A peer to peer discussion with the former Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Career Services at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. Brostoff, who held this position from 2016 to January 2024, brings a wealth of experience in career services at top-tier business schools.

“What metrics are being used to evaluate [performance]?” Asked Brostoff.

For business school deans, the efficacy of career services in facilitating graduate success is a critical concern. Brostoff shares insights gleaned from over sixteen years in the field, discussing trends in career services, employer needs, the intersection of career services and curricular reform, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for evaluating career services effectiveness.

Listen as he outlines strategies for empowering career services professionals to meet these KPIs and navigate the evolving landscape of academia and the workplace. Brostoff also shares one of his most effective approaches to understanding the needs of employers.

“More programs [are] realizing that that's the epicenter of where you're going to really understand hiring trends,” said Brostoff.

This episode is essential listening for current and aspiring deans seeking to understand the multifaceted challenges and metrics associated with career services in higher education.

Photos courtesy of USC

Dave 0:13

Welcome to Dean's Council podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists Ken Kring, Jim Ellis, and Dave Ikenberry engage in conversation with highly accomplished Dean's and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Dean's face and one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. An often unspoken truism of well run business schools is that they must have a strong career services office. Yet as a dean, particularly those of us who come from a traditional faculty background, you typically do not have such a rich understanding and often take for granted what a great career office is and what can or should do for our organization. This episode of Dean's Counsel, we take a deep dive with Mark Brostoff, a true career development expert. After spending 20 years in the Navy Medical Service score mark has spent nearly 25 years supporting students on their career journey. His first professional role in career services started at the Kelley School at Indiana University. In 2008. Mark was hired as Associate Dean and Director of the Career Center at Wash Hughes Olin School. Eight years later, our co host gemellus hired mark as Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Career Services at USC Marshall School of Business, where he served until this year. To say that Mark is a veteran of the industry is an understatement. This episode, we hear his observations about a wide variety of issues, including concepts such as trends in career services and employer needs, how can and should Career Services and foreign curricular reform? And what tools we might adopt understand if our career services office is functioning? Well, if you're like me, you'll undoubtedly hear several new and interesting perspectives to reflect on. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Jim 2:06

So Dave, we're really privileged today to have Mark frost off join us. Mark worked with me at USC and our Career Center, mostly for MBAs. But then ultimately, he took over everything else. And prior to that was with Washington, St. Louis, as well as Indiana University. So he's had great experience in the career placement area. And we thought today that it would be really good to have Mark, walk us through some of the things that take place there, what the trends are in the business today, and, and maybe what some of the deans should be thinking about as they put their career offices together. So welcome, Mark. It's great to have you. Thanks,

Mark Brostoff 2:45

Jim. Thanks for the invitation. Thanks, Dave. Again, good to join your podcast today. So let's

Jim 2:51

start off and talk a little bit about what's happening in today's environment, relative to recruiting and hiring by companies, of students. And you can focus on MBAs, you can focus on specialized masters didn't you can focus on undergrads, take your pick, how are you? You see it, but what are some of the trends that you're seeing and some of the pitfalls that our students have to worry about today? Yeah,

