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Layne Austin is both an MBA Recruiter, and MBA Student at the University of California Davis MBA Program. After starting and growing a career within university recruiting, Layne is building her business acumen through the part-time MBA program at UC Davis. During our conversation, Layne spoke about her experience thus far in business school, how her time in school has helped her as an MBA recruiter. We also broke down the MBA recruiting and hiring process and gave advice on how MBA students can shine and stand out as a candidate.
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00:00:01 [Intro] Hi, everyone. Welcome to the MBA Insider Podcast. I am your host Al Dea, and the author of MBA Insider. This podcast is for career-driven professionals looking for advice on how to grow their careers by leveraging the skills, experiences and knowledge gained from an MBA degree.
In each episode, I’ll give you a look into the business school experience along with practical tips, career advice and real-life stories to help professionals grow their careers.]
00:00:34 Al Dea: Welcome to the MBA Insider Podcast. My name is Al Dea. I’m the host of the MBA Insider Podcast and the founder of mbaschooled.com. Today, I am joined by the one and only Layne Austin.
Layne works at Salesforce and is an MBA recruiter, but she’s also a UC Davis MBA student. So in addition to keeping busy in her day job, she’s also doing school on the side.
Layne is someone who I’ve had the privilege of working with over the past couple of years and I consider her to be a friend of the podcast. So I’m really glad that she’s joining me today to talk a little bit about both her experience in business school right now as well as some of the things she’s learned over the years working in recruiting. I think she just has a really great, unique perspective in terms of not only understanding the ins and outs of the recruiting process but also now being on the other side of also being an MBA student. So having that duality perspective, I think, is super, super valuable.
First of, Layne, thank you for being here and thank you for always getting looped in in all the things that I do. I sincerely appreciate it.
But for those of you out there listening who don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself.
00:01:39 Layne Austin: Sure. Yes, thank you, Al. I’m so excited to be here. I am thrilled to be a friend of the pod. I think that warrants a new title on LinkedIn.
00:01:47 Al Dea: Yes.
00:01:50 Layne Austin: My name is Layne. I’ve been a university recruiter in the Bay Area for six years now. It was one of my first jobs after undergrad and just really fell in love and stuck with it. I was introduced to the world of MBA recruiting at my first post‑undergrad employer at Genentech and found the space really interesting.
After shuffling around a little bit between Genentech and where I am right now, fell back into MBA recruiting, which has been great. And yeah, been surrounded by MBAs for so long, was really curious what they were up to this whole time, and so finally decided to get an MBA for myself.
Been doing it part time. Just finished my first quarter, so phew. Caught me on a good day. I guess that brings us here today.
And I just want to mention that on the call today I’m actually not going to be representing my employer but I’m more representing myself here.
00:02:45 Al Dea: Yes. And let’s dig into that a little bit more. But before we talk more about that, I forgot I need a warm-up question for you. My warm-up question for you, and hopefully this is an easy one, but what was your first job?
00:02:58 Layne Austin: Ice cream scoop at Cold Stone Creamery.
00:03:01 Al Dea: Nice. That’s awesome. What’s your favorite flavor?
00:03:05 Layne Austin: Oh, my gosh. I’m a glutton, so it was like everything unbaked. Like batter ice cream with cookie dough inside. We got a free small scoop for every shift and we would pack as much as we could in that small size. Oh, my God.
00:03:23 Al Dea: So I did not work at Cold Stone but I worked at a golf course. But, similarly, every time we worked we would always get at least a free meal, which we would use very liberally because the people who worked behind the fryer and in the kitchen were also the same age as us.
But after chicken fingers and fries everyday during the summer, back when you’re a kid it doesn’t matter, so it’s fine, but I would not be able to do that now. Just would not be able to work. Good memories of having a job where free food was part of the perks. And when you’re a kid, what could be better? Earning a little bit of money and getting some free food, your life is made.
00:04:03 Layne Austin: I know. I make this joke a lot, but my first job when I came to San Francisco, I was a tour guide on Segways. Don’t be jealous.
00:04:12 Al Dea: Oh, wow. That’s awesome.
