As students at the Yale School of Management look for summer internships and post-graduation jobs, they can find comfort in the fact that the school’s estimates for student employment are stronger than in previous years.
Though these early estimates for acceptances and offers have not yet been released in the school’s employment reports, SOM Career Development Office Director Julia Zupko said this interim data shows marked improvement compared to corresponding data from the past. This improvement coincides with four new hires in the SOM’s career development office over the last few months, making the office more fully staffed than it has been in the last several years, SOM Associate Dean Anjani Jain said. Offering more career development resources and support from the school, Jain said, has contributed to the positive indications in employment data.
“[There has been] more sustained outreach and development, so the students’ engagement with employers is better than it has been the last several years,” Jain said. “And the outcomes in terms of offers being made to students and offers being accepted by them has been ahead of where we have been at this point of the year [previously].”
Jain added that these new hires came as part of an ongoing effort to reorganize the SOM’s career development office and improve its efficacy. Many of the new staff members, he said, have global backgrounds and will focus on building relationships with potential employers outside of the United States. Zupko said that one of the new hires, Catherine Feng SOM ’00, will be responsible for traveling to develop new relationships with potential employers in Asia, which is important as the SOM continues to foray into new regions.
Zupko also said having members of the career development office like Feng, who is originally from China, increases the office’s language capabilities, enabling SOM-employer relationships to reach the next level. She said that while many peer institutions have positions similar to those at the SOM’s career development office, this language capability is part of what sets SOM apart as “distinctively global.”
Justin Sun SOM ’16, who went on a job trip to Beijing over winter break, said that while this trip is usually organized by student clubs, having a dedicated member of the career development office like Feng will be helpful in making this trip more productive for students in the future.
“Further down the road we’ll be able to have a larger Rolodex in terms of corporate relationships,” Sun said. “This will be tremendous for students moving forward as well as prospective students interested in applying [to the SOM].”
As for employment opportunities, Sun said he has several peers who have already gotten job offers outside of the United States, particularly at private equity firms in China and Europe.
SOM Deputy Director of Relationship Management Antoine Broustra, who began his post at the SOM in December, said he is focused on maintaining existing relationships and cultivating new relationships with international companies that do not actively recruit on the SOM’s campus. Broustra said an important way to identify these companies is to find firms that have hired alumni from around the University but do not have direct regular relationships with the SOM. He added that many of these global companies are attracted to the SOM’s student population because it is already so diverse in terms of background and experience.
Rob Wu SOM ’15 said he thinks it will take time for students to be able to reap the benefits of these changes, since there will be an adjustment period for the new hires to develop relationships with employers.
“I just feel like relationships are difficult to develop, and if you ask for it immediately, you’ll be disappointed with the results,” Wu said.
So far, Wu said he has not felt much of a change in the career development office, but added that he believes this lack of change signals a smooth transition.
Ninety-three percent of SOM students in the class of 2014 received job offers within three months of graduation.