Mark Brostoff 3:19

that's a great question. And very timely, obviously, with the feds action this week, holding the interest rates high because that, definitely, I think a lot of people don't realize the connectivity between MBA hiring and high interest rates, you know, companies cutting back on investments, the cost of funds, and that's what we saw in 2023. I mean, it was one of the pitfalls in terms of employment over a decade. I mean, in almost 25 years. The financial crisis in 2009 was predictable that, you know, financial services and the market would be very slow for MBA graduates. But last year and 2023. It was even worse across the board with tech layoffs. And obviously we just read recently in terms of Tesla just canning an entire segment of their Evie so it is I can't project anything positive but I'm not going to project anything negative. I think there's a neutral feeling out there that we're still writing out the downturn of 2023 for MBA graduates, I think it is going to be really difficult and a slow pace. So what what specific fields Well, we have seen now consulting really begin to pull back we saw the evolution of offers being delayed rescinded. The positive note of 2023 was salaries were up in signing bonuses are up so employers who are hiring MBA are paying a premium for the degree that bodes well for the fact that the MBA degree is still a highly sought after degree in the marketplace. It is still worth the return on the investment of students to get their MBA. That's the good news is that the value of the degree hasn't diminished. The downside, obviously is the is the job opportunities have in fact changed. And we can point, of course to the economy, I'm going to bring up the fact that every presidential election year has always seen a softening, of business school employment, because of obviously the risk factor of what November brings. So this does not bode well for any bump in projections for 2024. What is interesting, however, is the sector's with technology still very much on hold. I think, you know, the challenge with Dean's of business schools is how to integrate AI into the curriculum. Because the advancements of AI right now in terms of expectation of recruiters, the influence it has on applicants, job applicants, hiring trends, I think it's moving so fast that I'm not quite sure how business schools are able to adapt so quickly into training their current students into how to leverage AI into even an interview, how do you even talk about it in a way in which they can talk logically in terms of how they would harness that technology? And influenced the bottom line? I mean, it's something that I've given a lot of thought about, and don't have an answer for, but I know that is what I think current MBA students are facing is they're being asked certain questions and expectations of what the market wants. In business schools have never been fast movers in curriculum adjustments. And at this stage of the game, what I would say right now is needed is a little bit of a faster pace to figure out how can curriculum change, to keep pace with what's happening in the marketplace. And I think that that's a real challenge, because it's not like finance, right? Or accounting or even, or case interviewing. I mean, those things are pretty much the same as they were 25 years ago. It's not a new print, you know, that not many new principles. I mean, other than maybe new interpretations of risk assessments, data analytics has played a huge role. And I'd have to say business schools have done a really good job, especially his master's program in data analytics, incorporating data analytics and data science in business schools, that kept up with the pace of what the employment market was looking for, but it's not doing so today. So, bottom line, the challenges for MBA graduates are going to stick around for a couple of more years. I think that the best advice I could give to beings and to Career Center Directors and for admissions is to be very transparent with students and say you have to come into a business school and don't have the expectation that you're going to join McKinsey or BCG or, or any of the MBBS because they're pulling back even the the top seven MBA programs, the M seven are finding consulting jobs, you know, hiring slowing down financial services, and Wall Street are taking second looks. So what sectors healthcare, amazingly, healthcare now is interesting. And I have a Master's in Health Administration, that's my background, and got that in the early 80s. And everyone laughed. And today, I look back at that degree and say, you know, health care management now with with what is occurring in the healthcare sector, you don't hear many MBAs come into the career centers and say I want to go into healthcare management, right? You wouldn't expect it. But that's where the jobs are. Entrepreneurship, family business small to midsize business is one of the things that at Marshall, and even at wants you the startup ecosystem, so finding ways to get your alumni network. And typically, it would always be the C suite alums that Dean's would go after, to get into the classrooms to share their experiences. And I'm not suggesting otherwise. But I would begin to suggest that you start bringing in your, your entrepreneurs, your your small business creators, and get them into the classrooms to share their experiences and what it took for them to leverage their MBA into a business that may not be as attractive perhaps, to an MBA caliber at any of the MBA programs. But those are the people who are going to have to be the backbone of future hiring to bring those MBAs into the marketplace. So I think the startup ecosystem, the entrepreneurship programs, micro internships and externships. There's got to be more creativity. You've got to really look at your career services directors and say what you've done over the last 10 years. It no longer is plain to the marketplace. And I think that there's got to be An integration of, of interview prep, career prep, and what I've called lifelong career management, I've used that term at Marshall, I've used it all in my career, I think we've gotten away from the idea of lifelong career management, it's not about the first job, because the first job MBAs are going to get are not going to be the jobs that they're seeking. So we've got to kind of look look much further down the road at preparing what is still a very highly regarded degree in the marketplace.

Dave 10:29

Great to have you today, Mark, you've already touched on a few themes. But let me kind of repackage a problem. And have you think about that, if I'm a dean, I've got a career placement office as a part of my college, what are the top three or four, half a dozen, whatever it is, you know, best in class, things that I need to make sure my director is executing or not executing? And what are some of the best practice if, for example, if I have a 90 day placement rate of 60%? Say on my undergraduate side, or my or my graduate side? And, you know, that might be mediocre? I mean, obviously, let's hold the other macro events constant if I don't want to, if I want to move that 20 points over the next year, obviously, I need to do the curriculum, other things, but what are the tactical things that I ought to be doing that are kind of best in class? Yeah.

