School v. School: Michigan Ross v. Minnesota Carlson
Where should you go to school for your MBA? It’s a hard decision that has to factor in many different elements from location to reputation, alumni networks, ROI, and program options.
To help simplify the process for you, our School vs. School series takes a look at two similar top b-schools to compare and contrast their offerings. Today, we look at Michigan vs Minnesota to see which is best for you. Continue reading…
The Best MBA Internships: Midwest
The Midwest is a great place to live. Not only is it among the friendliest places in the U.S., but it’s home to some top-rated MBA programs including the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and Indiana University’s Kelly School of Business.
So, with all these great schools in the area, the question is, where should you look for your MBA internship in the Midwest?
Below, we’ve highlighted 14 of the best MBA internships spread out over the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Minneapolis.
When it comes to the Midwest, Chicago is the foregone epicenter. And there’s no doubt that it’s a great city for internships with many top companies. Chicago is home to nearly 40 Fortune 500 companies while also being considered the financial and cultural hub of the area.
So, where should you look for an internship in Chicago? There are many options:
- McKinsey & Company: McKinsey is known for recruiting from a variety of Midwest schools, including Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, Indiana University Kelley, and Carnegie Mellon Tepper. In fact, last year McKinsey & Co hired 48 employees from Booth. This accounts for nearly 10 percent of the 2017 Booth MBA class.
- United Airlines: United Airlines is headquartered in Chicago, IL and has a wide variety of MBA internship opportunities available in the city. There are opportunities in marketing, financial planning and analysis, HR, legal, corporate and government affairs, and more.
- Google: For an internship with Google in the Midwest, then Chicago is where you need to be. The Google internship program has openings for students interested in business strategy, finance, hardware, people operations, product management, and more.
As the largest city in Wisconsin and the fifth largest city in the Midwest, Milwaukee is another great location for MBA internships. The city is known for manufacturing and service companies and is home to six Fortune 500 companies. In particular, the city is known for having a large number of financial service firms and health care opportunities.
In terms of internships in the city, you should keep your eye on these companies:
- U.S. Bank: An internship at U.S. Bank is a great choice if you’re looking for the opportunity to work for the fifth largest bank in the U.S. There are opportunities to intern in distributed database administration, fund services, product management, private capital management, lending services, and more.
- Northwestern Mutual: Headquartered in the city, Northwestern Mutual is home to many MBA-level internships. Students can intern in public investments, analytics, strategic sourcing, and more.
- SC Johnson: In Racine, WI, just outside of Milwaukee, MBA students can find an internship opportunity at SC Johnson. There are openings in marketing, finance, sales, research and development, manufacturing, and IT. It’s an ideal company for those interested in a career in manufacturing.
Cleveland, Ohio home to manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, and biomedical companies. Many top-rated companies call the city home including NACCO Industries, Sherwin-Williams, Applied Industrial Technologies, and KeyCorp. NASA also maintains a facility in Cleveland.
For internship opportunities in the area, look to:
- Eaton: The Eaton MBA internship program is ideal for global MBA students who are interested in the energy industry. Eaton is a $20.4 billion company with 95,000 employees around the world with MBA internships in supply chain management, human resources, and more.
- Nestle: Located in Solon, OH, just outside of Cleveland, Nestlé has an MBA internship program for students interested in marketing or brand management. Internships get the opportunity to work with the company’s global portfolio of more than 2,000 leading brands.
- KeyCorp: Headquartered in Cleveland, KeyCorp is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies with more than $134.5 billion in assets. Every year, they high MBA summer associates in investment banking
St. Louis is the cultural and economic epicenter of Missouri. As the 19th largest city in the U.S., it is considered a major economical center for service, manufacturing, trade, and tourism. The metro area is home to many major corporations including Anheuser-Busch, Boeing Defense, Energizer, Panera, Enterprise, Edward Jones, and Purina. In fact, nine Fortune 500 companies call the city home.
Top MBA internships in St. Louis include:
- Monsanto: The beleaguered Monsanto was recently acquired by Bayer to strengthen its agricultural division. The MBA internship is designed for individuals interested in digital strategy and innovation.
