Job placements, salaries soar for UB's MBA students

By JOHN DELLA CONTRADA
Reporter Contributor

As of the first week of May, starting salaries for full-time MBA students at UB have increased 18 percent, or almost $7,000 from last May, to an average $42,600, according to Cynthia Shore, assistant dean and director of the school's Career Resource Center. Salaries have ranged from $23,500 to $70,000, with 30 students pulling down salaries in excess of $40,000, compared to just 14 students who surpassed that mark last spring.

Moreover, 70 percent of 157 graduating MBAs are expected to be placed in positions by June. That figure is expected to rise to between 80 percent and 85 percent by the end of the summer, compared to a 70 percent job-placement rate at the end of last summer. All 14 domestic accounting MBAs already have been placed in jobs.

"Our strategy was to increase placement of our MBAs at the blue-chip firms," says Shore. "In doing so, we found that many of these firms are now trying to rebuild after years of cutbacks. Their foundation of promotable managers was slipping away and now they want to rebuild that foundation with qualified MBAs.

"Some of these companies are starting or re-starting management development programs," adds Shore, who joined the management school two years ago after a marketing career at Fleet Bank. "Some companies don't even have names for these programs yet. They just know that they need to stock them with top MBA grads."

Western New York firms that have hired UB MBAs include Arthur

Andersen, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse, M&T Bank, Moog, Rich Products, Westwood Squibb and Xerox.

Nationally and internationally, the hires have included positions at Andersen Consulting, Atlanta; AT&T, Berkley Heights, N.J.; Bricker and Associates, Chicago; Citibank, Taiwan; Dunn & Bradstreet, Murray Hill, N.J.; GE Capital, Stamford, Conn.; Kimberly Clark, Paris, Texas; Merrill Lynch, New York City, and Samsung Finance, Korea.

A healthy economy, however, isn't the sole reason for the Buffalo MBA program's improved placement statistics, says Dean Frederick Winter. An enthusiastic customer-service approach within the school's Career Resource Center and the MBA program's new emphasis on development of students' "soft skills"‹interviewing techniques, business etiquette, public speaking‹have resulted in better-prepared students with dramatically improved access to, and awareness of, job opportunities.

"This year's MBA graduates are the first to fully benefit from programmatic and personnel improvements and additions implemented two years ago," says Winter. "Increased starting salaries and better job placements are evidence of the success of these improvements."

Innovations like the Career Resource Center's creation of an award-winning, on-line response network for matching student qualifications with corporate contacts is one example of improved service to both students and company recruiters, says Winter. Increased attendance of better-prepared UB students at an exclusive MBA interview event in Chicago, co-organized by the career center in February, is another example.

Eight UB MBAs were hired by prominent companies at the event‹including Kimberly Clark, Andersen Consulting, and Brown and Williamson‹at salaries ranging from $43,000 to $70,000 and averaging $51,000.

The school's MBA Advantage program, a series of seminars and professional development exercises that begins during student orientation and continues at the start of each new semester, also has contributed to this spring's placement success, says Katherine Gerstle, assistant dean and administrative director of the UB MBA program.

"Our students have never been as well-prepared for interviewing and job searches as they are now," Gerstle says. "An added benefit of the program is that it helps us know our students more completely. We know their strengths and weaknesses so we're better able to assist them in their job searches and we know exactly which students to refer to which corporate recruiters."

Students and recruiters, though, won't be the only ones who will benefit from the MBA program's job-placement successes. The management school itself is expected to benefit through an enhanced regional and national reputation. Salary and placement statistics figure prominently in ratings of the best business schools by U.S. News and World Report and other publications. And top MBA candidates refer to a business school's placement report when making enrollment decisions.