Kelley joins forces to face tough job market

The brainchild of Kelley’s Dean and Career Services team, a seven-week, comprehensive approach dubbed ‘Operation Snowball’ was launched to help graduates secure employment. "A simple plan, delivered to the right people with a clear objective, can go a long way in helping students during a challenging economy get to where they want to be," said Erik Medina, the school's director of graduate career services, to USA today.

The simple plan started with a letter to roughly 26,000 alumni of the school. Dean Daniel Smith reached out with a call for help and a Flash-coded piece that provided information on Kelley student job-seekers. It allowed alumni to explore resumes by searching via various functions. According to Erik Medina, the response was overwhelming. “We couldn’t follow up fast enough,” he said.

Providing the right equipment
Recognizing that MBAs are more likely to accept advice from their peers than the administration, the school identified and trained student leaders who already had job offers, and created a job board for them to administer. These students worked one-on-one to help their peers secure employment.

Despite these efforts some graduates were more successful than others. Therefore, the Kelley team was concerned that some students would become frustrated with the job search and isolate themselves. For these MBAs, the school developed a “Lonely Hearts Club” that allowed them to vent about the process, and discuss best practices with the aforementioned student leaders who already had jobs.

The initiative proved to be successful: As of late May, 74 percent of the school’s 2010 graduates had job offers and 94 percent of 2011 graduates had secured internships. What’s more, Graduate Career Services director Erik Medina relates that he’s never seen this kind of positive energy, even in the best of economic times.