Programme Details

Applying Design Thinking to the Student Job Search and Recruitment Process
Design is often thought of as an object or end result derived from the mind of a creative genius. Enter Design Thinking, which debunks this notion by espousing that design is a process (not an end result), and that anyone (not necessarily a creative genius) can apply it to address deep-rooted human needs.
 
Paolo Lorenzoni’s talk will introduce how career services professionals and corporate recruiters can apply Design Thinking to surface the latent and unspoken needs of students and in doing so, deliver career services and recruiting in new ways. The session will explore the design thinker’s toolkit, such as: observation techniques to spot friction and workarounds, brainstorming behaviors to surface hypotheses and sacrificial concepts, rapid prototyping to quickly test and gather feedback, and more. Paolo will use examples and insights from his experience as Senior Director at IDEO, a global design and innovation consultancy, which pioneered Design Thinking. In this role, Paolo works with companies and organizations to apply Design Thinking to challenges as varied as ‘improving the learning outcomes and PISA score of an entire nation’ to ‘navigating society’s transition from human operated to autonomous vehicles’. His writings on Design Thinking have been featured in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.
 
Paolo is energized by the opportunity to inspire new ways to deliver career services and recruiting, having himself experienced the business school job search from all sides of the table as student, recruiter, advisor/faculty member over the course of his career.
 

Dr. David Steinberg

Empathic Questioning, Design Thinking and Graduate Business Recruitment
The secret to effective design thinking is the “front-end” problem-framing process requiring an advanced questioning competency that fosters empathy and trust, and a Western social cognitive approach to mindfulness that embraces limitless possibilities. This session will focus on the information-gathering stages of the design thinking process and introduce “empathic questioning” to help career service professionals enhance student support, graduate students develop effective job search strategies, and employers maximise the success of their recruitment efforts. This hands-on session will open your eyes to the power of design thinking and provide you with a new approach to asking questions that will enhance your recruitment outcomes.
 

16 and 17 April
Concurrent Breakout Sessions

Bringing prior experience from business school career centers and the private sector, a team was hired to build a comprehensive career management and student success center for the first time at Ohio University. This included the development and implementation of the student, alumni, and employer strategies needed to deliver the outcomes expected from college leadership. The team exceeded expectations by increasing event attendance (65%), coaching appointments (602%), unique employer contacts (240), and post-graduation survey response rates (98%). Key lessons learned that can be applied to any type of institution or situation will be shared about overcoming barriers, securing resources, and building the trust needed to implement innovative programming and a cutting-edge stakeholder strategy.
 

Mercer supports many organizations in defining their strategy around their compensation and benefits policies. Based on market insights, organizational strategy and market dynamics, they support their clients in designing structures that facilitate the attraction and retention of the talents they need for the achievement of their business objectives.  During this interactive workshop, we will share insights in the trends and developments that we see in the market, key compensation components, as well as criteria that organizations consider to define their Employment Value Proposition. Bring all your questions about compensation and benefits, and get ready to take part!
 

Most business schools have introduced Specialised Masters next to their MBA programs. How can career services position their support for these programs? How can we differentiate (or not) between both programs internally, towards students, and towards companies? In an interactive workshop, we will focus on sharing of best practices, but also concerns, questions and ideas around different angles:
Career Services:  When different is the same or different is not compatible: differentiation vs. inclusion. Employers: which candidates fit for which roles?
 

On 25 May 2018 the European privacy regulation is introduced for all countries in the EER: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This entails more extensive and stricter rules, which all organizations must comply with. These rules cover, among other things, the processing of personal data of students, C.V.'s, photographs and other personal data that are registered, published, spread and stored. Failure to comply with those rules in time risks (high) fines. Ruby Nefkens talks about the most important changes that the new law entails. What to look out for and, above all, what you have to do.
 

Technology and the digital revolution are rapidly transforming business models and stakeholder management. Career Services is no exception to this trend. All of us work with the Millennial generation who favours on-demand online video content and expect active sharing and hyper-personalization. To make the most of this challenge, we seized the opportunity to revisit the way we engage with our students and to leverage their appetite for peer-to-peer influencing and crowd-contributing. We want our students to understand the value of partnering with us for optimal preparation, practice and fit with the career transition they want to make. By embracing Tech ourselves through co-creation with students, we can enhance our visibility and credibility and impact our positioning as key partner to their success.
 

Are you wondering how you can help your students prepare for case interviews despite shrinking means & resources? Good news: you can help (a lot!), even if you have never done a case interview before. Come find out how in our 3-for-1 workshop where you will learn: (1) About IESE's creative approach, (2) How you can coach students to build their own preparation plans, (3) 2-3 very specific and fun skills with great impact in case interview method to solve YOUR problem!
 

Catherine Chassanite (Careers Consultant at Audencia Business School in France) and Bilal Ojjeh (Founder and CEO at MBA-Exchange.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                
What can career services learn from Montessori's educational approach and how can we apply its techniques to better help our MBA and Masters Students help themselves? This interactive session will present each of Montessori’s guiding principles and invite attendees to reflect as a group on how we could rethink how we engage and support our students. In a very Montessori style, the session is all about practice and concrete actionable results.
 

Dr. Christine Menges, Director Career Develpment, WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management | Hardy Kuhn, Senior Executive at SAP

This workshop will share with attendees how we used the design thinking method to improve our career service activities for MBA students. We conducted a 2-day workshop on Design Thinking as part of the MBA curriculum where students learned Design Thinking through experiencing it, by exploring its key components and working on a real challenge on how to improve Careers Services. This breakout session will also explain what needs to be considered in running such a design thinking workshop, what makes it a successful workshop and what the outcomes of the workshop were.

Trends in Recruitment
 

 

The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences
Our customers are powerful. They have a louder voice than ever, a wealth of choice, and their expectations continue to rise. Designing the right customer experience has never been more important, whatever business we’re in – whether it be career services or recruiting. But how exactly do we do that?
 
Matt Watkinson’s talk will introduce ten universal principles we can all apply to make noticeable improvements when designing our customer experience, whatever our role, and whoever the customer. Informative, entertaining and full of off-beat, real-world examples, the talk will leave you inspired to make a difference to your customers’ lives - whether students or candidates - and armed with the practical tools to do it.

Matt is an internationally-renowned author, speaker and consultant. He won the CMI's Management Book of the Year for his first book, The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, considered by many to be the definitive book on the subject. He has been cited and interviewed by the world's leading research firms, and has addressed industry leaders across Europe and the USA, in South America and Africa. His second book, The Grid: The Decision-making Tool for Every Business (Including Yours) was released in August 2017 to widespread critical acclaim. Matt is the co-founder of Matt Watkinson & Friends, a customer experience and strategy consultancy with offices in the UK and California. With over a decade's experience working with market-leading firms, Matt believes that following proven principles consistently leads to better decisions; principles that are easily overlooked in large, complex organisations.