MBAs For Hire

Trend towards M.B.A. students seeking small growing businesses to work for.

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David Balk has a problem. As president of the Entrepreneurs Club at Indiana University, he knows that many of the club's 50 M.B.A. student members would rather work for small, growing companies than large corporations. But since small companies don't recruit on campus, they are harder to find. Right now the club is putting together a résumé book to send to growing companies.

Balk's problems are not unique. Several placement officers at leading business schools report that more and more M.B.A. students want to work for small companies. Many already have big-company experience and now want a job in which they can have more impact, says Priscilla Geer, associate placement director of the Tuck School at Dartmouth. Geer, for one, has started a direct-mail campaign to promising small companies, requesting brief profiles from them to help students job hunt.

But M.B.A.s who want to work in small companies still face a challenge finding them. And if small companies don't reach these students, large ones will. That happens already: Max Haynes, executive director of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, reports that he knows of several large corporations that prefer to recruit entrepreneurship students.

-- Martha E. Mangelsdorf

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