00:04:13 Layne Austin: Oh, yeah. I was making $12 an hour, which was an unbelievable amount of money to me at the time. And I remember turning 21 being like, “Don’t worry, guys, the next round is on me,” because I was like filthy rich. I couldn’t believe my wealth.
So, first job, learned a lot. We can definitely jump into it more if you want to.
00:04:35 Al Dea: Yeah, let’s do that, but before we do that let’s go back to you exploring this MBA world after being around MBAs all the time. Let’s talk a bit more about that.
As you were saying, you worked in this world of university recruiting, got in deep really into a lot with MBAs. What really prompted you that kind of gave you the light switch to be like, “You know what? After working around these so much and hiring them, I want to go and pursue this for myself.”
00:05:04 Layne Austin: Yes. So I’ll start with a little bit of my background and where I’m coming from, my point of view.
My first major in college was theater, if that kind of gives you any indication where I’m coming from. I was attracted to moving to San Francisco because of the art and the culture and music and all that stuff. So like most recruiters, I fell into it and fell in love because I was like I’m helping students find their dream jobs and I love working with people. And I don’t have a thick enough skin to take being an artist full time, so it was perfect.
But some of the roles I was recruiting for, I could not understand why anyone would be interested in it. And that’s my own bias. But I remember recruiting for our procurement MBA internship and I was just like this sounds like the most boring freaking job I could ever imagine.
It was during one of our final round interview days. I was sitting with a few of the candidates during lunch. A little wining and dining as they were getting ready for their next round. And they were telling me about the world of supply chains and procurement and all of these interesting pieces of the puzzle. And how procurement works in different countries and these systems that we live in that is completely unseen to someone like me. And my jaw was on the ground. My eyes were wide open. I just couldn’t believe that this was the type of stuff that they were learning that I had no visibility into in my undergrad.
And ever since then, it made me look at job descriptions in a very different way. Then suddenly I was interested in everything. So that’s what got me excited about it.
Then fast forward, I was talking to some of my other candidates a cycle later and they told me about the Forté Program MBALaunch, which I participated in huge. So if any of your listeners identify as female, I recommend you look into the Forté Program because it’s definitely what helped me get into my program.
00:07:07 Al Dea: That’s great. So a couple things there. Number one, I definitely understand where your perspective is, particularly in something like procurement and supply chain. It’s not something that I am particularly interested in.
That said, one story about that which has become interesting, at least to me, I have a friend. I will not say what firm they worked for, but let’s say they worked for a global consulting firm. And they were on a case of an acquisition and integration between two leading airlines. As part of her role, she was on the procurement workstream, but part of her job was to figure out which pen supplier they were going to use moving forward.
So again, not my cup of tea, but when I heard that story I was like, “Oh, that’s fascinating.”
But the other lens I was going to talk this through, and again, I’ve nothing against procurement. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. But what I did find interesting…
00:08:06 Layne Austin: You know, there’s a lot of procurement listeners here.
00:08:08 Al Dea: No, we are, but this is okay. This is where I did find it interesting. So having worked in consulting before, I work in product marketing now, one of the things that I would often have to do particularly in the proposal process was that at some point, in order to get the contract signed, you would have to go through the procurement team.
And even now, too, working in software, procurement officers have very much a role. While the CIO might green light and say, “Yes, we’re going to spend this amount of money,” they have to abide by the guidelines that’s set by the procurement team or, in some cases, go through a series of steps through them.
And so when I was working in the consulting world, I actually did have to work with a number of procurement officers to make sure that whatever we were doing was going to go through.
They were all very nice and, most of the time, everything was fine but, on the surface, I never would have thought, oh, procurement is something that I would— was at the top of my list of careers to get into or wanting to do. But I did find ways to interact with them through various diverse experiences.
00:09:10 Layne Austin: Yes. And actually thinking through the lens of shopping thoughtfully and social justice, procurement folks have so much power in that space to make those decisions. Yeah, we could go deep.
00:09:22 Al Dea: Right, but also that is, I think, the value of an education, particularly a business education because it does expose you to think about things in new ways that maybe previously you wouldn’t have thought about either because it wasn’t something that you studied. I’m assuming it didn’t come up in your theater classes in college as much.
