Job placements 'promising' for '99 MBAs

By JOHN DELLA CONTRADA
Reporter Contributor

Preliminary job-placement statistics for the MBA Class of '99 are very promising, according to staff of the Career Resource Center in the School of Management. Thirty MBA students have been hired to date at an average starting salary of $50,300, with four students reporting starting salaries of more than $65,000. If this trend continues, it would mark a dramatic upturn in starting salaries for UB MBAs, compared to the average salaries of 1997 and 1998 graduates, which were about $41,000 and $42,000, respectively.

Among the Class of '99, one student fielded six job offers before accepting a position with IBM in Denver. Other students, like Lauren Israel, had two or three job offers. Israel benefited from increased demand in the hottest of MBA job markets, consulting, and fielded three offers from big-name firms before accepting a position with Arthur Andersen Business Consulting.

Cynthia Shore, assistant dean and director of the Career Resource Center, said her office has experienced a busier recruiting season than usual, with most of the increased activity coming from companies seeking to fill multiple positions. "The big boys are definitely back and are eager to hire lots of talent," Shore said, referring to the large firms that visited campus. "We're very pleased with the quality and the salaries of the positions. Many of our students have landed great jobs."

While some of the increased recruiter activity is attributable to marketplace trends, Shore and her staff have helped to spark recruiter interest by aggressively marketing students' capabilities to blue-chip companies, which usually offer the most-attractive positions at the most-attractive salaries. GE already has hired five UB MBAs from the Class of '99, M&T Bank has hired two and EDS-Enterprise Solutions has hired 11 students, at MBA and undergraduate levels.

Praxair, Inc., which traditionally has hired MBA students only from Harvard, Northwestern and other top-10 business schools, has hired one MBA from the Class of '99. Impressed with the quality of UB candidates, Praxair has committed to an annual recruitment stop in the School of Management. Other companies that have hired Class of '99 MBAs include National City Bank, Xerox, Fisher Price, Dun and Bradstreet, IBM, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals and Paine Webber.