While we appreciate your service, you are not eligible to participate in the MBA Veterans Network or our programming activities.

While we applaud your commitment to pursuing a graduate degree at a great university, participation is exclusive to MBA students and alumni.

Absolutely. As long as you are student or graduate of a qualifying MBA program you are more than welcome to join the Network and register for this conference. Please, however, keep in mind that the recruiting companies’ willingness to hiring candidates without US citizenship or work visas is the same at this event as it is on campus.

• Exam Conflict: In early Spring, we contacted every single MBA program team and shared the details about the conference so that the administrators could plan for students to attend. If you still have a conflict, we recommend petitioning your program to provide alternative exam dates so that you and your classmates can attend the event. This tactic has been achieved successfully by many students in the past.
• Case Competition: You’re primarily attending a top-ranked MBA program to secure a rewarding, well-paid career, right? We’re not aware of any case competitions that will secure you an internship or a full-time job, so our recommendation is to always opt out of case competitions if they conflict with job-seeking activities such as the MBA Veterans Career Conference.
• Attend Friday Class or Fail: If you attend an MBA program with this policy, it’s next to impossible to get out of –particularly as a 1st year MBA. However, if you can at least get to the event by the Expo by 2pm on Friday afternoon and/or participate in the networking activities on Thursday night –it’s still worth registering. The sponsors know your situation so they are generally accommodating of your situation for things like interview scheduling etc.

The answer seems obvious, but we always get asked this question so here it is –”yes.”

Not at this time. That’s because our corporate partners have very specific talent acquisition strategies and many of them place a priority on hiring candidates with top-ranked MBA degrees. Since a large part of our mission is to connect them with the kinds of candidates who meet their needs, we use the conventionally-accepted MBA rankings as criteria for participation.

Believe us, we have contacted the military, campus, and diversity recruiters at literally every company that MBA students at elite schools would possibly want to work for. If you don’t see them on our list it’s due to one of the following three reasons:

1) They’re still evaluating it and haven’t signed up yet
2) They know about it and don’t want to participate this year
3) Their teams wants to participate, but some ‘macro’ business issue is forcing them to scale back on recruiting

However, if you have a contact at a company that you think would be a great fit for the event – please let us know.

The answer to this question lies in a quick explanation of the two ways that employers recruit.
On-campus vs. Diversity Recruiting:

• On campus: Companies recruit at their ‘core’ MBA programs by sending teams of alumni and/or recruiters who are dedicated to recruiting candidates specifically from your school. As a candidate, you are placed into a pool of competition with all of your classmates (military and non-military) and you essentially compete with them for internships and jobs. The recruiters are not specifically looking for military veterans like you and they may or may not understand your professional background.
• Diversity recruiting: In addition to campus teams, most top employers also employ diversity recruiters who have a mission to identify and recruit MBA candidates from various ‘federally protected’ demographic groups – including military veterans. If you attend this conference, you are guaranteed a ‘look’ by this diversity recruiting team. Now, you are a candidate who attends a ‘non-core’ school, and the team thinks you’re a viable candidates this centralized diversity team will likely manage your recruiting process. If, however, you attend a school where they also have an ‘on-campus’ team, the diversity team from this conference will ‘flag’ you as a target candidate and help to ensure that you get consideration during the on-campus recruiting cycle. In other words, you get ‘insider access’ to both the diversity teams and veterans networks, both of which have pull in the hiring process.
• Value of Affinity Networks: Most companies have ‘affinity networks’ like veterans groups that often have leverage in the recruiting process. In the case of this event, most sponsors send veteran employees to participate and their veterans groups evaluate candidates. These are the people who will not only advocate for you in the application process, but also look out for you in terms of job placement if you make it through. You cannot underestimate the value of meeting these people and you won’t meet them if you’re not there.

There are two ways to dramatically increase the likelihood of getting invited to ‘pre-conference’ networking activities and onsite interviews ahead of the conference.

1) REGISTER AT LEAST 4 WEEKS PRIOR TO THE EVENT: Statistically you have a 75% chance of being invited to pre-conference activities if you register at least 4 weeks prior to the event. This decreases by 10 percentage points per week leading up to the event. This is because all recruiting teams get access to the networking platform 4 weeks ahead of time. They generally go into it one or 2 times to identify candidates to pre-select and once it’s done, they’re done.

2) CRAFT A SOLID RESUME: Because every candidate served in the military and is attending a top-ranked program, you all generally look the same to companies. This is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because a majority of sponsors legitimately open up their roles to all candidates who attend, even if they’re not at a ‘core’ school and a curse because as a candidate a poorly crafted resume really stands out.

3) EXPRESS INTEREST IN POSTED ROLES: Companies use the job postings as ways to ‘passively’ recruit candidates and evaluate them for networking invites and interviews. If you have even the slightest interest in a company with a posted role – we strongly encourage you to ‘express interest” by clicking that job’s “I’m interested” button.

You can register using your .edu email address HERE. You will need to complete your profile 100% before our team can grant you access to complete your registration for this year’s virtual expo.