00:09:41 Layne Austin: No, not so much.
00:09:42 Al Dea: Okay. Yeah, for sure. Or because you have classmates who are working in those roles and they come and talk about their experiences and what they did. I think that is the inherent value of it.
So talk about that MBA experience. What’s it been like so far? What’s surprised you about it or what’s been most valuable, particularly as you’re working at the same time as going to class?
00:10:01 Layne Austin: Yeah, totally. The first thing, no stretch of the imagination. 2020, weird times to start business school. Didn’t sign up for an online program. Got an online program. It is what it is.
But what I’ve definitely found the most valuable, which is something I was expecting, so not a surprise but it’s really been the community. My classmates, shoutout to the Bay Area cohort, have been awesome. Really wonderful people. We’ve really gotten each other through a tough time, and we’ve never met each other. So we really can’t wait to meet in person.
What’s impacted my work so far, so as a part-time student, I’m taking two classes at a time. So little bites. I’ve finished Econ and Statistics. I think my biggest takeaway is the sort of crappy quasi statistics I’ve done in the past and how flawed they were, so I’m really excited.
Because the recruiters actually use a lot more data than I think a lot of people know. We look at pipeline ratios and decline rates and, for university recruiters in particular, a lot of data around the schools that we should be targeting. I was just looking at averages and I think it’s important to know some more robust frameworks for analyzing data. And I’m learning some statistics so I’m super excited to apply that once this recruiting cycle is over.
00:11:24 Al Dea: I think that’s great. It’s funny, I’ve taken Statistics like three times, I think. I think the third time I took it in business school it finally started to stick a little bit better than maybe when I did it in high school and then when I had to do it again college.
But to your point, particularly for a role like recruiting and for some of the challenges that you’re trying to solve for, you absolutely do need data and you absolutely do need to be able to look at a couple different slices of it in order to get the full, robust picture. So I think that’s a really great way to align what you’re doing in the classroom with how you work each and every day.
I think anyone who has to go through an MBA experience is going to be challenged in the sense of it’s a rigorous program, but I always had, I always felt and still feel that the people like me who did it full time had it easy, because your full-time job is just to be in school. Whereas you and your classmates are doing it while working full-time and, I presume at least maybe perhaps even for some of them, also juggling a family or a significant other or other types of things. I believe very strongly that I’m sure the community has been an asset, particularly for all of you to have that group of people to navigate through juggling all these responsibilities at once through a global pandemic.
00:12:35 Layne Austin: Yeah, a global pandemic. Yes. And my classmates who are parents, just shoutout to them, incredible. But it’s been really cool because we all come from such diverse backgrounds and we have really specific points of view. Mine has not come into play yet for them, so get ready for that Public Speaking class.
But one of my next classes is Marketing and we have plenty of marketers in our cohort. Super excited to hear from them and hear what they have to say. Obviously, taking a statistics class with engineers is awesome. So helpful.
00:13:10 Al Dea: For sure. Obviously, when I think about what surprised you so far, I’m sure you didn’t expect to, like you said, to be doing it online. Of course the reality is right now it is. But I’m just curious what else surprised you just in terms of what you thought the experience was going to be like based off of your research or what you thought it was going to be versus what it actually was in reality, at least through your classes so far?
00:13:34 Layne Austin: That’s such a good question. I bet my answer will change once the world does go back “normal”. I think what kind of surprised me is how self-directed it is. It seems like from the outside it’s one of those programs where you work really hard to get in and then you’re like on a track to be successful, and that’s definitely not the case.
I think I tend to work with the candidates that are really self-motivated. So they’re the ones that are like, “I’m running this club,” “I’m doing all these things,” and I just assumed that was normal.
But you really have to take the bull by the horns and make the program what you want it to be. And I think that surprised me because, again, I’m working with a specific type of candidate that’s like really, “I’m here for the internship. Got to get the job.” I don’t see the wide spectrum of how much work it takes to do MBA, besides just the coursework in the curriculum.
