Aflac recruiters have the opportunity Friday to learn more about how graduate programs are developing business leaders of tomorrow in a special discussion with career services professionals at all 14 SEC institutions.

Part of the annual SEC MBA Case Competition -- hosted by the Harbert College of Business and sponsored by Aflac -- the Aflac SEC Career Event provides corporate talent acquisition team members time to expound upon their needs and the types of students they are recruiting. In turn, career services staff at participating schools are provided with blocks of time to share their respective programs’ merits and how they could potentially meet Aflac’s needs.

The SEC MBA Case Competition, held virtually April 15-17, provides students at participating schools with a business-pertinent issue on the morning of Friday, April 16. Teams, including students within Auburn’s MBA Program, must quickly analyze the situation and offer respective strategies and solutions before industry professional judges on Saturday, April 17. Whereas students will be competing, career services professionals will be lobbying on their behalf behind the scenes.

“When you have these great institutions come together with a heavyweight partner like Aflac, it makes sense to connect them,” said Frank Oprandy, Director of Graduate Career Services at the Harbert College, who said the event gives college career service professionals the opportunity to serve as a conduit between Aflac and students participating in the competition, and their classmates back home. “We’re planting seeds for the future. It’s about building relationships and facilitating connections. Aflac is meeting professionals at schools it might not already have relationships with. For us, it’s an opportunity to expand upon the relationship we already have.

“We expect career service representatives to share information about what differentiates their respective programs. For us, we will talk about our international programs, our iLEAD program, and our career and professional development programs so the employer – the partner – knows how it can better integrate into that school and engage. Aflac will be provided with a better sense of how we develop our product, our students, for their benefit.”

What type of product is the Harbert College sending into the workforce?

“Our students receive a fantastic grounding in all the different disciplines of business,” Oprandy continued.  “We want our students to be confident in their ability to practically apply what they are learning. Through their internships and competitions like this, plus real-world problems they solve by participating the annual Team Resource and Applied Consulting (TRAC) projects, they are ready to hit the ground running. It’s the real-world applicability of what our students are learning that sets them apart. Our students – our graduates – bring value to firms, and all the elements of our program help to shorten their learning curve so they’re adding value as quickly as possible.”

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