Mark Brostoff 11:31

And that rolls into what I was talking about before, you know, when when programs have a low employment rate, they're always thinking, Well, what can I do? Internships, you know, two year MBA programs still have the benefit over European MBA programs that are only one year, and that's the internship, the experiencial learning engagement. So if you're looking to increase your employment rate, and the value of your MBA program, it really is, and this is where again, it doesn't have to be C suite networking, it has to be providing those students the opportunity to get in meaningful summer work experience, I don't even like to use, I used to use the term small i internships, not the capital internship, because that would be the consulting internships and the Wall Street internships. And that's what people think. I'm talking about the small I'm what I've called practical summer work experience, I think the students are too fixated on the term. What and this is where I think your startup ecosystem, your your alumni, even from the small to midsize companies, MBA students, any student needs to have practical experience that they could go into their second year and talk about and complement what they're learning in the classroom. It isn't that, you know, it's not brain surgery. But it really is about the fact that candidate A from any MBA program, who doesn't have that, you know, practical work experience, you know, they have experienced that they've come into the MBA programs so that they can leverage that they have to have something while they were at the MBA. So this could be an increase in case competitions. This could be anything that shows the ability of that candidate to problem solve, make decisions use data analytics and decision making. They can't just talk about what they're learning, they have to talk about the application of what the curriculum is teaching them, that opens up those opportunities with those opportunities, the students can now leverage that during an interview and get that post graduation job. So there's a real connectivity from you know, it's, it's a continuum, you're looking for candidates with a diverse background and experiences. You've got to provide them with a more diverse experiences outside of the classroom. And that could mean cross campus collaboration. At Marshall, we collaborated with the engineering school at the game pipe lab, and we exploded into the gaming industry. When Jim was dean in what did we do? We ended up seeing, you know, almost eight 9% of MBA graduates going into gaming. That's a big number when you only have you know, 190 graduates. And so there was the engineering school, Cinematic Arts School, and I think a lot of Dean's may be looking to internally to their business school to realize that what you have across campus, so Healthcare Management, as as I mentioned in all the others, that's where students can gain those experiences outside of the business school. And I think that that can make a tremendous difference. We've seen it you know, I've seen it happen. And I'll talk a little bit about undergraduate very quickly. Everyone's going to hire analysts, undergraduate employment is always going to remain strong. They're the worker bees of the of the industry. So you don't have to focus as much attention on your undergraduates, because they don't have the expectation of that work experience. And you've got a lot of several years to really provide them so they need they You need more training and soft skills, they need to know how to network and interview and write a resume. And they need good communication skills. They need to know how to have a LinkedIn profile that's professional, but your MBAs hard skills, real hands on experiential learning opportunities, I think will make a difference in and actually can turn around employment rates relatively quickly.

Jim 15:19

You know, go back to your gaming example, for just a second one thing that you guys did do when you exploded, that number of students going into gaming is you also took them on field trips to the various companies. And so you got them to see the companies meet the executives, listen to presentations, and you got them out of the school and out onto the streets. So they met people, which I think was a real plus there. Yeah,

Mark Brostoff 15:48

networking. Yeah. I mean, those trucks have tremendous return on the investment. And I think this is where again, you know, you've got to look, you have a set period of time, you have certain number of hours, they have to be in the classroom. But I think you've got to be able to look at this. And some schools are being really creative. You know, these national conferences, for example, MBA students have to attend these national diversity conferences, having classes or assignments that compete against these huge hiring conferences that occur in September and October, whether it's NBA veterans or, or reaching out for LGBTQ students, or National Black or Hispanic. I think Dean's may be overlooking, thinking, well, these are just, you know, job fairs. Then beyond job fairs. They are the networking mega sites, for 300 companies, they're the Alumni Relations, sending your alumni relations staff, and then the admission staff. One of the things that I think I've seen historically over the last, you know, at least decade is more programs, realizing that that's the epicenter of where you're going to really understand hiring trends, because you're going to meet recruiters, you're going to meet executives, they're going to students are going to go to networking events, they're going to go to dinners, they're going to go to educational programming. To me looking at your academic calendar, you gotta carve out in begin to realize that those national MBA recruiting conferences are the backbone to your success, and shouldn't be looked at as now just simply trips, you know, trips off campus.

Dave 17:27

You one of the issues that we're reading about today, is there's this sense in in society that particularly at the undergraduate level, the value of the degree is diminishing, or is perceived to be diminishing. We hear stories that lots of jobs, either in the corporate sector or in the government sector that used to require an undergraduate are now stripping away those requirements. Why is this happening? And is that a threat to the career placement office?