But a lot of value comes from the clubs, a lot of value comes from the job hunt. All of that is totally self-motivated. The program will support you but no one’s going to tell you where to apply and how to apply or when to raise your hand for stuff.
00:14:45 Al Dea: I think that’s a really good point. And I think it’s always this balance of knowing that there are resources for you to use and be at your disposal, but also having the agency to, like you said, to take the bull by the horns and to raise your hand. To be the one to say, “Hey, this is what I want to do,” or, “Hey, this is where I’m going to go.” Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. It’s really yours to take and own.
Great. So you’re chugging along in your MBA. It sounds like it’s going well. It sounds like you’re learning to manage both working full-time and doing this part-time. It sounds like you’ve got some great classes coming up.
I do want to talk a little bit more about what you do every day in terms of being a university recruiter, particularly for MBA students. And part of the reason why I wanted to bring you on is because I remember when I was in business school, one of the things that I did within the first couple weeks of my MBA experience was I reached out to one of my classmates who was a recruiter, not necessarily an MBA recruiter but just a recruiter.
I asked her, “Tell me what your day is. Walk me through your day. Tell me about your challenges. Tell me about how you work with hiring managers and things like that.” And that forever changed my thinking on the recruiting process but also even just how I engage with recruiters and hiring managers and how I communicate with them.
So I would love to maybe get into a little bit more about your experience as a university recruiter, particularly with MBA students. I would love maybe just to start by saying, asking what are the things you wish MBA students knew about the recruiting process? Here is your microphone, like literally to pontificate. But talk to me a little bit about that.
00:16:21 Layne Austin: Yes. Oh, my God, I was thinking about this question all day. I’m like don’t decline me. But I get it. I know the game.
So what do I wish MBA students knew about recruiting. Not every company is going to recruit the same way and not every opportunity at a company is going to recruit the same way.
So within the realm of tech, I think it’s a common misconception that we all have the same kind of recruiting structure. And so one strategy for one tech company is not going to be the same strategy for a different one.
And the nuances can be make or break. Some organizations recruit on a batch kind of situation, like you apply for marketing and then you’re put down a track. Other ones you apply for content marketing or product marketing or something very specific and that’s going to change your approach.
I think it’s a matter of knowing yourself and knowing what you really want and knowing what your goals actually are. If your goal is ‘a company’ and you’re not really too concerned about the role in that company, then those batch days are probably going to work great for you. But if you’re like I live or die by product marketing and it has to be that then you need to sniff out those companies that recruit on a more like role by role and specific basis.
So when students apply a recruiting strategy that I know is like one of our other opportunities or recruiting options, I can tell. I’m like, oh, you think that we’re doing it this other way, and that’s just not how it works.
00:18:00 Al Dea: Yeah. I think that’s a great insight. Could you maybe just for those who might not understand, myself included, what might draw like Company A to do, going to one of those strategies? Like why does it make sense for Company A to do a batch strategy versus like Company B who might choose another approach? What is the thinking behind that? Just so people can better understand why this is the way it is.
00:18:24 Layne Austin: Yes, that is a great question. And it’s actually like some conversations I’m having right now in how we approach, what we’re going to do for the spring recruiting season.
So it’s high volume and it’s really competitive. A lot of companies are trying to target the same candidates and batch recruiting process will help operationalize the decision-making process. It helps us move faster.
Oftentimes, an MBA is a generalist degree and a lot of students are eligible and interested in a wide variety of opportunities. So instead of making them apply to 20 roles, let’s have you apply to one and then we’ll figure it out from there.
Another piece of the puzzle that makes it complicated is, and when you really think about it we’re recruiting two years in advance. We’re recruiting right now, so it’s December 2020. Our people that we hire aren’t going to start as an intern until the summer of 2021. And then they won’t start as a full-time employee until the summer of 2022. That’s a lot of planning.
And students’ interests can change at that time. The needs of the business can change during that time. There’s a lot that can change. So keeping the opportunities a little bit broad can help with that flexibility and make sure that by the time the student is ready to start as a full-time employee that their skills are assessed for a wide range of opportunities as opposed to just one thing.
