The Value of Students’ Classroom Experiences from the Eyes of the Recruiter: Information, Implications, and Recommendations for Marketing Educators

Abstract

Marketing students represent their years of undergraduate education with resumes, which along with interviews, become the process recruiters use to assess student employability. This article reviews research on resume development and presents a study that examines recruiters' comments about the value they place on experience in and out of the classroom. Most recruiters indicate that internships, part-time jobs, and leadership positions in university organizations are better indicators of employability than classroom experiences. Recent changes in marketing/business pedagogy have led to more classes in which active learning approaches with client projects, field experiences, and skill-building activities are used. It is a concern that recruiters are unaware of, or pay little attention to, these classroom experiences where real-world knowledge and skills are developed. Suggestions are made regarding how to include more business-relevant skill development into our classrooms and how to communicate these classroom changes to both students and recruiters. DOES THE PROBLEM START WITH THE RESUME?A review of the literature on resume development suggests that a resume should include educational qualifications, work experience, and achievements (honors, awards, extracurricular activities) (Hornsby and Smith 1995). In addition, students should write resumes that describe their abilities, quali-

Students' experiences with the business internship program at Kuwait University

“…Students with internship experience can gain career advantages in the form of more career choices (Brooks, Cornelius, Greenfield, & Joseph, 1995;Pianko, 1996), eventual permanent employment (Callanan & Benzing, 2004;Knouse, Tanner, & Harris, 1999), and increased monetary compensation (Gault et al, 2000). Recruiters view internship as a better indicator of employability and real-world preparation than classroom experience (Barr & McNeilly, 2002).…”

“…Internship can provide students with the opportunity to learn specific job-related skills that are not normally taught in traditional coursework (Garavan & Murphy, 2001) and that employers require in new hires (Barr & McNeilly, 2002). These skills include problem solving (Knemeyer & Murphy, 2001), cognitive and reflective thinking skills (Schon, 1987), selfconfidence, time management, and verbal communication (Ellis, 2000).…”

Closing the Gap in Undergraduate Supply Chain Education through Live Experiential Learning

“…One method that universities can utilize to instill students with all of these skills and values is by organizing classrooms into functional teams and challenging them with complex business circumstances to improve, and then having the teams report their solutions to industry managers [14]- [20]. Schools create these settings through case studies, simulations, and working with local organizations to real world problems [21]- [26].…”

“…Problem-solving learning offers a collaborative, dynamic pedagogy for bringing together industry professionals, faculty, and students to tie theory into practice. This class builds on prior appeals for projectbased learning [14]- [26], and was specifically inspired by the work done by Sroufe and Ramos [25] [26].…”

PhD Students’ Value Perceptions of Their Education: An Application of Means-End Chain Model

“…PhD students are usually not allowed to determine many of the components of the core educational services that they pay for. Accordingly, most of the studies on graduate education have been in such topics as curriculum development and effective teaching methods and have focused on how to best transfer knowledge to students and how to shape them in a proper way (Barr & McNeilly, 2002;Oliver & Sautter, 2005;Yazici, 2004). These studies add to the quality improvement in graduate education, but do not contribute to our understanding of students' subjective evaluation of their educational experience and expectations.…”