B-school trends come and go, but one that seems to have legs is the creation of specialized MBA programs, particularly by second-tier schools. The schools find them useful for attracting students and cementing their brand identities at a time when competition among schools for the best students is intense. In recent years, they’ve becoming increasingly common (BusinessWeek.com, 7/19/07) even at high-profile schools. Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, and the Wharton School now offer specialized MBAs, majors, or dual degree programs in areas like real estate, sports management, biosciences, electronic commerce, and health care.

But is a specialized program always a good choice for an MBA student?

Not necessarily. While established programs have placement records on par with those of their general MBAs, many newer programs have not yet established the kind of recruiting relationships that guarantee students high-paying jobs at graduation. And graduates always run the risk of getting hamstrung by their specialties later in their careers, when an industry downturn forces them to look outside their specialties for opportunities.
Chart Your Own Path

Some who have gone through the specialized programs say they are best for those with a firm idea of their future goals, and who are keen to chart their own path. “I knew what I wanted to do,” said Carrie Stern Rathod, who received her MBA from Wisconsin’s Brand ‐ Product Management Center in 2005 and now works for Procter & Gamble (PG), which recruits regularly from the program. “There’s a range of people for whom this program is ideal. If you have an entrepreneurial bent but are not sure you’re ready to take the leap yet, the program might be right.” But, she added, “I think it would be tough if you wanted to go into consulting or something like that.”

For students who aren’t comfortable breaking away from the pack or seeking out professional contacts in unconventional ways, a specialized MBA might not be the best choice. This is especially true at less well-known schools, where big companies often don’t recruit. Students in these programs agree that making industry connections can require a lot of initiative from the student. “If you have a very specific company in mind, you might need to be a trailblazer in making relationships with those companies,” says Rathod.

More : businessweek.com

The recruitment company Adecco has started cooperating with Copenhagen Business School (CBS) which is to result in the MBA students remaining in Denmark after their graduation, writes Børsen Business Daily.

“According to CBS many of the MBA students would like to work in Denmark. However, the tendency is that a majority returns to their own countries because it is difficult for them to be integrated on the labour market. Therefore it is important that we do everything we can to integrate them during their student period so that afterwards companies will be prepared to take them on,” says Adecco’s Marketing Director Nikolaj Henum.

This is to happen through coaching and career consultancy during their education.

“We cannot guarantee anything but we will do our utmost to find work for the 35 students,” he says, emphasising that Adecco has a strong network within Danish business life and will therefore have a good entry for the students to the labour market.

When the first MBA group in the alliance will finish in August, Adecco will start to get the students in contact with the companies. Their profiles will be placed on Adecco.dk just as they will get in contact with relevant companies. Moreover, a special entry will be launched with a database of the 35 MBA students.

More : copcap.com

The announcement National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), demand and pushed aside and non-effort pushed the Union Member of the Planning Commission BN Yugandhar said here Monday.

A fund is created and pooling resources from various systems, such as the National Food for Work, Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana and the region back Grants Fund, said Yugandhar journalists after opening a workshop organized by the Round Table on public expenditure (PERT), Institute of Management Consultants and Madras, India University’s Department of Management Studies, to rethink approaches to the provision of public services.

Prisé as 50 other districts would be chosen for the NREGS (in addition to the 150 covered under the national programme Food for Work Program), he said that the selection of parameters such as GDP per capita agricultural productivity, wages and the population covered Box / Scheduled Tribes. “These parameters are value neutral and acceptable to all States,” he said.

Panchayats village social audit of the money under the regulation.

Earlier, in his address, “said Yugandhar with the introduction of a number of systems, each district was more and more additional funds in an amount of Rs 100 crores of RS. 300 crores per year, without spending plan of the Federal state governments.

He proposed that the resources available with the development of systems constituency Members of Parliament and members of legislatures are used for public financing of elections.

K. Venkataraman, said the chairman of the PERT of the exercise of preparing budgets result would be useful if the system has tainted surrender.