Mark Brostoff 18:01

I don't think it's a real threat. I mean, I think there are underlining reasons that it's happening. And that's to increase the diversity of the employment pool. I mean, I think that taking the requirement for government agencies and some other NGOs is to really help increase the diversity of the applicant pool. And I'm all in favor of that. I think that the undergraduate degree is still meaningful across the board. I do agree that there are students who probably would would look at their third and you know, their junior and senior year and say, Well, what am I going to do with a non business degree, there's a lot that you can do with non business degrees. I'll give you an example. When I was at Olin at Wash U, towards the end of my sixth or seventh year there, we began to take more engineering students to Wall Street than we did business students, Wall Street was looking for the mindset and the decision makers with an engineering degree, not so much a business degree. I mean, that was novel for us to go on a track from St. Louis to Wall Street. And I was with students with engineering backgrounds. Now, it didn't diminish, you know, Ohlins undergraduate business degree, we still had a 99% outcome, employment rate. But what it did prove was the fact that companies are looking for the best talent that fits today. And again, it has to do with data driven decision making, it has to do with non traditional backgrounds being more attractive to hiring managers. So I think there's still a good return on the investment of an undergraduate degree. But I think that it doesn't mean that consulting firms or financial firms or or business degrees are going to be the only sectors and I think that's why we're starting to see a consolidation on campuses of undergraduate career centers. Because I think, you know, presidents, I was talking to the, to the senior associate dean at Olin just a couple of weeks ago. They're concerned about After MBAs, you know in terms of not having having a consolidated Gris and there are challenges to that, especially for MBAs not having a dedicated career center. But more schools are realizing that all undergraduates across liberal arts, engineering, business, nursing, social work, they all can have that background and skill set in, and they will intrigue, hiring managers. So undergraduate career centers have to be very nimble, to make sure that they're open across the campus. But at the MBA level, it's still very important that there are dedicated career centers focused on that talent, because again, it's not just simply a matter of teaching them how to interview. It's, it's really about understanding their professional, you know, networking capabilities across again, your alumni network, and the return on an investment dictate, you know, that that type of focus.

Jim 20:54

So, change gears for a second, we've seen a explosion of specialized master's degrees. And those are typically one year degrees, specializing in a sector finance, marketing, data analytics, however you want to do all of them. How has that impacted the MBA placement opportunities? Those students obviously are coming in without internships, so they don't have the value of the internship between the first and second year? Do they compete with the MBAs? Do they go with a different level? Are they are they eating away at MBA placement opportunities? Or are they are they making a bigger pie? if you will?

Mark Brostoff 21:38

Yeah. No, I think that's a great question, Jim. I throughout my career, and I remember the launch of specialized masters at Kelly when they launched the accounting program, the Mac program. I don't think they're cannibalizing MBA employment, because MBA again, is is required, you know, that MBA requires that that experience, that work experience, is still very much valued and goes hand in hand to complement the MBA degree. And that and that's not diminishing. So I don't think that there's any evidence, we're specialized Masters is cannibalizing employment opportunities for MBAs with where they do fit is there's a premium, perhaps placed on really good specialized master's programs. And that's business analytics, right? Quantitative Finance, not so much the masters of management to me, that's a very vanilla specialized masters. But you know, when you talk in accounting, you're talking data analytics, you're talking finance, the MSF programs, quantify supply chain management. Actually, I should point out that I do think the MSc in supply chain management, if there was a specialized master's degree that may cannibalize some MBA employment, it would be global supply chain management, because of the specialization within supply chain. And by the way, supply chain is one of the top five industries in demand right now for MBAs. And a lot of MBAs are not thinking operations and supply chain. So what they're doing is they're leaving a gap in the marketplace for the MS programs to fill. Because the knowledge they gained from from global supply chain programs, companies will take that over the years of experience, because you don't have many MBAs with a long term historical background and supply chain. And so that area is is where the investment should go. global supply chain, that that's an investment that business schools should be looking at from a specialized master's program. But when it comes to MSF programs, no investment banking, you know, they're the specialized masters students are analysts, they're not associates. They're not counting up cannibalizing MBA programs, undergraduate programs, again, you know, there may be some but but in some respects, and you use this, I think it complements and increases your pool. So if I was a dean of a business school, I'd want a larger pool of candidates going to Wall Street and I wouldn't care and I wouldn't worry if they're undergraduate specialized masters, because ultimately your brand is is the brand that is being hired. And so the more Kelly or Marshall or Olin or Leeds candidate you can put into the talent pool, whether they're undergraduates or specialized masters bodes well for your reputation as as themes. And so that's where I think the investment comes to play. I don't think you'll ever see any evidence to where they're being cannibalized but your what you're doing is setting down a marker right that says My school is specializing in that. And that does make in fact, a big difference but no evidence whatsoever that affects MBA employment outcomes, and I think that accept again Let's qualify I think supply chain management. And that's only because you just don't get a lot of MBA candidates walk to Career Center and says, I want to go into supply chain. I wish we did. But we just don't. Yeah. And it's foolish because there was some of the highest paying jobs.

