斯坦福MBA毕业生的新求职策略

    斯坦福大学的就业管理中心注意到了这一点。斯坦福大学并没有简单地保证毕业生们会获得高薪聘用（93%的2012届MBA学生在毕业后三个月都收到了工作邀请），而是保证MBA学生们能够得到他们最想要的工作。赛格威说：“我们致力于帮助学生探索他们是谁，他们对什么最有热情，以及他们最想要什么。”

    那么他们到底是怎么做的呢？赛格威表示“策略非常简单：我们帮助每一位学生定义一个独特的职业与生活愿景。”就业管理中心将这个过程正式化，同时举办为期半天的职业与生活愿景研讨会。赛格威估计，75%的MBA学生会参加自发的研讨会。这种指导取代了传统的求职策略建议，甚至改变了就业中心的招聘方式。现在，帮助商学院学生与以前的校友建立联系已经成了这个中心的一项必修课。

    在MBA学生进入学校和在斯坦福大学学习期间，校方要求他们围绕下面这个问题建立并不断改善一种假设：“我该如何对待自己的人生？”根据他们的答案，就业中心会将学生与能够作为“思想伙伴”的校友进行配对。这么做背后的理论是：这种校友与MBA学生之间的关系最终能带来就业机会。赛格威说：“在过去，学生写好简历，穿上西装去参加面试，滔滔不绝地大谈特谈自己有多高的水平，足以胜任某个职位。但现在的学生却是建立关系网。”学校认为，这种关系能持续不断地提供工作机会，尤其是那些尚未公开的机会。

    放弃传统招聘，重视建立关系，也将MBA毕业生的求职时间从秋季一直延续到春季。斯坦福大学2012届MBA毕业生中，67%的人在传统的校园秋季招聘季结束后仍然再继续求职。只有不到四分之一的MBA毕业生专心应付秋季招聘季，而且接受了校园招聘中提供的全职工作。赛格威将其归因于学生更加重视找到能实现个人抱负的工作，人际关系网，还有及时的机会。他表示，在传统招聘季期间，学生们并不是没有积极求职。只是，他们在向校友寻求帮助，寻找行业内部的机会。他说：“这种交往是有组织的，围绕着‘我该如何对待我的一生？’这个问题进行，因此，学生们可以建立一个关系网。”

    这种不同以往的就业趋势也要求使用新的标准来衡量成果。斯坦福不再把六位数的薪资和大品牌作为成功的标准，而是着力培养MBA学生和校友之间的密切合作与个人幸福感。明天，赛格威希望能进行一次标准化的调查，在学生们离开斯坦福时以及未来生命中的固定时间，衡量一下他们的幸福感和成就感。他说：“我们专注长期效果。我们相信，只要学生在斯坦福能够对自己提出正确的问题，那么未来五年，十年，二十年，他们仍会不断用这些问题来帮助自己获得成功。”

    这个计划能带来成功吗？它取决于每一位MBA学生对成功的定义。但赛格威坚信，这个计划将取得积极的成果：真正的优势在于，学生可以找到他们真正热爱、真正充满激情、真正能够发挥潜能的职业道路。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Stanford's Career Management Center has taken note. Instead of simply ensuring that their graduates are gainfully employed (93% of 2012 MBAs had job offers three months after graduation), Stanford is set on making sure MBAs are securing jobs they actually want. "We really focus on helping students explore who they are and what they're most passionate about and what they want to do," Sanghvi says.

    So how exactly do they do it? "The strategy is fairly simple: We help each student define a unique career and life vision, Sanghvi says. The Career Management Center has gone so far as to formalize this process and hosts half-day Career and Life Vision workshops. Sanghvi estimates that 75% of MBAs attend the voluntary sessions. This type of guidance has superseded the more traditional job search strategy advice and even changed the career center's approach to recruiting, which now entails forging connections between B-school students and alumni early on.

    When they arrive on campus and throughout their Stanford experience, MBAs are asked to build and refine a hypothesis around the question, "What should I do with my life?" Based on their answers, the career center pairs students with alumni who can act as "thought partners." The theory is that these alumni-MBA relationships will eventually lead to job opportunities. "Historically, you wrote a resume, dressed up in a suit, and went to an interview and the conversation would focus on your high-level qualifications for the job description, but now students build a network of connections," Sanghvi says. It's assumed

    that these connections will provide a constant feed of job opportunities, particularly ones that aren't public yet.

    The emphasis on relationships over traditional recruitment has also pushed the timing of MBAs' job search back from the fall to the spring. Some 67% of Stanford's 2012 MBA graduates continued their employment search after the traditional on-campus fall recruiting season closed. Less than one-quarter of these MBAs wrapped up the season by accepting full-time offers facilitated by on-campus recruiting. Sanghvi attributes this to a greater emphasis on finding fulfilling employment, networking, and just-in-time

    opportunities. Students aren't inactive during the traditional recruiting cycle, he says. Rather, they're reaching out to alumni who can advise them on industries and inside opportunities. "Because this networking is happening so organically around the question of, 'what should I do with my life,' students can build a web of connections," he says.

    These changing career trends also require new metrics to measure success. Instead of simply chalking up a six-figure gig with a big brand as a win, Stanford is honing in on the alignment and happiness of both MBAs and alumni. As early as next year, Sanghvi hopes to introduce a standardized survey that will measure happiness and fulfillment when students leave Stanford and again at regular intervals across their lifetimes. "Our focus in on the long-term game. We believe that if we can get students asking the right questions here, they'll keep asking those questions of themselves five, 10, 20 years from now," he says.

    Will this plan breed success? That really depends on MBAs' individual definitions of the term. However, Sanghvi is confident the outcomes will be positive: "The real upside here is that students can find paths that they really love and that they're really passionate about and that really brings out the best in them."