What You Should Do in Business School to Exceed Employer Expectations

Summary: Find out what you can do during business school to secure a position during a time of economic uncertainty.

Question: As a business student, I have been following the discouraging economic news. I am concerned about my ability to secure a position. How can I meet expectations and be marketable?

Answer: In this competitive market, you have to move beyond aiming to “meet” expectations and work to “exceed” expectations instead. Start down that path now, while you are still a student. Focus on course work, experience, and connections. It is the combination of all three that will make you marketable.

Take tough, relevant business courses that will arm you with the background you will need to step into an entry-level position after graduation. Go heavy on the quantitative and technology classes. Supplement your business course work with a solid grounding in the liberal arts, developing critical thinking and communication skills. These will strengthen your presentation in the interviewing process and make you more “promotable” once you are in.

Add experience to the academics through a variety of options. Complete as many internships as possible, aiming for strategically placed and challenging assignments. Get involved in on-campus activities of interest. Build leadership skills through community, social or political involvement.

Use your academic, internship, and extracurricular involvement to establish relationships. Develop a network of mutually beneficial contacts now that may be helpful later in generating leads as graduation approaches.

How can you possibly fit all of this in? That is the part that separates the “exceeds” from the “meets.”