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Mentorship Program Overview

What it is and why it will make us “Ever Better”

The purpose of the Simon Alumni Mentorship Program is to facilitate the development of mentoring relationships between current Simon students and members of the business community, with special emphasis on alumni of the School. The reasons for doing so include:

• Providing students access to business professionals who would like to share their accumulated knowledge, assisting students in their career selection and/or pursuits.
• Providing alumni mentors with an avenue to stay involved and give back to Simon.
• Strengthening the Simon identity by fostering a stronger sense of community and pride between current students, alumni, and other members of the business community.
• Inspiring students to “pay it forward” and maintain their relationships with the Simon school long after graduation.
• Providing alumni opportunities to promote their companies to the Simon talent pool and other business professionals within the mentorship program.
• To provide Simon with a unique advantage with which to recruit top students

This program’s benefit to students will manifest itself in two ways: First, students will have access to first-hand accounts of life within their mentors’ functions, industries, and companies, helping them better assess their career interests and shape their aspirations. This will be especially useful for Early Leaders®, many of whom enter Simon without a clear career focus. Second, it will help students who have already established their career focus to better refine their networking and interviewing abilities toward a job in their chosen profession.

If implemented effectively, the Simon Alumni Mentorship Program will produce the secondary impact of a boost in the School’s rankings. Presently, Simon is ranked the 25th best business program by U.S. News & World Report . To achieve its goal of becoming a top-20 school, its score would have to increase by at least 5 points. Because the rankings are influenced largely by starting salary (14%), placement rate (7%), and three-month placement rate (14%), this program has the potential to impact roughly 35% of the factors determining the School’s rankings.

One can imagine an M.B.A. candidate, particularly an Early Leader, gaining exposure to a collection of functions and industries by utilizing his or her mentor relationships to explore them. These experiences and conversations in mind, he or she will be better equipped to make the all-important decision of what field(s) to pursue. By collecting the ephemeral knowledge and unique insights of their mentors, students will also be able to present themselves more professionally when engaging in outreach to their target companies (heightening their ability to secure rewarding employment and command higher starting salaries).

At first, the link between this vision, the above measures, and an effective mentorship program may seem tenuous. However, those closest to the career search process see the potential. Patricia Phillips, Executive Director of the Career Management Center, observes:

“A robust mentorship program that is equally valued by students and alums would be of invaluable service to all stakeholders of the Simon school. The more individualized, tailored advice that we can provide to students, the higher the likelihood that they [will be] thrilled with their positions upon graduation and the trajectory of their long-term career paths. The “Personal Board of Advisors” is a unique concept that should attract the attention and interest of students and alums alike.”

One of the most successful business school mentorship programs in the country, that of the Foster School of Business at Washington University, has been running for 11 years. Susan Canfield is the school’s Associate Director of M.B.A. Career Services and the Director of its M.B.A. Mentor Program. Canfield attests that:

“I’m getting calls [about our mentorship program] from other MBA programs around the country fairly regularly. I do see it as a competitive advantage that really does enrich the experience of students… Students tell me it’s ‘one of the best parts of my MBA experience’ and that it ‘really brings what we’ve been learning in class to life’.”