Top 10 apps for MBA recruiters

Are you a MBA recruiter with an Apple iDevice?  If you are, then you are holding a powerful recruiting tool in your hand.  Whether you are jotting down notes about candidates, looking for lodging and dining when you travel, giving a presentation on-campus, or just unwinding after a long day of work, here are 10 mobile apps for every MBA recruiter:

10. Global Focus - And finally, if you're looking for a better way to recruit on the campus of the world's top b-schools, try our Global Focus mobile app. The Global Focus mobile app lets you minimize the paper chase by putting the world’s best talent at your fingertips. Access the resumes and profiles of candidates at our partner schools and follow-up with potential hires directly from the app. 

9. Flight Control - At the end of a long day of trying to land the perfect candidate, you need to unwind and have a little fun.  Flight Control is that perfect diversion.  Use your finger to guide planes to the runway for a smooth landing -- but make sure two planes don’t have intersecting flight paths! 

8. Keynote - Have to give a presentation about your company to career services on the fly?  Keynote is the ideal presentation companion.  It allows for full customization of your presentation and some eye-catching templates to hold their attention.  It's also a remote to control your Mac presentations while on stage.

7. Google Maps - From satellite images from space to ground-level street views, Google Maps has the world mapped out.  This app is the perfect tool for finding your way around campus or in any city.  It also provides spoken driving directions, color-coded real-time traffic conditions, and vector-based maps (smooth at any size).  Google Maps will help you get where you are going, again and again.

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Top 10 apps for MBA students & alumni

Congratulations, you're an MBA!  Whether you've already graduated or still in school, it’s good to be equipped with as many career service tools as possible to help you land your dream job.  One of the best tools for the job is your iPhone or iPad.  These ten iOS apps help both candidates and alumni in their quest for vocational fulfillment.

10. MBA Focus - If you're a MBA at one of our partner schools, download the MBA Focus mobile app to access all your career services on-the-go. Just sign in to your b-school's career management center on your computer to authorize your mobile device. It's that easy!

9. Letterpress - If you’re a student or alumni of a top graduate business school, chances are you're quite the wordsmith. But coming up with the right "words" can often be a chore. Letterpress makes words fun again.  Play against yourself or with friends in a game where you find words, steal tiles, and color the board to improve or prove your wordsmithing skills to the world.

8. TextGrabber - Ever need to scan a printed document on-the-go? This app allows you to take a picture of a body of text and then it reproduces the photographed text as an editable text note on your device.  It also provides a powerful translating tool for interviews with overseas employers.

7. SimpleNote - Are you tired of writing important notes on pieces of paper that seemingly often get misplaced?  With SimpleNote you can write notes in your web browser on your desktop computer and they will sync with your mobile device, and vice versa.  You can also categorize notes by different headings to help you keep your thoughts, and your life, a bit more organized.

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Top 10 biggest challenges for MBA career service offices in 2013

Business schools, employers, and analysts are all predicting an uptick in MBA recruiting in 2013 -- and the class of 2013 MBA students are hoping they're right. But the career service offices at the world's top graduate business schools still face some major challenges next year -- even when the MBA job market picks up.

Despite technological innovations and creative new recruitment techniques, many MBA career service offices still lack simple solutions to the following issues:

1. Expanding the employer network to startups, nonprofits, and other companies that don't traditionally recruit on campus.
2. Gathering employment data from students in a timely fashion for employment reporting.
3. Helping candidates compare offers among peers with relative data.
4. Managing multiple OCR...

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Top 10 biggest challenges for MBA recruiters in 2013

Every recruiter deals with the challenges of the current economic state -- not enough time, money, or resources -- but beyond those basic pains MBA recruiters must also deal with these more complicated issues.

Despite predicted improvements to the MBA recruitment landscape in 2013, many employers will still lack simple solutions to the following problems:

1. Finding leadership talent that matches your company's culture.
2. Keeping your company's brand top-of-mind when candidates start seeking.
3. Finding up-to-date resumes and job-seeker profiles.
4. Making a personal connection...