Jim 25:14

Yeah. Mark,

Dave 25:16

again, if I suppose I'm a dean, how do I best evaluate whether my my placement office is performing? Well, what? What's the grading rubric that you might use? Yeah,

Mark Brostoff 25:30

that's a that's a great question. And just so that in my career services, peers here, you continue to use the term placement, we stopped using the term placement back in. Okay. Randy Powell was the director of the business placement office for those Kelly alums out there. I was on the team that changed to undergraduate career services, but that's okay. I'm used to the dean scale using the term placement. I love it. Well, you

Dave 25:54

can tell my age here. So sorry about that.

Mark Brostoff 25:58

Exactly. The three of us, and that's exactly the point, you know, so it's okay. let you get away with it. But I would say that KPIs one of the things that I've always said, and I and I talked to my peers about this, they would say, Well, what metrics are being used to evaluate? And you know, employment outcomes comes to mind, but it shouldn't be, you really shouldn't use employment rate as a metric to determine whether or not your career office is succeeding or not. It's part of it. Absolutely. I should know. However, you have to break it down, you got to kind of peel the onion away a little bit, because employment rates are the your students succeeding in the jobs, you know, in the industries where your business school is planted the flag, right? You know, if the, if you're, if you're saying that your business school is producing top rank talent, then you should have strong consulting outcomes or financial services outcomes. So I think that part of it is the utilization rate. So if I was a dean, I would call in my career services director and say, I don't want to know how many visits in total we're getting. I want to know how many repeat visits? How many times are students coming back to talk to your advising or coaching team. Because every student is going to come through the Career Center at least once, when they first get there. I've always evaluated my team on the repeat performance. How many have built the the it's the delivery of empathetic coaching? I asked a question on our post advising surveys, and it's an empathy question, does some does the person you meet with care about my career, or care about me. And so it's not about there, if a student thinks that the Career Center cares about your first postgraduate job, then you have a poor performing overall performing center, you need to have students feel that someone cares about their success and their long term career success. And so that they're building relationships with your career center, that's going to pay value when they're alumni because they're going to come back and they're going to leave. And they're going to go into their companies and say, You know what, you need to be contacting our Career Center, because they really helped me transfer my skills. They understood what I was looking for, to transition from. I was an investment banker, and I wanted to go into, you know, finance, or I was an opera singer, and I wanted to go into consulting. So I think that there's no complete metric example that I can give you, other than, you know, our students valuing the interactions they're having. And that's the student side. The next is your employers and recruiters. Look at the turnover rate, which companies have not returned to your campus to recruit. That's a question that you don't often hear. Dean's ask. But it would really be insightful. Now, in some cases, you don't want the company return. I've had cases where I've explained to the company that I appreciate your interest in our students, but our students are really not interested in you. We value your relationship, but I think you can do better down the street. But if a company has come in hired your students and then doesn't return, that's a clear indication that there's something you have to look into. It may not be the career center, it could be curriculum, it could be student professionalism. But companies are developing talent pipelines, and if you have your talent pipeline that is cracked, then you've got to look at the Career Center first for the answer. Why is Company X not returning? Or have they lowered or decreased the hiring of our MBAs and there could be logical answers. The answer that we've seen a number of places is the hiring more part time MBAs than our full time MBA for grant, that's an underlining issue that Diems have to address because their overall hiring numbers are up. But the mix of the students being hired is different. We experienced that, you know, a number of schools are experiencing that with a part time students because they have more engaging, ongoing work experience, they may have now had more interaction with AI than your full time student who's not working and been in the classroom. So those are the type of things so I'm sorry that I can't give you a you know, a list of metrics. But there are things and trends that you can look at to determine whether or not your Career Center is a value add to your program, or a service. And you have to determine, you know, is it just a rotational service? Or is it a value added to your reputation and into your outcomes? As

Jim 30:52

you answer that question, it jogged me to a nother question I wanted to ask, I should have two final questions, if I can have two final questions. Number one, online MBAs, because you're talking about part time MBAs versus full time MBAs. There's a discrepancy going on there. What about the way companies look at an online MBA program? And then my second question, you will finish up with that? Who's your customer here? Is your customer, the student? That's a great question is your customer, the school is your customer, the companies.

