The 'undisputed winner'

2/9/2012 - When it comes to career guidance, support and services, the Kellogg School’s Career Management Center is the “undisputed winner” among business schools, according to PoetsandQuants.com

The MBA-oriented website analyzed data collected by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and found that for over 24 years, Kellogg has been the only school to score consistently in the top 20th percentile in MBA graduate satisfaction with career services.

“This is an awesome achievement, a record of consistency that showed a career center’s staff ability to overcome economic ups and downs as well as changing student expectations,” observed editor-in-chief John Byrne. He noted that the findings are based on the opinions of more than 83,000 MBAs — “a powerful and impressive number of satisfaction impressions.”

“And at Kellogg at least it’s a level of success made even more difficult because of the school’s unusually broad appeal to a large number of industries and companies,” Byrne wrote.

The recognition, said Kellogg Career Management Center Managing Director Michael Malone, is “a tremendous win for the team.”

“To get that kind of feedback year after year says you’re really making a difference,” said Malone, who joined Kellogg in January. “There’s a very energetic, positive outlook here, and sense of resilience that has enabled the students to be successful across all markets, industries and functions. That success is infectious — and it ramps up the enthusiasm and motivation of the staff.”

As CMC managing director, Malone will work closely with former director Roxanne Hori, who is now Kellogg’s associate dean of corporate partnerships. “The CMC has always listened very closely to students — and worked with recruiters from their perspective,” said Hori. “We’ve supported students and recruiters in a way that has benefited everyone.”

It’s an approach, Hori says, that is “uniquely Kellogg — building partnerships to create a best-in-class student experience. It’s a spirit you see throughout the Kellogg administration.”

Prior to joining Kellogg, Malone was the director of career education and advising at Columbia Business School, where he also served as the assistant director of business development and class dean of academic advising.

“Michael is definitely the right person to take the CMC to the next level — and to define what that next level will be,” Hori says. “He has spent a great deal of time doing one-on-one coaching and career education, and he has new ideas about how to present information and use media. He has the experience and ideas to ensure that we remain a leader in career management.”