However, we get a higher— and we, not just Salesforce but other places I’ve worked, we get a higher decline rate when we’re going with the broad approach because people are concerned about going into something they don’t know, which is fair.
And so some other companies will go the other way, will recruit very specifically because we don’t want a high decline rate, but those are probably going to be smaller numbers.
00:20:19 Al Dea: Yeah. Thank you for breaking that down and I think that makes a ton of sense. I would love maybe to flip that question then.
So pretend you are the student now. What might lead you to looking at a role that looks more like a batch type role versus something that is perhaps at another company that might be more specific? What’s the calculus behind that?
00:20:44 Layne Austin: So advice that I give candidates a lot is learn what your levers are, which levers you can pull when you’re making a career choice. One lever could be location. Another lover could be industry.
Sometimes the lever is like truly the company. People get really excited about a particular company. Other ones it’s like the actual job title. So there’s a lot of levers you can pull.
I think what’s important for MBA students to do is understand which levers are non‑negotiable and which ones they can flex on a little bit. So if the company is pretty non‑negotiable or the industry is non-negotiable but the title is flexible, I would say those batch days are going to be good.
If it’s the opposite, if it’s like title is the non-negotiable and the company is flex, I would say try and sniff out the roles where it’s obvious. It’s like a very specific posting that leads to that individual job.
00:21:42 Al Dea: I think that makes sense. So I love your advice. The challenge that I think I see a lot of, and I’ve been through this myself before too, is though many people go to business school because they are trying to change careers: new function, new industry, new role, some people are more certain than others about what it is that they want to do. But even with that, people who can be incredibly certain about something are also people who could potentially even be proven otherwise, depending on what the experience ends up.
And so I think to me like where the nuance and the challenge comes I think in sometimes is around how specific do I need to be. Or, quite honestly, what if I am wrong? What if this is what I think I want to do but what if it’s not, right? I don’t have an easy answer for that but that’s just more of an observation.
00:22:29 Layne Austin: There isn’t, no.
00:22:31 Al Dea: Exactly. So maybe the lesson there is that, just like many things in life, not everything is black and white. There’s always a little bit of gray area. There’s always opportunity in the gray area if you can learn to embrace it.
But, to your point, having those levers are really good guide posts, I think, to help you sort through and navigate some of those decisions.
I think the other thing which you brought up, which I’m glad you brought up, is that tech hiring is not a monolithic thing. Like to your point, it looks different company to company. And what may look and operate one way at one company might be entirely different at another company for a multitude of different reasons. And you can’t apply necessarily, or the same things just doesn’t apply across every single company and so you can’t treat it like that.
Now, I think sometimes what that means, which I know hurts a little bit, is that you have to do a little bit more homework just in terms of…
00:23:27 Layne Austin: _____
00:23:28 Al Dea: I know. A little bit more strategerial, a little bit more homework in terms of how you approach companies, but I think it’s just part of how this process works in where we are.
00:23:41 Layne Austin: Yeah, agreed. And here’s another bit of tough love too. If you’re not doing your homework on the company, you can bet that there’s other people who are.
00:23:49 Al Dea: Yes, absolutely.
00:23:51 Layne Austin: And they’re going to shine, because maybe a company like Salesforce is your third choice, fourth choice, fifth choice company, but there’s candidates in there who Salesforce is their number one. So unless you’re a really good actor, you need to figure out what the goals really are. And some of y’all are really good actors, but it’s a balancing act.
And some other advice I tend to give MBAs is you’re usually choosing between two or three good options and the doors don’t necessarily close if you decline one or the other. I see actually most of the alumni that I work with came into Salesforce maybe a few years after they finished business school and the job, yup, it’s right here. The job that they got right after business school, worked for a while, maybe not forever.
And yes, I want my candidates to take the decision very seriously. It is a very important decision, but it’s not the job you’re going to have forever. Like I said earlier, you’re usually picking between a few really good options.
So I encourage my interns or my candidates who get really stressed out about the decision of which intern offer to accept to take a step back, think about how lucky they are. They’re in a position where most big companies are vying for their attention. That’s wild. That will never freaking happen again. And just enjoy the moment for a little bit. And then make a decision seriously but enjoy the process.
