginning of the decade.
At one point she says, almost all EMBA students received support from their companies, but today many EMBA students are self-sponsored, with a further large proportion receiving from 10 to 90 per cent support from their company.
Recent figures for the EMBA Council programme survey bear this out, with member schools’ students reporting that 34 per cent of EMBA participants receive full support, 33 per cent partial support and 33 per cent no support.
“Because of that, there has been a lot of demand for opening up the level of [careers] service,” adds Ms Oslund. Every school has had to rethink its approach to career management for EMBAs.
While some schools may be reluctant to upset their corporate customers, or, do not have the resources to tackle the issue, others no longer differentiate between types of student.
Ms Oslund says: “We try to be sensitive to the companies that are supporting their employees and also try to help the self-sponsored ones.” A career management officer works with all the students.
All participants on the EMBA programme are urged to write a professional development plan, 360-degree feedback is offered and Kenan-Flagler tries to keep students focused on the career process. After all, she comments, “fortune favours the prepared mind”.
Ms Oslund says she is aware of companies who are choosing to support their executives but on a contractual basis. They sponsor participants in return for the executives agreeing to stay with the company, usually for two years. If the executives leave before the end of the agreed period, they must reimburse the company for the cost of the EMBA.
Other schools are also taking a more pragmatic approach. At Chicago Graduate School of Business, roughly one third of EMBA students are fully sponsored, one third partially sponsored and one third self funding.
“We view our mission as providing career support and services for students and alumni,” says Julie Morton, associate dean of career services at the school. “It is about preparing them to manage their career for a life time.”
On a tactical level, the school has an online resumé database and those EMBA students who are sponsored by their companies are asked to have appropriate authorisation. But the school does not segregate services for sponsored and non-sponsored EMBAs.
Ms Morton stresses that the school’s career service is not about helping students leave their sponsoring companies.
Companies realise, she explains, that sending an employee to an EMBA or MBA programme has the potential to be a “transformational experience and could lead to the employee and the company no longer being the right fit”.
But companies now recognise this and are responding by adjusting the career paths of those executives who have been through a business school programme.
“Tying a student to the company by making the job is dynamic is probably more the long term tack to take,” she says.
Her words are backed up by Cana Witt, MBA career development manager at Lancaster University Management School in the UK.
Career management can be seen as something of a conflict of interest, she says. “The sponsoring organisation would interpret their student’s interest in careers advice as leading to a move from the organisation.”
However, she has noticed that increasing numbers of participants now seek advice on how they can best leverage their MBA within their own organisation, “either to secure new positions or projects, or just to get more interesting or diverse work”.
On the other side of the coin, employers too are more knowledgeable about the qualification and realise they need to take advantage of employees who gain one and their new knowledge.
“Employers who sought to retain an employee through the sweetener of offering continued professional development alone now realise that re-alignment with revised goals will be necessary.
“The astute employer will be operating before, during and after programme engagements to ensure that both their own and their employee’s expectations match,” adds Ms Witt.
At the Wharton school of the University of Pennsylvania, Howard Kaufold, director of the MBA programme for executives, says that while MBAs tend to use their degree as the catalyst to move into another company, for EMBAs it is more about their career trajectory within their existing company.
“An EMBA student’s networks are usually much better developed inside their company than outside,” he comments.
“Companies usually appoint internal candidates to senior positions. All this paints a picture that is pretty good for employers offering the right opportunities, so I think we can enlighten both sides of the equation,” he concludes.
With business schools broadening their careers services to part-time students, the onus is now on companies to recognise that sponsoring an employee on an EMBA is just the first step.
Savvy employers who work with the business school to leverage the learning experiences of the employee will find their expectations and those of the EMBA employee dovetail, creating a win-win situation.
