Companies and Business Students Differ on What Skills M.B.A. Programs Should Teach

A serious disconnect exists between what corporate recruiters want in their new M.B.A. hires and what business schools are teaching them, and students may be largely to blame, according to a report that will be released this week at a meeting of management scholars in Philadelphia.
The report, by two assistant professors of management at DePaul University, concludes that recruiters want business schools to pay more attention to people-oriented skills like leadership and communication. Students, however, frequently complain that those "soft skills" won't get them jobs, and they're pressuring their business schools to focus instead on functional or technical content, the researchers say. [View Full Article - Subscription - The Chronicle]