00:25:27 Al Dea: I think that’s a great approach. The first job out of business school is not going to be the last one and so, yes, do your homework. Show up. Make sure that you’re either acting really well or that you truly believe the homework that you’ve done. And I think that is the right approach.
Okay, so let’s hear it. What are some of the big mistakes that candidates make in the process?
00:25:54 Layne Austin: I guess I alluded to this a little bit, but not showing enthusiasm for the opportunity. Like I said, you bet your butt there’s other people who are super enthusiastic about the role. And so if we’re looking at two candidates that have really similar qualifications and one is really excited about the opportunity, both the employer and the role, and the other one feels a little bit wish-washy or they’re interviewing for marketing but they keep talking about product management and I can’t really get a sense of what they’re excited for. But you can assume that we’ll go with the candidate whose goals really align with the opportunity.
So the enthusiasm can really help. So either actually be enthusiastic or take some theater classes, because it really is an important piece of the puzzle.
Another mistake-slash-piece of advice that I want to give is work with your recruiter not against your recruiter. We are looking out for you and we actually really want to fill our roles. We want to check that position off of our list as filled. And so if there’s anything we can do that’ll help you make a decision or if the path we’re setting you down isn’t really what you want to do, but there’s a different opportunity at the company that you’re excited about, let us know.
We don’t want to shoehorn you, at least I don’t. And I’d rather work with my candidates. I really appreciate it when they’re transparent, when they’re telling me what is maybe not working for them or if they’re having hesitations. I’d rather know earlier and I’d rather do what I can to course correct than get to the offer stage and they tell me this isn’t really what I was looking for. Then why did you just do so well during your interview?
Let us know earlier if something doesn’t feel right and we’re going to work with you and try to make it work. I’ve heard this from other recruiters at other companies too please work with us. Be transparent. We’ll be as transparent as we can. And I think it’ll make a lot of lives a little easier.
00:27:45 Al Dea: I think those are all really great pieces of advice. And if you’re listening, make sure you write those down and either do them or not do them, depending on the nature of them. So I think that’s really great.
It’s really interesting the one that you mentioned, which I agree with just in terms of doing your homework and showing up and making sure that you’re showing enthusiasm. So I’ve heard this a lot and I’ve witnessed it myself. And for the longest time, it just made no sense to me because these are all really smart people. Like how could they be missing this?
You may not know about what interview questions they’re going to ask, like all the interview questions they’re going to ask you, but this is clearly one of them that they’re absolutely going to ask you regardless of what interview. It just perplexed me as to why this is.
And here’s what people told me. What they told me, and this maps back to what you were saying before, is that traditionally, obviously, they tell you to cast a wide net. And you always want to be able to apply to a number of different companies to have options. And I think honestly what it comes down to is that it’s not that people don’t understand that they need to do this. It’s just they either don’t put in the work because they’re trying to hedge because they think that one of their top— they hope and think that one of their top choices is going to pan out or, in some cases, they just run out of time because they’re too busy preparing for other interviews.
00:29:10 Layne Austin: Oh, yeah.
00:29:11 Al Dea: As a former MBA student, I get it and it makes a ton of sense. But I think to the point that you made, and I think this is a good one, if you’re going to mail it in unknowingly or knowingly, know that someone else who’s applying for the same role is not going to mail it in and be okay with that.
00:29:29 Layne Austin: Yeah, totally. Actually something that has shifted my point of view as an MBA student now versus just being on the other side of the table, my phone screens have been a lot more motivation-based than school-based, because I now know all of the reflection that has to go into getting your application ready to go and ready to submit. And I know that these candidates have spent sometimes a year reflecting on their own motivation, so I know they’re ready to go in that regard.
Whereas sometimes, depending on the recruiting cycle or the timing, you haven’t taken the right class yet to really speak to a particular skill. So at the very least, if you don’t have time to study, if you’re not an expert on every single product of the company that you’re interviewing for, at least have your motivation story.
If it’s just the industry, make sure you sound very motivated for that industry or for that title. Motivation is something that you probably already have in your back pocket, so lean on that if you don’t have time to study other things.
