Business Schools Target Stay-at-Home Moms

According to the Wall Street Journal's "Career Journal" some of our country's elite business schools are discovering the talents of stay-at-home moms. The schools seem serious about attracting moms to new custom-tailored executive education programs -- in large part because business schools, unlike law and medical schools, have had an extremely hard time recruiting women to their programs in consistently large enough numbers to bring the percentage of female students above 30 percent.

Finally, business schools (and large employers who traditionally recruit freshly-minted MBAs such as Deloitte & Touche, Citigroup and Booz Allen Hamilton) are increasingly showing interest in women who left work to raise children but are now interested in returning (see Sue Shellenbarger's Work & Family piece from February for more about corporate mentoring, networking, and training programs for re-entry moms). The Career Journal article reports that Harvard, Wharton, Dartmouth and other top b-schools are "[s]eeking to tap a pool of professionals who are of increasing interest to employers. ... The new courses aim to help women overcome the big gaps in their resumés with job-seeking strategies, and also to help bring them up-to-date on changes in their fields while they were gone." Program curriculums include finance, accounting, technology, recent business trends, resumé-writing workshops, interview skills and networking opportunities.

The article goes on to cite a survey of 2,443 women by the Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York nonprofit focused on work-family issues, showing that 93 percent of highly educated women who are out of the workforce want to resume their careers, yet only 74 percent manage to do so. Part of the problem is that rapid changes in many fields -- from securities laws to accounting regulations to technology -- have meant that women who take even a few years off can fall behind. My observation is that oftentimes the most insidious barrier is women's perception that we've fallen behind, even if we haven't, since confidence is such a critical part of a successful job search and career.

According to the article, the programs are expensive (Harvard's month-long pilot cost $3,000; at Dartmouth, the 11-day Tuck program will cost $6,000, including meals and lodging) and they require you to be away from your family for an extended period of time. However, some business schools are actively recruiting corporate sponsors to help defray costs and are exploring the possibility of companies endowing need-based scholarships.

Just as a regular MBA degree is a costly investment in yourself, for the right person, these programs could be worth it.

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  July 26, 2006; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Moms in the News
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