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Top 10 social networks to connect with the "New Class" of MBAs

Are you looking for a way to reconnect with MBAs your career service office has lost touch with? Social networks are the best source to find those graduates and rebuild meaningful relationships with them. Try interacting with them via:

1. Facebook: With over 1 billion active users and more than 42 million pages with 10 or more likes, Facebook is the perfect place to connect with MBAs. Your school/program should have its own Facebook page that candidates can “like” and get daily updates on relevant news and events. By creating an official Facebook page for your school, you can easily reach people who are specifically interested in what you have to say.
2. Twitter: Twitter is a proven marketing tool and an effective outreach device. Many schools have a presence on Twitter. And some even have multiple accounts, including an entire recruiter-oriented presence (i.e. @HBSRecruitMBA). Your candidates are already using Twitter to communicate, research, promote and personally brand themselves – you should be doing the same for your school’s/program’s brand. Take a moment each day to tweet about something relevant or interesting.
3. LinkedIn: Where Facebook is considered a more personal space, LinkedIn has been defined as the “professional” social network. Use LinkedIn to connect with students and alumni from your school. You should not only create a LinkedIn group for your program, but also create subgroups for each class year, to better connect (and stay connected) with your program’s job-seeking candidates.
4. Google+: Google+ is the...

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Top 10 things we learned at Connections 2012

Representatives from 24 top business schools and 26 leading MBA employers attended Connections 2012 "The MBA Community: Positive Leadership, Changing Times” hosted by MBA Focus in Columbus, Ohio.

We are very proud that this conference continues to be the premiere event for thought leadership in MBA recruitment. We truly appreciate the ideas, comments, and willingness to share year after year. This kind of rich and open dialogue makes it possible for all of us to succeed.

Below is a list of the top 10 key thoughts, discussion points, and takeaways from the presentations, moderated panels, and keynotes at Connections 2012. Please keep these in mind as you prepare for the upcoming season. Feel free to call or email us with additional thoughts. You can also post your comments below.

1. Video interviewing is perfect for companies seeking international candidates; and for candidates seeking international opportunities
2. Currently 10%-20% of MBAs are placed internationally, but the demand for international candidates/opportunities is increasing.
3. MBA students are already very interested in being global; the next step is helping them with going global.
4. Recruiters say building global brand is...

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Top 10 most popular certifications and licenses for MBAs

In addition to 6+ years advancing their education, many MBAs also attain other certifications and licenses to further prepare themselves for the business world ahead.

It should also come as no surprise that finance certifications and licenses lead the pack. But you might be interested to see what else makes the list, including: Security Clearance, Real Estate License, Pilot License, and Architect License.

Out of 71,325 MBA students and alumni currently in our database, and 9,610 who answered this career profile question, here is what we found:

For the full list of stats and data on MBAs other certifications and licenses click here.

Top 10 function preferences for the MBAs

Second-year MBA student registration is closed for most of our partner programs, and today, more than 10,000 graduating MBA students from 60+ of the world's top-ranked graduate business schools have uploaded their resumes and created career profiles with MBA Focus. 

We already know which industries the new batch of MBAs are interested in -- but which functions do they prefer? As expected more than 1/4 of them are interested in finance. And over 18% want to be in management. But number three might surprise you.

Here are their top ten most preferred functions according to the MBA class of 2012 career profiles in our database:

Wondering which functions didn't make the top ten? Or where sales landed on the list? Check out MBAFocus.com for a complete summary of all of the MBA2s function preferences.

Top 10 most preferred industries for class of 2012 MBA2s

Second-year MBA student registration is closed for most of our partner programs, and today, more than 10,000 graduating MBA students from 60+ of the world's top-ranked graduate business schools have uploaded their resumes and created career profiles with MBA Focus.

This year's graduating class of MBA2s are the future business leaders of the world. They will be CEOs, CFOs, executive managers, directors, and VPs of huge Fortune 500 companies as well as start-up entrepreneurial businesses. But what types of industries are they interested in? As expected, nearly 1/4 of the MBA2 population is interested in financial companies. And more than 16% are interested in consulting. But the next three might surprise you.

Here are the top ten most preferred industries according to the class of 2012 MBA student career profiles in our database:
Wondering which industries didn't make the top ten? Or where the nonprofits landed on the list? Visit MBAFocus.com for a complete breakdown of their industry preferences.

Top 10 profile attributes MBA employers look for

More than 1,200 recruiters used the Global Focus MBA recruitment technology last year to search and source the perfect candidates for their hiring needs. Within that technology, these recruiters performed more than 35,000 advanced searches by selecting more than 600,000 profile attributes to define their perfect candidate. These were the top ten most selected profile attributes:

1. Class Year  =  Graduating MBAs  -  16,392
2. Class Year  =  MBA Interns  -  13,979
3. Work Authorization  =  United States  -  12,537
4. Program  =  Full-time MBA  -  9,214
5. Class Year  =  Experienced MBAs  -  8,689
6. Language Ability  =  Basic/Conversant  -  6,443
7. Total Years of Work Experience  =  5 - 10 Years  -  5,154
8. Function - Experience  =  Brand / Product Management  -  4,578
9. Function - Experience  =  Corporate Finance  -  4,339
10. Function - Experience  =  Analyst / Research  -  3,885

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