Tag: jobs

Amazon calls it “our biggest hiring event of the year.” Olin professor Panos Kouvelis calls it retailers’ worst nightmare.

It is Amazon Jobs Day when the e-commerce giant says it will hire 50,000 people for positions at 12 of its fulfillment centers on August 2. Job candidates will be given tours of the centers to “watch our jobs in action, and see the magic behind the Amazon smile,” according the company’s website.

Panos Kouvelis

Kouvelis, Director of The Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation and Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management at Olin Business School predicts Amazon’s hiring spree could have reverberations all the way to customers’ front doors.

What effect will adding 50,000 new workers in one day have on Amazon’s supply chain and distribution system?

For Amazon, the focus is on the customer, and “speed” of service is everything. Speed at the level Amazon imagines it (two days, next day, in two hours), heavily depends on fulfillment center capacities. With more employees, their system should have the potential to become more responsive, in other words, shortening the time between when a customer clicks on an order to delivery. This is the logistical capability other companies find difficult to match, and it will get even harder for them to respond as Amazon scales up its operations. Amazon is a nightmare of a competitor for many retailers, and with these 50,000 new hires in one day, it just got worse for them.

Will many of these fulfillment center jobs be replaced by robots and drones in the near future?

I have visited a massive Amazon fulfillment center outside Seattle. It is reasonably automated, but there is still a need for workers. For now, human labor is the “flexibility” element for Amazon. People are needed to handle the more complex operations such as final packaging. At fulfillment centers that function on a smaller scale and exist to provide proximity to certain markets, automation is inflexible and costly.  In those cases, human labor might be more flexible to adjust to demand conditions and more cost effective.

Amazon continues to invest in automation (robotics, three D printing, drones etc.), and has already replaced quite a lot of labor. Over time, Amazon will definitely move to higher degrees of automation.

Could Amazon turn abandoned shopping malls into distribution centers?

Distribution centers need a lot of space at low cost. If the empty shopping malls come at very low rental rates, why not?  Shopping malls near town centers might be expensive for storing a lot of inventory, but you could have temporary shipment consolidation or pickup locations close to cities in areas that used to be thriving shopping malls before the boom in online shopping drove bricks and mortar retailers out of business.

RESTON, Va., June 20, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Corporate hiring plans for 2017 point to robust employment opportunities for graduates of MBA and business master’s programs, according to a new employer survey report from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Globally, 86 percent of companies plan to hire recent MBA graduates this year, up from 79 percent that hired them in 2016. Demand for these MBA graduates is strongest in the United States and Asia-Pacific, where 9 in 10 companies plan to hire these candidates.

Karen Heise

“It’s indeed good news the market continues to value MBA talent,” said Karen Heise, Director of Olin’s Weston Career Center. “The expectations and requirements for MBA students to achieve their career goals means a lot of hard work, persistence and resilience. Olin’s MBA students invest significantly in their career search and succeed across a wide range of industries (consulting, financial services, technology, CPG, manufacturing and healthcare being the front-runners) and job functions including finance, general management, consulting, and marketing. The entrepreneurial spirit of our students serves them well in capitalizing on opportunities where MBA talent is valued.”

“Despite the political uncertainty about the status of immigration and work visas in the United States and other parts of the world, companies are keen to hire graduates from this year’s MBA and business master’s programs, including international candidates,” said Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC president and CEO. “This signifies the value these programs create for students and the vital role their skill sets bring employers.”

At the time GMAC conducted the Corporate Recruiters Survey in early 2017, respondents in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the United States declared their companies are staying the course with plans to hire international graduate business candidates. Overall, 59 percent of the survey respondents plan to hire or are willing to hire MBA and business master’s graduates requiring legal documentation — a gain of seven percentage points from 2016.

Most U.S. companies (55 percent) either plan to hire (28 percent) or are open to hiring (27 percent) an international candidate in 2017 — up from 49 percent that had such plans last year. The technology industry in the U.S. is the most likely to hire international business graduates this year. Half of U.S. tech firms (50 percent) plan to hire such candidates in 2017 — up from 27 percent that planned to hire them last year.

GMAC conducted the 16th annual Corporate Recruiters Survey in February and March 2017 together with survey partners EFMD and MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), in association with 97 participating graduate business schools. Survey findings are based on responses from 959 employers representing more than 628 companies in 51 countries worldwide. Two additional organizations, CEMS and RelishMBA, assisted with recruitment of survey participants.

Additional Key Findings
Hiring Demand Also Bright for Business Master’s Graduates
As the outlook for MBA hiring continues to look bright, so do projected hiring trends for 2017 business master’s graduates, especially those with Master in Management and Master of Accounting degrees.

•    The largest increase in hiring demand compared with 2016 is seen in the share of companies that plan to hire Master in Management graduates; globally, 59 percent plan to hire recent Master in Management graduates, up nine percentage points from last year.
•    Notably, 70 percent of manufacturing companies plan to hire Master in Management graduates in 2017, up from 50 percent of companies that hired them in 2016.
•    Data analytics expertise continues to be in high demand. Sixty-nine percent of employers plan to place recent graduate business school hires into data analytics roles in 2017, just trailing marketing, business development, and finance roles — each with 71 percent.