00:30:34 Al Dea: Yeah. I think that’s a great insight. And I’m so glad that you brought that up of, because I did want to ask you about it just in terms of your new perspective now having lived a little bit of the life of the MBA student.
I’m curious about anything else that has maybe either shifted or opened up a new dimension into how you do your job everyday now that you have a little bit more perspective. Not that you didn’t know before. I’m sure you knew, but like now that you have another experience to add to the belt.
00:31:00 Layne Austin: What’s funny is I’m now taking finals and midterms at the same time as my candidates, so all of us are not checking our emails. That lines up.
The empathy is definitely a lot more, it feels a lot more real. I think before, when students are like, “Ah, yeah, finals is tough,” I’m like, “Yeah, but the interviews are 30 minutes. You got this.”
And now I’m like, “No interviews! Let them breathe.”
Except there is one candidate I have in mind. I did make him interview during finals. I’m sorry. But I feel a lot worse about it now than I did before.
I also really liked, and this is something that I don’t think I’ll ever experience again, but the camaraderie I felt with my candidates this year as a separate year specifically. So I think even moving forward it’s not going to feel the same.
But in my recruiting cycle, there’s a few phases. So early in the fall cycle, before our roles are really posted, I do a lot of coffee chats and informationals and things like that. And those were so fun this year because all we did was talk about applying and the GMAT and what do I have to _____ [00:32:04] resources. And really, I tried to take some steps and some pauses to think how special that is because I don’t think that I’m going to experience that again.
00:32:17 Al Dea: That’s great. I’m glad you did get a chance to also reflect on that and to see how that impacted you, I think, particularly in the MBA program with all that you have going on. Sometimes you’re just going from thing to thing, but I’m glad you had some time to internalize some of that and think about how it’s impacted you and appreciate it for what it is, but also think about how it informs how you operate moving forward, which is, in my opinion, one of the best parts of the MBA experience is that it does give you those moments to think and then do and then use what you’ve done to inform how you do moving forward. That is all how it works together and comes together.
So speaking of comes together, and you started talking about it a little bit, but could you maybe walk through what goes into an internship coming to life or a job posting? I feel like this is like Schoolhouse Rock, of the whole thing of how a bill becomes a law. But like how does…
00:33:07 Layne Austin: Parts in congress.
00:33:09 Al Dea: Exactly. But yeah, like how…
00:33:11 Layne Austin: Congress is intake meetings.
00:33:17 Al Dea: Thank you for appreciating that just as much as I did.
00:33:18 Layne Austin: Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was also from the ‘90s. No worries.
00:33:22 Al Dea: Thanks. We just both dated ourselves there, for anyone who wanted to know how old we were, but it is what it is.
So talk to me a little bit about what it takes for when an MBA student sees the posting on the website. But clearly, there’s a ton of work that goes in in order to make that happen. And as you pointed out before, when we’re hiring or when you’re hiring potentially for two years out not just like then, so could you maybe just walk through what that looks like just to give perspective to everyone?
00:33:49 Layne Austin: Yeah, great. So the impetus of an intern program really varies. Like what sparks the idea can vary. Part of my job is to do a little bit of my own internal business development, so it is meeting with people who could be advocates for the program. I meet with a lot of alumni from business schools and say, “Hey, you had a great time in business school. Let’s do the same for other interns,” or areas of the business that could be really viable opportunities for MBAs. We’ll have conversations, we have this pitch deck and we’ll talk about what goes into it.
More often, though, is the business will come to me and they’ll say, “Hey, I spoke with my friend who has an intern program in their organization and it seems to work really well. Can you tell me more?”
There’s a couple different ways where it can come from. We’ve even had people speak to great candidates and see the sort of caliber and want to start a program. So it comes in a few different ways, but then logistically intact practically. Thank you, college. We will do an intake meeting. I have a bunch of questions about the goals for the program, what they have in mind for the project.
And then I also get a little bit real when I’m like, “By the way, you’re not going to see the payoff of this work for another two years,” because really the goal is to get full-time employees in the door. And I need you to swallow that pill. I need you to understand that we’re going to be asking for head count a full year prior to when this person is going to start. It’s going to be really tricky conversation with finance.