- Emerson: The U.S. MBA leadership program at Emerson is designed for students interested in marketing, operations, supply chain, strategy, HR, financial, or business development. Each year, the company interviews more than 400 MBA candidates to fill their roles.
- Ameren Corp: As a leader in energy, the Ameren MBA internship is ideal for candidates interested in providing new solutions to tomorrow’s energy needs. MBAs interested in environmental policy and sustainability are preferred.
Minneapolis is the larger of the Twin Cities and the 16th largest metro area in the U.S. Recognized as a global city, the economy is known for business, medicine, sports, manufacturing, and research. Five Fortune 500 companies call Minneapolis their home including Target, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy, Ameriprise Financial, and Thrivent Financial.
The best MBA internships in the area include:
- Target: The Target Arrows Leadership Development Program is designed for MBA students interested in being a part of Target’s global supply chain and logistics. It’s ideal for individuals interested in operations.
- S. Bank: Headquartered in the city, U.S. Bank is home to a ten-week competitive internship for students interested in retail payment solutions, enterprise strategy, lending services, performance engineering, and more. Here’s an example of the ad for a product management intern.
Tech Grads Surge in New Northwestern Kellogg Employment Report
The Kellogg School of Management released new employment data and statistics from the Class of 2017. According to the school, 94 percent of Kellogg’s full-time MBA Class of 2017 received an offer within three months of graduation.
“Kellogg leaders take a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex business challenges,” said Matt Merrick, Associate Dean of MBA Operations. “The versatile skills they hone at Kellogg enable them to make an immediate impact across all types of organizations.”
MBAs were hired by a wide variety of companies across all disciplines and industries, shapes and sizes. Some of the top companies hiring Kellogg students include McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Amazon, Bain & Company, and Microsoft.
Employment data shows that the most popular industries were consulting (33 percent), technology (25 percent), finance (13 percent) and CPG (12 percent). The Kellogg Career Management Center helped students establish relationships with more than 50 technology companies in order to help secure these employment opportunities. Overall, the Career Management Center works with employers to create custom recruiting strategies, forging deep relationships with employers of all sizes, from all industries and regions.
According to our sister site Clear Admit, the 25 percent of Kellogg grads that landed jobs in the technology industry was a school record.
Jeanette Brown writes:
“Amazon hired 32 Kellogg grads, making it the third largest recruiter in 2017, behind only McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). But Amazon was far from the only tech firm to hire at the school. ‘It’s not only the big employers like Amazon, Apple, Google—but the small companies as well, the ones that hire just one to two MBAs,’ explains Liza Kirkpatrick, Senior Director of the full-time MBA program at Kellogg’s Career Management Center. ‘We had over 50 unique tech employers that hired our students this past year, which demonstrates that we really have that depth.’ Kirkpatrick further noted that the types of jobs for which tech firms are hiring Kellogg grads is widely varied, including product management, sales, marketing, business operations, supply chain, product development, and others.”
Kirkpatrick notes that the surge in tech jobs stems from a concerted effort from the business school, which was also reflected in the number of technology industry internships for the Class of 2018.
“‘We started developing relationships in the tech space many years ago,’ acknowledges Kirkpatrick. ‘It has taken a while for firms to recognize that when an MBA comes on board, it really adds value.’ But they certainly have, which can also be seen reflected in the number of tech firms that now take on summer interns. ‘They have really organized themselves to bring on an MBA class as interns as a result,’ Kirkpatrick adds. The most recent employment report reveals that 26 percent of the Class of 2018 interned at technology firms.”
In a press release from the school, Jodi Washington, a Program Manager for the Networking and Security Transformation team, said, “Kellogg’s curriculum builds leaders who are strong analytical thinkers and are confident collaborating across organizations. The Kellogg graduates we hire jump in on day one, but also continue to mature at Cisco.”
2017 statistics/photo courtesy of Northwestern Kellogg.
The statistics show that the number of Kellogg MBAs to accept job offers on the West Coast has also increased (31.4 percent) from last year, a direct correlation to uptick in tech hires. Meanwhile, 30 percent of 2017 MBAs stayed in the Midwest and 33 percent accepted jobs on the East Coast.
