Schools pay employers to see students

They are doing everything from building video-equipped studios on campus for remote interviews, to flying students to meet hiring managers, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some schools are even willing to pay for hotel rooms for recruiters to get them to visit. "The days of having a row of interview rooms booked solid is over," says Sunil Chopra, interim dean of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Managementin the vicinity of Chicago.

That's in stark contrast to the traditional MBA recruiting process, in which companies descend on campus for long interview sessions. But today some schools say recruiter visits are down 20 per cent. According to the MBA Career Services Council, an association that reports on employment 79 per cent of recently surveyed business schools saw a decline in on-campus recruiting for full-time jobs.

A number of smaller schools that lack the critical mass of graduates to attract a plethora of employers or schools in less convenient locations are adopting video technology. University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and Cornell University's Johnson School of Business have all installed video conferencing in their career centres. The costs can range from free Skype, which just requires a simple Web cam, to sophisticated teleconferencing equipment that costs upward of $6,000.

Even larger schools like the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School have gotten on board in an effort to get their students seen by as many recruiters as possible.

The schools both subscribe to InterviewStream, a video-streaming firm that charges $2,500 to $4,000 a year for its service. The service allows recruiters to either interview candidates live or screen applicants using pre-programmed questions that candidates must answer by video, among other things. InterviewStream counts more than 50 MBA programs as clients, and sales have increased more than 200 percent

Washington University is even more aggressive in marketing its MBA students to companies with cross-country "road shows." In January, students travelled to different U.S. cities between semesters to meet with company recruiters. The students interested in technology travelled to San Jose, where Silicon Valley firms abound; those in consulting and finance went to Chicago, to firms like McKinsey & Co. and Accenture. In the past, these trips were merely information-only visits. Now, they are full-on recruiting missions, complete with time for interviews.

Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business will foot the bill for 50 students to travel to Boston and San Francisco to meet with companies. Says Rebecca Joffrey, co-director of Tuck's career-development office: "It's just another way to get recruiters in front of our students."

• Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
  Full-Time MBA
• Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA
• University of Washington Business School
  Full-Time MBA
• University of Chicago Booth School of Business
  Full-Time MBA, Part-Time MBA, Executive MBA
• Kellogg School of Management
  Full-Time MBA