And by the way, this is everywhere I’ve worked. This is not just my current employer. This is a pretty common problem in the university recruiting space is like that early head count and getting all of that figured out. We’ll have that conversation.
And then if they’re ready to buy in, that’s great. We will put our heads together for the job description. We’ll make sure it’s as clear from bias as possible. We’ll put together an interview process. I try and get them as short and sweet as possible, because my newfound empathy, you don’t want to drag it on too long.
And then we’ll post it and we’ll execute, is pretty much how it works.
00:35:55 Al Dea: Thank you for walking through that. It’s a really good way to outline it for everyone.
And a couple things. Number one, I really love how you talked about your internal business development, because it is. I see it because I work with Layne, but she really is a champion in terms of trying to identify opportunities to bring in MBA candidates for internships. I’d like to think of you as a product marketer for our MBA program in a lot of ways.
So it really is, and in a lot of times it also, I presume, also is educating really teams or hiring managers about the potential value that they’re going to get in return.
I am curious from your experience in general at all the companies like what usually hooks them in? Like you said, it is something that the payoff is down the road, but knowing, like what’s the thing that usually gets them to be like, “You know what? Yeah, sure. Let’s do that.” Or, “Oh, yeah. I’m excited about that,” even though it is something that is an investment over a longer period of time versus the short-term kind of thing.
00:36:51 Layne Austin: Yeah. So no shade to my colleagues who do undergrad recruiting, but it solves a lot of the concerns of undergrad recruiting. So the bonuses of an intern program, you have someone who can bring in a fresh perspective, you have someone who can work on a specific project for a set amount of time, you can give someone on your team a mentoring or a management opportunity.
There’s a lot of benefits but I think there’s concerns often with undergrads where they’re going to be too green, there’s so much ramp time, there’s a lot they have to learn to get up to speed. And MBAs get rid of all of those concerns. You get all of the bonuses of having an intern but they’re ready to hit the ground running. They have plenty of work experience already. They marry the quant skills as well as the leadership and executive presence skills. There’s just a ton of pros and not a lot of cons. The cons are mostly like logistical planning. And so I think that’s usually what gets them.
00:37:54 Al Dea: Thank you. That’s really great insight.
So we’re just about to wrap up here, but I wanted to just ask a few quick-hitter questions that I know tend to come up. And I didn’t prep you for these, but I’m sure you can answer them.
Number one, do you read cover letters?
00:38:09 Layne Austin: No.
00:38:10 Al Dea: Number two, do you read LinkedIn in-mail messages from prospective candidates?
00:38:15 Layne Austin: I try.
00:38:17 Al Dea: Number three, this is more of a scenario. You’ve interviewed let’s say it’s like a second round or a final round. The hiring manager/recruiter says, “We’ll be in touch. Thank you so much,” but you haven’t heard back from them. What is the proper amount of days to wait or like how do you throw the needle there in terms of wanting to find an answer but also not wanting to poke and product?
00:38:44 Layne Austin: Yeah. Once a week is probably appropriate, unless you have a conflicting offer deadline. Then it’s okay to hit him with an email every day.
00:38:54 Al Dea: Great. These are all things people have asked me in the past week, so I wanted to hear it straight from someone who gets these all the time.
00:39:00 Layne Austin: Yes. I’m fully expecting my inbox to blow up here, but it is what it is.
00:39:06 Al Dea: It is what it is. All right, Layne Austin, thank you so much for joining me today, for talking about your experience at UC Davis. For talking about your journey to being a university recruiter and really demystifying and also articulating the hiring and recruiting process for MBA interns.
Thanks for being a friend of the pod and thanks for coming on.
00:39:24 Layne Austin: Friend of the pod. Al, you’re doing such great work. Thank you so much for being a partner and friend and I’m ready for the second episode. Let’s go. Let me know when I can come back.
00:39:36 [Outro] Hi, everyone. Al Dea, here, and thank you so much for listening to the MBA Insider Podcast. If you liked what you heard, make sure to head over to Apple Podcast and to write a review. It will only take 15 seconds.
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