What can Sustainability Schools Learn from the Career Services Offered at Business Schools?

Abstract

Increasingly, the importance of sustainability as a goal for different sectors in society is becoming paramount. Given the importance and urgency of this, the objective of this paper is to explore how we can strengthen both the training of graduates in sustainability schools, and also the increasing interest businesses have in hiring graduates with a sustainability skillset. We have focused on the history of and lessons learned by business schools, in creating a professional curriculum for learners to occupy influential roles in different sectors in society, with the aim to identify certain ways in which the field of sustainability can achieve improved job market outcomes for its graduates. Specifically, we have interviewed 22 career services teams of business schools in the USA and provided a set of five recommendations to the career services offices of specialized graduate programs for sustainability to improve professional outcomes for their students. These recommendations draw from the best practices of the career services offices of business schools that can be transferred to sustainability schools.