You can read more on Kellogg’s latest employment stats and the Clear Admit interview with Kellogg Senior Director of Career Management Liza Kirkpatrick here.
Metro News & Notes: Stanford Wants You in the Midwest, MBA Essays and More
Good morning and happy Friday!
Here are a few stories you may have missed from the week that was …
Stanford Will Pay MBAs $160,000 to Work in the U.S. Midwest | CNBC
Earlier this week, the Stanford Graduates School of Business announced three winners of its first-ever Stanford USA MBA Fellowship, which will reportedly pay each student upwards of $160,000 for two years of tuition. CNBC writer Catherine Clifford explains:
“To be eligible for the scholarship, you have to have a connection to the Midwest. You can be a current resident of a Midwestern state, which Stanford defines as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota or Wisconsin. Alternatively, you could have lived for three consecutive years in one of those states, have graduated high school in one of those states or have ‘experiences that demonstrate a strong commitment to, and interest in, the development of the region.'”
There is a stipulation with the lucrative scholarship, however. Those students must agree to work in the Midwest within two years of graduation. Clifford notes that by the times grads have been out of Stanford GSB for four years, at least two of those years will have to have been working in the Midwest.
“The winners of the first Stanford USA MBA Fellowship are Adam Verhasselt, Amanda Donohue-Hansen and Taylor Seabaugh,” Clifford writes. “Verhasselt was raised on a dairy farm owned by his family in Wisconsin and is the first in his family to graduate from college. Donohue-Hansen is from California but graduated from University of Minnesota and lived and work there for 10 years. Seabaugh grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and returned after graduating from college to work at 3M and volunteer at local public schools.”
Read more about the Stanford USA MBA Fellowship here.
High School Students Dream Big – with Help of MBA Mentors | The Globe & Mail
Three Toronto metro high school students recently earned some valuable hands-on help from second-year Schulich School of Business MBA candidate Cortney Mills. The partnership came to fruition from the semester-long case competition Summit Leaders, founded last year by MBA students from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, writes the Globe & Mail. The goal of the nonprofit summit is to help underprivileged high schoolers from the community, giving them in-person lessons about business and entrepreneurship.
“’A lot of students don’t realize this [business] is an avenue they can take and they are often the brightest people,’ says David St. Bernard, a Co-Founder of Summit Leaders who graduated this spring with combined degrees in business and law at U of T.”
“’Sometimes they need that little push,’ he says of the younger students in the program. ‘Our idea is to give them the avenue to open up their ideas and create more connections within the community.’ Students do not have to choose a business career, he adds, ‘but at least we give them the opportunity to choose.’”
Find out more about the Summit Leaders nonprofit program here.
Your MBA Application Essay Mastered | Financial Times
Admissions teams know that essays are where students have to individually shine. Work experience, grades and GMAT score tell a lot about a student, of course, but the essay is a chance for them to stick out beyond traditional parameters.
In a recent piece with the Financial Times, Yuan Ding, Dean of the China Europe International Business School, says, “[The essay] is where we learn about applicants’ career aspiration, understanding of China, and writing skills.”
Rob Weiler, UCLA Anderson School of Management MBA Program Associate Dean, also notes how students need to be pretty concise with their words. “If an applicant attempts to add too much supplemental information, chances are they are trying too hard,” he says in the piece. Applicants to the UCLA Anderson MBA program all have a 500-world limit on their essays.
In contrast, institutions like the IESE Business School in Spain do not limit applicants to any standards on essays, offering immensely flexible entry capabilities. Dean Franz Heukamp says, “The ones that grab our attention do so not because they say something we have never heard before, are wild or outrageous. What makes a cover letter special is when it is very clear that the candidate knows what he or she wants to achieve professionally.”
Read more about what school’s may or may not expect from your application essay here.
MBA Job Recruiters: General Motors
General Motors—the Detroit automotive monolith, whose Cadillac and Chevrolet brands are American icons unto themselves—turns 110 next year. 10 years into its second century, GM is poised to shake things up in the boardroom and out on the road due in no small part to growing concerns about self-driving cars.