More Start-Up Companies Plan to Hire B-School Grads This Year
For the first time, this year’s survey report breaks out the responses specifically among start-up companies, revealing a promising 2017 hiring outlook for business school graduates. Three in 4 start-ups plan to hire recent MBA graduates in 2017, up from the 52 percent that hired them in 2016. More start-ups also plan to make 2017 hires from graduates of Master in Management (37 percent), Master of Accounting (23 percent), and Master of Finance (25 percent) programs.

Compensation: MBA Salaries Will Reflect 83 Percent Premium Over Recent Bachelor’s Salaries
Globally, more than half of survey respondents (52 percent) report that MBA base salaries will increase at (34 percent) or above (18 percent) the rate of inflation in 2017. Latin America (74 percent of respondents) and Asia-Pacific (59 percent) have the greatest share of companies that plan to increase MBA salaries either at or above the rate of inflation this year.

A majority of European and U.S. companies (57 percent and 51 percent, respectively) will maintain 2016 salary rates for new MBA hires in 2017. The projected median base starting salary for recent MBA graduates in the U.S. in 2017 is US$110,000, up from a median of US$105,000 in 2016. This represents an 83 percent premium over recent bachelor’s-degree holders in the U.S., who can expect to receive a median starting salary of US$60,000 in 2017.

“Once again, this year’s report brings to light the continued value of the MBA degree to the marketplace,” said Megan Hendricks, executive director of MBA CSEA. “The increased interest in specialty master’s talent provides further indication of the relevance of these programs at our member schools.”

Link to download the full report.

About GMAC: The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a global, nonprofit association of 220 leading graduate business schools. Founded in 1953, we are actively committed to advancing the art and science of admissions by convening and representing the industry and offering best-in-class products and services for schools and students. GMAC owns and administers the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®) exam, used by more than 6,500 graduate programs worldwide, and the NMAT by GMAC™ exam, for entrance into graduate management programs in India.

Source: GMAC news release

During the nomination process for the Best & Brightest MBAs, Poets&Quants asked students to share the biggest myths about their MBA programs. From Stanford to Simon and Oxford to Olin, P&Q asked members of the Class of 2017 to separate fact from fiction when it comes to stereotypes about their chosen b-schools.

Conn Davis, MBA’17, busts the myth about where Olin grads go to work after graduation.
Myth: An MBA at Olin means you’ll end up with a job in St. Louis or the Midwest.

Reality: “While you certainly can get a job in St. Louis or the Midwest at Olin, the opportunities at the school are all over. We have students that are going to the East Coast, the West Coast and all over the world. Olin may be in St. Louis, but it opens doors to wherever you want to go.”
– Conn Davis, Washington University (Olin)

Here are a few more myths from the Poets & Quants story:

• Myth: Boothies are quants who don’t know how to have fun.
• Myth: All the Notre Dame MBA students talk about is ethics.
• Myth: Ross is in the middle of nowhere.
• Myth: Kellogg is a marketing school and a feeder program to consumer products groups.

With spring upon us, Olin students are interviewing and preparing for their summer internships. As of early April, over 200 internship offers have been reported by approximately 170 Olin Business School students in all degree programs – BSBA, SMP and MBA. More than 130 companies have made internship offers to Olin students.

The majority of students will be completing summer internships in the United States, with internship offers in 27 states. Forty percent of Olin student’s will be interning in the Midwest followed by 28% in the Northeast.  Internships have also been reported in China, Japan, and the Netherlands.

Top industries for internships are the financial services sector with over 30% of the offers, followed by consulting firms, consumer products companies, and pharmaceutical/biotech/healthcare firms.  In addition, there are reported internships in technology, manufacturing, public accounting, sports/entertainment/leisure and other industries.

For tips on the internship search and how to turn your internship into a full-time job offer, see the OlinCareers – Internship section.

To report your summer internship, click here.

The Weston Career Center advisors are available to assist you in your internship search.  Stop by Knight Hall 210 or call 314-935-5950 to schedule an appointment with an advisor.

Guest Blogger: Shari Kern, The Weston Career Center

Can you name the MBA program with the best job placement record in 2015? That’s right, Olin is number one among the top 25 MBA programs in the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools Rankings released earlier this month. Poets & Quants’ John Byrne has been analyzing the data and shared the stats on his website today.

The Olin Business School at Washington University led the pack with 97.1% of its Class of 2015 employed three months after graduation, followed by the University of Washington’s Foster School, with 95.6% landing jobs. Virginia, Dartmouth, and the University of Chicago business schools rounded out the top five last year, each with 95% or more employed three months after commencement.

Byrne claims that, “2015 was one of the best years ever for graduating MBAs. One school after another reported increasing starting pay for their graduates along with some of the strongest employment numbers since the Great Recession.”

Class of 2016: no pressure, but we’re expecting great things from you, too!

Related post on U.S. News rankings.

Link to Poets & Quants website.

Photo credit: Got Credit