US Corporate Recruiting of MBAs: The WSJ's Survey

Last week's Wall Street Journal survey of corporate recruiters ranked the University of Michigan as the nation's #1 graduate school of business. In fact, the highest rank for one of the traditionally better-known schools was #7, for the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

In a way, I believe it explains some of what we see in corporate America.The recruiters, according to the article accompanying the rankings, value 'communication and interpersonal skills,' 'ability to work within a team,' and 'personal ethics and integrity' all above more task-related dimensions like 'analytical and problem-solving skills,' and 'strategic thinking.'

It conjures up in my mind a group of nice, well-dressed, friendly but unimaginative young MBAs all gathered around a large conference table, 'teamworking' some issue for their new employer.

Perhaps the average returns of US business doesn't get 'better' because so many companies are so pragmatic when it comes to hiring management 'talent.' If they hire MBAs for teamwork and communication, maybe they miss getting problems solved, spotting opportunities for innovative products and services, or making the right strategic moves.

To me, this survey's results firmly indicate that the MBA has finally become a trade degree, along the lines of an electrician's or plumber's license. Not a toolkit for business value creation.

My partner discussed the survey results with his son, and they agreed that, given the choice between attending Michigan or, Penn, Chicago, MIT, etc, they'd both pass on Michigan for one of the other business schools with faculties more associated with the development and publication of new business thinking.

While I am not surprised with the survey's results, I believe it confirms a continuing use of business schools by companies as a rudimentary training ground for mundane business management needs, rather than a source of potential leadership and fresh thinking.

What I would be more interested in, from the survey's results, is which companies recruit more heavily at the more classically-highly-ranked schools, such as Wharton, Harvard, Yale, Sloan, Chicago, etc. Is there a difference in companies' long-term total return performance which is in any way explained or associated with the schools from which they primarily draw their new management hires?

Could we develop a profile of how the customers of some graduate schools of businesses are different than those of others? In a word, segment the customers of these schools?

Have the schools themselves done so, and, if so, what have they found?

Now, that would really interest me. Perhaps the WSJ should do this in the future, to provide some more interesting insights on what the trends in selection criteria imply for company performance over the long term. Summary statistics are nice, but the segment-specific insights would be very revealing.