Graduate programs at Fisher are built on preparing students to take the next step in their careers and to thrive in the workplace after graduation. In addition to each program’s deliberately small size and the high-caliber instruction from top-notch faculty, students experience the added benefit of personalized career consultation from Fisher’s nationally recognized Office of Career Management (OCM).

A key requirement for Fisher’s Full-Time MBA, MBA for Working Professionals, Master of Accounting (MAcc), Master of Business Logistics Engineering (MBLE), Master of Human Resource Management (MHRM) and Specialized Master in Finance (SMF) programs is OCM’s Career Core, which begins prior to students’ arrival on campus and continues through orientation.

Career Core commences with a series of online course modules that lay the foundation for a suite of job-search and career-focused resources OCM offers to ensure students are well-prepared for internship and career opportunities, and for their post-graduation success. Students benefit from creating career marketing plans, learning the basics of résumé writing, using an evaluative résumé analytics tool, practice interviewing using artificial intelligence technology, and interacting with their career consultant — all before they arrive on campus.

During each graduate program’s orientation phase, students have the opportunity to attend a Career Foundation seminar led by OCM staff members, where the focus is on students’ career aspirations and equipping them with internship and job-search strategies.

Learn more about graduate program rankings and outcomes in OCM's 2016-2017 Annual Report.

For international students, seminars are offered that focus on conducting global job searches and the cultural nuances of the U.S.-based job-search process. Career Core’s emphasis on early preparation is among the qualities that differentiate OCM’s graduate career resources from other business school master’s degree programs, said Jamie Mathews-Mead, senior director of graduate career management at Fisher. And, the Career Core program has received national attention. In 2015, OCM earned the Team Innovation Award from MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), a best-practices organization for employers and MBA career-management professionals.

The early preparation is especially crucial for students enrolled in the MAcc, SMF and MBLE programs because of their abbreviated schedules, she added.

During orientation, students are encouraged to conduct an initial intake appointment with a career consultant. The personalized meeting serves as a starting point for OCM’s career consultants to get to know each student and help develop or refine career goals based on the student’s interests, skills, values and personality.

“During the intake appointment, career consultants get a baseline of each student’s readiness for job searches and other aspects of presenting themselves to prospective employers,” Mathews-Mead said. “Students leave with a prescription in terms of what their next steps should be in preparing for internship and career opportunities.“These initial meetings really emphasize students’ personal narratives and how they should package themselves for their internship and job searches. They’re also an important first step in building a relationship between students and their career consultants.”

The OCM team uses baseline assessments to track students’ growth in career preparedness throughout their graduate studies. The aggregate data the office collects also is used to help continuously enhance OCM’s services for students and employers.

Based on their assessment of each student’s interests, career aspirations and goals, OCM career consultants leverage many resources, including linking students with opportunities and important connections by recommending key corporate contacts and employers. Oftentimes, those resources include alumni, whom students can contact for career advice and help building their professional networks. The networking that takes place during the Career Core programming has often led to internship and full-time employment opportunities, Mathews-Mead said.

Elena (Pipino) Dean (MBA ’16), manager of business development at Fairwhay Management, appreciated the summer preparation work prior to the start of her Full-Time MBA program experience because it motivated her to reflect on where she’d come from and where she wanted go on her career journey.

"Once I arrived on campus, the Office of Career Management was extremely involved in my career search," she said. "The Career Foundation Seminar Series introduced me to new fields that I had never considered before, and the one-on-one appointments with my career consultant provided me useful feedback to polish my interviewing skills and help me determine the best path to achieve my goals."