A Conversation with Sarah Nathan from McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas

In this conversation, Sarah Nathan, Managing Director, MBA Career Education & Coaching, discusses her experience, how the McCombs career office supports students, and trends in recruiting. Additionally, she shares her advice for how McCombs students can make the most of their recruiting experience.  

MBA Pathfinders: We understand that you’re a McCombs grad, in addition to the Managing Director of the MBA Career Office. Could you share a little about your MBA experience? 

Sarah Nathan: Sure!  I graduated from McCombs’ Full Time MBA program in 2013, and I wrote my admissions essay about pursuing one career path ….and then showed up and did something totally different!  

I did an informational interview over the summer beforehand, and based on my interests and strengths, the person I spoke with recommended consulting. I really thought it was unique career path, and then I showed up and realized a lot of people actually pursue consulting! I had such a good experience with the career team as a student, as they helped me figure out how to navigate that. Then, I worked at PwC Strategy& and ultimately came back to work at McCombs.  Here, I have managed first the employer teams and now the MBA career education and coaching teams. 

MBA Pathfinders: How did your MBA experience shape your perspective in your current role? 

Sarah Nathan: It was such a positive experience being in an environment where the incentives are aligned. The School wins when the student wins. There’s really no other time in your life where you have such a large organization whose incentives are so aligned with your personal success. So, that's ultimately what brought me back. 

MBA Pathfinders: Can you talk about how the Career Office at McCombs organized and what each of the teams are tasked with?   

Sarah Nathan: We have both coaching teams and employer relations teams. The Employer Relations teams cover all programs - we like to be able to talk to our employers about all of their hiring needs, so those people can talk cross-program.  

However, the coaching teams are aligned by Program, and we have teams that specifically support both the Full-time and Working Professional & Executive MBA programs. Those teams have coaches who meet with students 1-on-1, but they also do so much more than that.  They teach courses and workshops, organize networking events, coordinate with employers, prepare curriculum, and manage our technology resources, and are just always looking for new ways to support our students.   

MBA Pathfinders: When students who matriculate to McCombs start working with your office? Can you walk us through what students can expect?   

Sarah Nathan:  We start reaching out to new students over the summer, before they start the MBA program, and at that point, it's really about helping students figure out what they want to get out of their upcoming MBA journey. You write your admissions essay, and you thought a lot about it, but it's all sort of hypothetical. Then, you get into McCombs and it's real.  

Honestly, one of the challenges is that there are so many resources available at McCombs. When you show up on Day One of Orientation, you're going to have so many panels and workshops and so many companies coming throughout the Fall, and there's just going to be so many networking opportunities. You physically can't do them all.   You also have your coursework, and literally, some events for different industries might even be scheduled at the same time! You have to be able to choose what you want to prioritize.  

When we start talking to students about their career plans, we ask what you’re interested in. And, we also ask what you’re not interested in. What are your priorities? What are your capabilities? We start off with that kind of thinking so that when you show up at McCombs, you can focus in on your path and also start building some of those technical skills. Particularly if you're pursuing consulting or investment banking, recruiting starts mid-fall – it happens really fast!  

MBA Pathfinders: What do some of the coaching lessons or courses help students achieve?  

Sarah Nathan: For the Full-Time MBA Program, we teach a career course in that first semester with a lot of the fundamentals – whether its job searching or working on your resume or identifying career paths. Additionally, there are lots of networking opportunities with companies and alumni. 

In the spring semester, students are transitioning. Maybe they got that internship offer in January, and maybe they didn't – either because it didn't work out or because the companies aren't recruiting until later in the semester. So right now [in the Spring], we're doing lots of 1-on-1 coaching, helping students to navigate ‘what’s next?’.  

Then, over the summer, students go to their internships. When they come back to our office in the Fall of their second year, we have additional workshops, but it's more focused on connecting with employers, networking, and again, one-on-one coaching.  

We also have large scale employer events – some in the fall, some in the spring, and then lots of alumni panels and many smaller alumni happy hours and workshops.  

MBA Pathfinders: What are some of the recent hiring trends you’ve been seeing? 

Sarah Nathan: Each of the last 5 years has been unique and volatile in different ways.  For example, we’ve seen a shift in consulting recruiting and how they’ve been hiring.  Their total hiring has gone up and down, they’ve shifted focus to just-in-time hiring and then back to internships, and timing adjusts to go along with that. This year, we’re seeing a smaller percentage of consultants than 2 years ago, but there's still a good percentage of the total class.   

In Texas, we’ve also seen a lot of growth in Financial Services, Energy and Healthcare.  While the Tech industry isn’t hiring as much as a couple of years ago, we’ve definitely seen other industries come in to pick up the slack.   

There are also different ways that companies hire. Some companies have their university hiring path, which is your standard intern path, but they also have their just-in-time hiring needs.  

