Guide to Career Resources Available to CBS Students

Careers in social enterprise (SE) cover a wide range of areas, and students looking for career resources will need to conduct more in depth research than other traditional MBA career paths such as finance and consulting. Although a number of SE organizations have recruited on campus, staffing requirements are often difficult to forecast and may remain unclear for many organizations until the middle of spring semester.

This guide to career resources serves as a starting point for finding SE resources, and has been structured under topics relating to key questions that MBA students might have. However there are some general resources listed under career advising that can answer many of your social enterprise career questions.

General SE questions and career advising

Given the breadth of the SE sector, each person needs to find a balance between exploring all SE areas, and focusing on a few target areas for career search purposes. Although students may express an interest in working for SE related for-profits, nonprofits or public sector organizations, students may find it useful to clarify what particular area within SE to investigate in detail, as well as what functional position to pursue.

Some points of contact and sources of information include:

  • CBS faculty and staff:
  • The Social Enterprise Club (SEC) officers.
  • SIPA's Office of Career Services: Check with the SIPA Career Advancement Center to see what access you’re allowed as an MBA student. Their office has extensive materials on nonprofits, but less on for-profit social enterprise organizations. There is no reciprocal sharing agreement for job postings (dual degree SIPA students may have access to their nonprofit job listings, especially for internationally-focused jobs). Also check the SIPA website for further career resources.
  • CBS has reciprocal relationships with offices of career services at other business schools. Students are allowed to visit the career services offices and access listings (once per year) at Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford and others. Some schools (like Stanford, Harvard and Berkeley) have good listings and resources for SE online. Sean McGill Jay Corcoran at Career Management is the contact for this program.
  • CBS current SE students and alumni via:

Overview of the social enterprise field and the type of positions available to MBAs

The following resources help illustrate the breadth of the social enterprise field as well as why and how an MBA can be relevant to this sector:

  • Conferences can be a valuable opportunity to network and see a broad range of organizations. Once you focus on a particular area, you should be able to find a relevant conference (and magazine/online newsletter) that focuses on your field. Recent conferences MBAs have attended have covered topics including: clean (green) technology ventures, socially responsible investing, healthcare management, sustainability, international development, social entrepreneurship and conferences held at other business schools. Here are a few of the more valuable ones:
  • The Tamer Institute, SEC, GBC and Career Services panels and speakers (information circulated to [SEC], GBC and email distribution lists).
    • Note on for-profit speakers: SEC/GBC, along with the management consulting, venture capital and other clubs will have speakers from traditional for-profit companies that are of relevance to social enterprise students
    • However students may find that speakers invited by other CBS clubs may focus on the strictly for-profit aspects of these companies. Conferences such as the Net Impact (which has a careers fair) and BSR are well attended by company representatives that are knowledgeable about the social enterprise aspects of their businesses.
  • Networking with other MBA students in SEC, GBC, Microlumbia and others who are transitioning from social enterprise sector to "traditional" areas such as finance, consulting, marketing etc. Students are often helpful to each other in terms of providing contacts and suggestions (i.e. from past employers or places that just don't fit what they are looking for, but might be perfect for someone else).
  • The Blended Value Map and bibliography of organizations (covers both for-profit & nonprofit), by Jed Emerson. This is an excellent overview of a number of sectors.
  • Old job postings from COIN powered by VMock (archive is currently being built out.)

Making networking contacts and calls

Everyone has his or her own style of networking. At a SE Careers panel, Ben Thomases ([email protected]) described his process of using personal contacts and making phone calls. Here is some further advice from Ben:

“The key to my networking process, and this is something I learned when I was trained as a community organizer, is always working through referrals. Once you focus on a field you should be able to get to a lot of the key people in that field with a fairly limited list of contacts at the beginning.

“Your conversation might start off by 'Professor Ray Horton [or whoever gave you’re the contact] suggested that I give you a call. I am a …[i.e. describe yourself]… and I am interested in…[the organization or area, etc.].' The mention of the referral contact gives them a sense that they are doing a favor to someone they know and like, just by having a quick chat with you. This makes all the difference.

“Then, if the person is in NYC, always try to schedule a face-to-face meeting. Even if you travel an hour for 1/2 hour with them, it is worth it. They will take a little more time to get to know you and feel more comfortable passing on the names of their contacts. Ask them about their work, their career path, possible opportunities at other organizations and the names of other people you should contact. Some people will have trouble coming up with names off the top of their head, offer to give them time and e-mail/call to follow up.

“There should not be too much emphasis on research. People should check out the websites of the organizations where their contacts work, or call to get a press kit. But don’t do too much research before making a phone call, as this will increase natural tendencies to put off these phone calls. ”

What if you ask around and do not get any referrals? Here are some suggested steps:

  1. To find new contacts in your target area, first make a list of organizations in your field of interest.
  2. Double check with friends, family, colleagues, and any other people that you know or have met (including people mentioned above in CBS or at SE events), to see if they work with SE organizations that you’re interested in, or can refer you to someone who you could speak to. Alumni will usually make time to talk with you, and can sometimes be the best source of information about the organization.
  3. If you have no referrals, then do a quick online search on the organization and try to find a specific person that you can email. Think through a list of questions (see below) before calling.
    - Check the organization’s online site for a directory listing of staff, phone numbers, emails;
    - If all else fails, try cold calling/emailing the organization. Ask for someone that you can speak to, explaining that you're a first year CBS MBA student, interested in finding out about the organization / field etc. Persistence is key! If they are stumped for where to direct your call you could try asking for the area you’re interested in working in e.g. finance, marketing, operational areas etc. Your last resort is to go to HR, or people who only do recruiting (if you’re not interested in HR positions). Your networking efforts will be more informative if you can find senior people or decision makers or those that work in positions or areas within the organization that you may be interested in.
  4. When you get hold of someone of interest, make sure that they have time to talk to you, or offer to call them back at a specific time. If they appear willing to talk to you, your aim is to learn about the organization, that person's career path and background, how they came to work at that org etc. Preparation will help the quality of your questions.
  5. Ask them if they would be interested in finding out about the annual SE Conference at CBS (will be an opportunity for them to meet other SE industry people), as you can ask the club to send them an invitation for this or next year’s conference. Are they interested in SE events at CBS? If they are senior people e.g. CFO or CEO or would make an interesting speaker, are they interested in speaking at CBS? Also check if they would be interested in receiving an invitation from SEC giving them an opportunity to request a resume book of all CBS SE students. Then ask for their email address, contact details etc if you don’t already have these.
  6. Ask them for other people that they suggest for you to contact. This is a great way to find further people in that field or organization. This will help make your next networking call a referral .
  7. Thank them for their time etc, and follow up with a thank you email.

Career Services can run sessions for SE students on networking, otherwise email or call your designated career services liaison for an appointment.

Finding SE job postings

This advice is emphasized at CBS for independent job seekers: don’t rely too heavily on job postings as some of the best positions are filled via networking and personal contacts, and competition for these posted positions can be intense. However job postings can provide an indication of organizations that have recruited in the past, the type of positions and salaries available within that organization, and when that organization last recruited for that position.

  • COIN is updated regularly. Currently SE postings are listed under “nonprofit/ government”, and “other” but students should check all categories given the overlap between social enterprise and other for-profit fields such as finance (e.g. foundation management, socially responsible investing, and community development positions are often listed under finance).
  • The SE-interest clubs (SEC, GBC, Microlumbia) compile communication on careers that are sent to their respective club listserves with job listings of interest to their student populations.
  • Old postings can be useful for independent job searchers, to identify target organizations, past hiring needs and example job descriptions.
  • Alumni should use/activate their CBS lifetime accounts to see job postings, and take advantage of resources from the Columbia Business School Alumni Career Services.
  • Net Impact (www.netimpact.org) summer internship and full time job postings focus on for-profit social enterprise sector. They also have an active job board: https://netimpact.org/jobs
  • Online job postings sites – this article lists many of the best sites to find Social Impact Jobs: https://blog.movingworlds.org/find-social-impact-jobs-2022/

Information on specific SE organizations

  • Alumni and current students that have worked at these organizations - look them up via Linkedin.
  • Candid (merger of the former Foundation Center + Guidestar): Lots of information, including tax returns for nonprofits, which provide a wealth of information above and beyond the financials, as well as general information for many nonprofit organizations: www.guidestar.org
  • National Center for Charitable Statistics: www.nccs.urban.org
  • Financial analysis, star ratings and peer analysis of nonprofits: www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm

Typical salaries in the SE field

Salaries can vary widely within each area of social enterprise, and by whether the organization is in the for profit, nonprofit, or government sector, the size of the organization, and by country. Sources of funding will also influence salary ranges, especially for nonprofit organizations.

Sources of information include:

  • Current students, SE CBS alumni;
  • Old job postings (see above);
  • Guidestar (www.guidestar.org) provides access to nonprofit tax returns (Form 990). This site publishes returns as PDF files on nearly all nonprofits registered in the U.S. Organizations are legally required to disclose the salaries of the top five highest paid employees making over $50K. Guidestar has also compiled a national salary survey that can be accessed from the same web site;
  • National Center for Charitable Statistics: www.nccs.urban.org
  • Careers Service staff have specific information on starting salaries from CBS student surveys, although they don’t have many data points for social impact roles, always worth a try! Also see CBS’s career placement report: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/recruiters/employmentreport

Advice on writing cover letters

Alison Davis (now retired), founder of the nonprofit recruiter MBA Nonprofit Connection, provides valuable advice to students about how compete for social impact jobs based on her analysis of applications by successful students:

  • The vast majority of successful applicants had private-sector experience that was directly relevant to the summer job (for example, experience in the travel industry that was useful to an ecotourism internship) OR they had some prior nonprofit experience (paid or volunteer). The nonprofit job market has become so competitive that it is difficult for MBAs to get nonprofit jobs if they don't make an explicit connection between their prior experience and the primary qualifications for the job.
  • Every single student who was hired for a summer job wrote a customized cover letter. As cover letters have become less important for private-sector job searches, they have become more important for nonprofit job searches. Nonprofit employers pay close attention to cover letters and definitely use them to screen candidates.

Sample cover letters from MBA students and alumni

Please see CMC website for advice and information on sessions to review your resume.

The following cover letters (both for companies and nonprofits) illustrate the level of specificity and focus required These have been supplied by Columbia MBA students and alumni for use by other Columbia MBAs only, and were successfully used to obtain an interview.

Please note that the Columbia Business School honor code applies, and employers are prone to recognizing instances of plagiarism.

Download these files (requires Adobe Acrobat reader):

In addition, students can visit the CMC to see example resumes.

Please email any further resources, comments, or questions, and report broken links to [email protected].