Mark Brostoff 31:26

So the online MBAs if they are doing it, the way that most Dean's envision online MBAs, they're working professionals, they are working professionals advancing their careers getting their MBA, and they're advancing their careers, probably through their existing employer, where they're going to explore in transition. So you have a lot of engineers, or scientists getting their MBA, military leadership gets their MBA, right. And those candidates, again, are not cannibalizing your full time MBA program, and they'll be successful. And recruiters have told us that those online MBA candidates from those backgrounds fulfill their needs, because they got the academic credential of the MBA, which means they've got that advanced education, but they're got a deeper work experience that matters more of you're admitting the same profile of your full time MBA into your online MBA program, then it's almost a disservice because they don't have that competitive edge, that most other online MBA haves and all you have to do is look at the admissions statistics for the top rated online MBA programs like Kelly, and others, because they've stayed true to what the online MBA does for that candidate. In terms of who's our customer. The one thing about career center directors is you everyone is your customer, you know, you have to be focused on your student and, and developmental opportunities to get them ready for the job market, you have to be willing to listen to what employers want and translate that to share with your academic directors to to update and change curriculum, you've got to look at your faculty as partners, because the faculty probably know more alumni that can open doors than anyone else in your career center. And so to me, it was always everyone in our higher education ecosystem. And I mean, again, even outside of the business school, was the customer. Because of the somebody there know somebody who's going to open up an opportunity for a student who may be interested in a niche industry, where I may need to have a door opened, or I may need an alumni from, from the larger audience to be able to come in and see the value. So I don't think that there's one customer above them all. And that by the way, just Dave, going back to your question, how could you judge your career center? Ask that question your of your career staff, not just the director and see what answer you get? And you begin to get? Well, no, the student is my customer, the employer is my customer, then you know, what you need to do is recalibrate that career center because there is not a single focused customer for Career Services.

Jim 34:22

Well, thank you very much, Mark. We really appreciate this conversation. And I know there's a lot of pearls of wisdom in there for the Deans listening today to pick it up. So we appreciate the time you spent with us. Thank you so much. It's been great to see it. Great to have you with us. Thanks.

Mark Brostoff 34:37

Thanks, Jim. Great to see you again. Thanks, Dave and and appreciate it and any anytime. I'm always happy to come on in and share our perspective and trends in the marketplace. Thank you, Mark.

Jim 34:56

So Dave, what did you think of that the conversation we had about MBA placement. or placement in general.

Dave 35:01

I really enjoyed that. I wish I, I wish I had his insight when when I was starting my Dean's yet, because throughout the conversation, I found myself observing things that I really hadn't put together. But it was so logical and informative as to how he laid it out. And I really

Jim 35:22

appreciated that. Yeah, he was an invaluable partner for me in the MBA program initially, and then took over specialized masters, etc, as we went along, but he's got a great, just a great vision for how these students can can get the right kind of jobs. And in the right industries, has a good sense of the trends within the industries too. And of course, you are seeing a lot of the industries like consulting pulling back and, and some of the accounting firms pulling back both in the artist side and the consulting side. So that was a lot of pearls of wisdom throughout that entire conversation. Yeah,

Dave 36:01

I also liked his insight, I found he has kind of a macro view of things more of a macro view than I would have thought macro may not be the right word either. But, for example, when, you know, he talked about how it's important for people in the office to think about multiple customers, as opposed to one single customer, he talked about some of the KPIs he's interested in or not so much, how many students visit the office, but rather, what's the quality of the engagement? How you know, how many students are there for repeat business? And then finally, or another one that I found so interesting was, Are you sitting down with the corporations who used to be customers and it now cut you off? And are you harvesting? What those reasons are and learning is how to improve off of that great insight there.

Jim 36:51

Yep, great insight. Really, really very valuable. I'm glad we did it. Thank

Thank you for listening to this episode of Deans Counsel. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Deans Counsel was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts. For a catalogue of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com If you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback at Dean's council.com. And finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show