Our Approach to Career Planning
At Simon, we never put you in a box.
At the Benet Career Management Center, we are all about creating synergies. That’s why our career education and professional development model focuses on ongoing innovation and evolution.
It’s a dynamic, circular approach that allows us to roll, change, and shift with the changing marketplace and with academic advancements so that we—and you—can remain on the cutting edge.
Onboarding—put your best foot forward.
Your onboarding starts before you even arrive on campus, with an online module that will introduce you to the Benet Center and its team, and prepare you to engage with corporate partners and alumni from Day 1.
Next you will complete CareerLeader, a self-assessment tool crafted and designed by Harvard Business School professionals specifically designed for business leaders and business school students. The tool will help you assess your match to business careers, and determine what skill gaps will prohibit you from reaching your goals. The next step in our onboarding process is using your CareerLeader report to help you explore business careers and industries to broaden your understanding of the labor market so you can sharpen or shift your professional focus accordingly.
You’ll also work with your career advisor to explore your career aspirations and expand your knowledge about careers and industries. Last, you’ll work to upgrade your resume to a Simon-style resume that focuses on specific business language, and which speaks to the business audience you are trying to influence, and you’ll update your professional and personal social accounts to represent your new academic pursuits, and to ensure that you’ve put your best (and most professional) foot forward online.
Orientation—refine your choices.
For those students entering the Masters program, orientation means diving right into our “Careers in…” workshops. These workshops represent exploration opportunities whereby corporate partners and alumni articulate information and insights about career choices that fit within the Masters degree programs.
The goal is to help you refine your choices, which leads to refinement of your personal career goals. As you are exploring your options, the Professional Development team and MS advisors will lead workshops on preparing for a competitive graduate business career search. Content will include crafting the perfect pitch, creating an effective networking plan, and drafting a ROC’ing resume. Armed with a strong career focus, orientation programming leads to professional trips to New York City to network with and learn from Simon alumni and corporate partners.
Ongoing—access numerous opportunities.
There are numerous learning opportunities available to you through the CMC, including access to our Career Action Teams, Alumni Spotlights and Corporate Information Sessions.
In addition to what the CMC provides, Simon offers access to certification training through student organizations, consulting projects through our experiential learning initiatives, and national vendors like Wall Street Prep.
Our Career Action Teams support the career success of our students by facilitating bi-weekly group sessions where students address the graduate career search process, including career opportunity analysis, barriers to success, crafting a more persuasive job search communication plan, and changes in the labor market. Besides the Benet Center Career advisors, these small group sessions are joined by Benet Career Peers, Simon student leaders, and corporate professionals.
Alumni Spotlights are a student favorite! University of Rochester and Simon Business School alumni return to campus to discuss business trends, help you gain insights about career choices, and offer personal coaching sessions.
Corporate Information Sessions feature employers who visit campus to promote their career opportunities through small group sessions. It is a wonderful chance for you to meet personally with business leaders.
Outbound—enable a lifetime connection.
Your support doesn’t end at graduation. Though you will step away from the Simon Business School at graduation, you’ll depart with a set of experiences that will equip you for life-long career success. The Outbound stage of our approach enables a lifelong connection to the Simon Business School as an alumni. You will be invited to engage in alumni programs, networking opportunities, and to continue to engage with our community.
Meet our MS Career Directors.
Our MS Career Directors will provide valuable group support and one-on-one assistance from the day you arrive at Simon. They’ll apply their in-depth experience of corporate culture, career path options, hiring needs and practices to help you further your professional goals, and help you identify and leverage your own unique attributes to position yourself for success.