By Kelsey Gee
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 5, 2017).
Amazon.com Inc., disrupter of industries from book selling to
grocery shopping, has found its latest sector to upend --
recruiting at the nation's elite business schools.
The Seattle-based retail giant is now the top recruiter at the
business schools of Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University and
University of California, Berkeley. It is the biggest internship
destination for first-year M.B.A.s at the University of Michigan,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College and Duke.
Amazon took in more interns from the University of Chicago's Booth
School of Business than either Bain & Co. or McKinsey &
Co., which were until recently among the school's top hirers of
interns, according to Madhav Rajan, Booth's dean.
All told, Amazon has hired some 1,000 M.B.A.s in the past year,
according to Miriam Park, Amazon's director of university programs
-- a drop in the bucket for a company that plans to add 50,000
software developers in the next year. But Amazon's flood-the-zone
approach to recruiting and hiring future M.B.A.s -- in some cases
before they have taken a single business-school course -- is
feeding the career frenzy on campus and rankling some rival
recruiters.
The talent wars begin even before classes do. This past June,
Amazon sponsored an event at its Seattle headquarters for 650
soon-to-be first-year and returning women M.B.A. students, some of
whom left the event with internship offers for summer 2018.
Scott DeRue, dean of the University of Michigan's Ross School of
Business, urges Amazon and other avid hirers to refrain from
recruiting activities until at least the end of the first week of
classes. "It's nearly impossible," Mr. DeRue said. "You say an
academic building is off limits, and they're at restaurants and
coffee shops across the street."
So far this year, Amazon has hired around 40 Ross grads. Last
month alone, it was one of 196 companies that trekked to the Ann
Arbor business school to host a total of 400 events, ranging from
in-classroom presentations to happy hours and pizza dinners, a Ross
spokesman said. Recruiters from consulting firms favor a wine bar
called Vinology on the college town's Main Street.
At Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, 25 to 30 people,
or an average 10% to 15% of the graduating M.B.A. class each year,
go to work for Jeff Bezos. The retailer's recruiters fill the nine
interview rooms in Tepper's career center, and the staff at the
career office turn over their personal offices to interviewers too,
said Steve Rakas, career-services administrator. Only
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP sends as many people, he added.
Next month, Tepper is set to host its annual Amazon-sponsored
case competition for M.B.A. students, where the company reveals a
business-operations challenge, and students vie to come up with the
best solution. Student teams from business schools around the
country sign a nondisclosure agreement to compete; judges are a mix
of professors and Amazon employees. Prizes have included Amazon
products like the Echo home speaker and Kindle e-reader, $5,000 or
more in cash and invitations from the tech giant to interview for
open jobs.
Tech companies, once averse to hiring PowerPoint-loving B-school
grads, have embraced them in the past few years. Ms. Park said
business students understand Amazon's customer-obsessed ethos and
tend to be "risk oriented," scrappy and analytical. Many join the
company's future leadership ranks in the role of senior product
manager, which typically pays $120,000 to $160,000 a year,
according to the career website Glassdoor.
Wall Street firms and consulting giants, historically the big
recruiters of M.B.A.s, are having to adjust to Amazon's tactics.
Amazon's campus recruiters descend en masse and are in
almost-constant touch with students, according to Abby Scott, an
assistant dean of Berkeley's Haas school: Amazon might have eight
or 10 alumni working large events or hosting coffee meetings for
one-on-one conversations with students, compared with a typical one
or two presenters from other companies. "It's been a huge volume
play," Ms. Scott said.
M.B.A. career-services officers often find they have to navigate
tensions with other recruiters and become careful keepers of the
recruiting calendar. Many big banks and consulting firms now want
to know when Amazon is coming to campus so they can schedule their
visits for a different day and avoid going head-to-head for an
audience, said Erica Marks, a director in the career office of
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Keith Bevans, partner and global head of recruiting for Bain,
said the consulting firm continues to command its share of elite
students, hiring roughly 500 M.B.A.s each year. Bain offers new
hires the chance to learn strategy and problem-solving from masters
of the craft, he said. "Going to the best grocery store in the
world doesn't make you a better chef," Mr. Bevans said.
Students are flocking to the grocery store, though. Last fall,
Amazon at Wharton's recommendation moved a recruiting presentation
to the nearby Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia, because the overflow
crowd of 350 attendees had become "overwhelming," Ms. Marks
said.
At Tepper, Mr. Rakas and his career-services colleagues lead
student groups on trips each fall to potential employers'
headquarters around the world; a few years ago, about 15 students
signed up for the Seattle trip. He turned students away for the
first time this fall, capping the group at 50.
Though Amazon is known for its demanding culture, M.B.A.s who
also have experience on Wall Street or at big consulting firms say
the retail giant's workload seems more manageable in
comparison.
Abe Levy interned at Amazon in Seattle this summer as a senior
program manager and is considering taking a job there after he
graduates from Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business
Administration. A father of three, Mr. Levy found his Amazon
co-workers were friendly and observed that many seemed to have a
better work-life balance than consultants do.
At Duke's Fuqua School of Business, Monalisa Dutta says she and
her cohort of M.B.A. interns have joked that Amazon fills a role in
their careers similar to that of a McKinsey, given all the
businesses Amazon touches and the number of ex-management
consultants in its ranks. She said they see it as a place to dive
into many industries and try different roles.
Ms. Dutta was interning this summer with IMDb.com, Amazon's
movie and TV database, when the company announced its deal to buy
Whole Foods Market Inc. She attended events with the deal makers in
the following days.
"It was like being in the center of the universe," she said. "I
can't wait for my M.B.A. to be over so I can go back."
Write to Kelsey Gee at kelsey.gee@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications Keith Bevans is partner and
global head of recruiting for Bain & Co. An earlier version of
this article misspelled his surname. And Jewel Lai was
misidentified as Xujun Hong in a photo caption with an earlier
version of this article. (Oct. 4)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 05, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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