What Employers And Students Expect From A Business School

What do employers and students most expect from a business school today?

The short answer is leadership development and a commitment beyond oneself to society.

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School has a unique take on developing future leaders. You can’t learn from experiences you don’t have. So the goal is to give students unusual experiences to accelerate their leadership know-how. Students learn how to be leaders by leading business. They are put in situations where they have to learn and lead their way through. That’s how Goizueta approaches leadership development.

Consider the school’s Leader’s Reaction Course at Fort Moore: a unique experiential leadership opportunity that builds upon the programs and facilities of the U.S. Army at Fort Moore, Georgia, that is used to train all the Army’s Officer candidates. Formed into small teams, students overcome challenges, surmount physical barriers, establish plans of action, and execute their plans to solve problems. Through an integrated feedback process and reflection, students can then apply their lessons in subsequent challenges.

There’s also the Delta Leadership Coaching Fellows: a program that provides the behavioral, relational, cognitive, and emotional tools to effectively deliver team and individual performance feedback to improve performance.

And the Goizueta Advanced Leadership Academy: which allows students to explore leadership in every context. The program culminates with a trip to the British Virgin Islands, where students put their burgeoning leadership skills to the test by sailing open waters.

Finally, students go through countless simulations and small group exercises where their skills are put to the test.

None of this leadership training occurs in a vacuum. Goizueta is a hub for positive action and dynamic thinking. The school answers the call of business and society. In today’s changing business landscape, leaders must make decisions based on the planet, people, and profit. To that end, Goizueta’s Business & Society Institute delivers community-focused and student-centered programming enabling students to work on the critical challenges that businesses and their stakeholders can address together.

Students can participate in:

• The student-run John R. Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition, a national case competition focusing on the intersection of business and racial inequality
• 10 social impact courses such as the Philanthropy Lab, teach students about the role of philanthropy in addressing inequality by enabling them to make grants to nonprofits
• Global experiential modules where students explore the challenges faced in developing economies by engaging participants in how business principles, market-based solutions, and climate-smart strategies can be applied to achieve meaningful social impact
• Global feasibility studies in which students make business cases for innovative and high-impact projects set in developing countries and regions
• One or more student-led clubs related to Business & Society including impact investing, clean tech, and sustainability to name a few
• A ClimateCAP Summit that addresses the business implications of climate change
  Grounds for Empowerment, in which students can assist with semester-long consulting support and in-country workshops to support women coffee growers in Central America
• A Social Enterprise Fellowship Program to gain hands-on education, exposure, and experiences to develop their capabilities as next-generation social sector leaders
• Microbusiness development supporting Start: ME, a 12-week accelerator program that provides the most promising micro-entrepreneurs in marginalized metro Atlanta communities business training, mentorship support, and early-stage financing needed to develop their businesses
• Business & Society Impact Report

The leadership development and focus on making decisions on planet, people, and profit results in great career outcomes for Goizueta graduates. Combine academic rigor, experiential learning, and personalized attention from faculty and career management center staff and you have a recipe for success. Goizueta consistently ranks among the world’s top five business schools for employment outcomes with graduates realizing best-in-class acceptance rates for employment within three months of graduation. The class of 2023 is no different with 96% of graduates accepting jobs within three months and a median base salary of $165,000 and a median base salary plus a bonus of $193,000 (maintaining the record median salary set by the class of 2022).

Consulting continues to be the preferred field for Goizueta graduates with 54% of graduates accepting consulting roles followed by finance, marketing, general management, and business analytics roles. As expected, consulting companies including Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, EY, and PwC are well-represented among the top hiring companies. Many sought-after Fortune 500s are also among those hiring Goizueta graduates. These include Amazon, Adobe, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One Financial, Delta Air Lines, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Lowe’s, Microsoft, UPS, Verizon, and Visa, among others.

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