MBA Pathfinders: Do you think just-in-time hiring may become the norm for MBA candidates?  

Sarah Nathan:  Just-in-time hiring is definitely part of the story of MBA hiring, as it always has been, but there’s some cyclicality to it.   

I say this as someone who was also in consulting for a long time and has a lot of friends and colleagues that have been in consulting for decades – it’s normal for things to be cyclical!   

Its cyclicality is not quite as well-known as something like the energy industry’s, but all industries go through cycles.  We’re seeing some of that in the tech industry right now as well.   

I think that consulting firms are going to rebound, as they have before. I think the university hiring model is strong in that it has such a long planning pipeline – it tends to be pretty stable.  

The just-in-time market is the potentially more volatile one. So, if a student comes for a yearlong program, like a master's or even a two-year program and happens to graduate when the market is not strong, then that path is going to be more difficult for them than if they happen to graduate during an “up” year.  

When you start the program, it’s hard to know where the market is going to end up, which is why the coaching aspect is so important. We have had a lot of students come in thinking they’ll do one thing, and then it becomes a more difficult path than they thought. There's lots of other firms and industries that are trying to pick up the slack.  In the last few years, for example, there were a number of industries that, frankly, were elbowed out when consulting was paying so much and hiring so much. So, they're coming back in and happy to be able to compete for talent.  

MBA Pathfinders: That’s interesting! Which industries are picking up the slack now that may not have been as popular a few years ago?  

Sarah Nathan: Certainly, energy in Texas is doing well right now. They have been really hiring a lot. They've been doing great.  

Healthcare also has been really growing. We have our largest percentage of MBAs interning in healthcare ever. It was around 7-8% this last summer, which is noticeable. Usually it's in the 2-3% range, so that's exciting. 

I think the real winners really have been the financial services firms and retail companies who want to hire top talent into finance or data analytics roles within the organization. That’s another area where we see real strength in the Texas ecosystem. 

MBA Pathfinders: Can you talk about the strength of the McCombs alumni base in Texas?  

Sarah Nathan:  A lot of recent alums this year stayed in Texas – 66% stayed in the Southwest, so two thirds of the class stayed – and most of that was in Texas. This group was pretty evenly split across Houston, Dallas and Austin, and that was really based on the strength of the markets. We have students getting offers all over the country, but the Texas economy is really growing right now, and that’s convincing a lot of our alumni to stick around.   

MBA Pathfinders: How does your team stay on top of career and hiring trends?  

Sarah Nathan: We get information from a number of places. We participate in industry associations, and every summer, our Employer Relations team meets with at least 100 companies that hire the most McCombs students across all programs.  

We ask these companies what skills they’re looking for, and how that’s changing year over year. We ask how our students do, and whether they have any feedback. 

Additionally, we want to know what kind of roles they’ll be focused on, what their company's initiatives are, and how these initiatives relate to students. We’re also asking how these companies are using AI, along with questions about international sponsorship.  

We gather all that information and then share it – internally with our coaching teams and with a lot of people across McCombs.   

MBA Pathfinders: Employment Reports provide a wealth of information for prospective candidates but can also be limiting. What advice would you give to students who are evaluating a program based on that information?  

Sarah Nathan:  The reality is, you don't know what the market's going to be like two years from now.  It might be great, or it might be tough. It’s good to have goals, and it’s good to have something to work towards. It’s also good to be flexible and growth-minded.   

Regardless of the state of the job market, there's always going to be opportunities for people who have good skill sets. Where you wind up post-graduation might not be exactly what you think, but there are a lot of opportunities out there. So, I think the Employment Reports are helpful in that they tell you where some of the potential is.  

MBA Pathfinders: What would you recommend to candidates as they develop their career goals and applications to McCombs?    

Sarah Nathan: There’s no one answer, because it really is about what's right for the student. It comes down to knowing what you want and having your plan, and maybe one or two backup plans. It also includes knowing things that you don't want. Not that you should write your essay about what you don't want but just have a sense of purpose and direction.  

We really try, as much as possible, to look for that growth mindset in applications – showing that you are open to learning and that you view changes and challenges as opportunities – because you don't know what's going to happen while you're here.  

It could be that you find something exciting, and you want to do something brand new, and now you have to learn new skills for it.   

There's a lot of reasons why your journey can change, but be open to growth, because that's why you come here.  

MBA Pathfinders: What would you recommend McCombs students do and take advantage of from a career perspective?  

Sarah Nathan: If there was one thing that I would recommend to students, it would be meeting 1-on-1 with their career coach. We’ve seen time and again that students who meet with their coaches are more successful.  

Thanks so much to Sarah for lending us these incredible insights! Visit the McCombs website to learn more about its MBA programs, and be sure to read about its career resources, too.