An Immersion Approach to Client-Sponsored Projects: Preparing Students with Soft Skills Required for Hiring - Face to Face & Virtual Methods

Abstract

As higher education is pressured to prove its students’ readiness to work, preparing marketing students to become successful professionals requires faculty to employ a myriad of approaches. Among these approaches that emerged over the past 30 years are client-sponsored projects (CSP) as a superior method to transferring practical experience compared to utilizing text-based case studies. However, according to recent surveys, industry remains unsatisfied with baccalaureate graduates’ readiness to work. Graduating student-preparedness surveys show employers claim an absence of key skills among baccalaureate graduates. To address the gap between current industry survey results, while drawing on CSP literature, this article introduces a semester-long CSP pedagogy where the classroom, face-to-face or virtual, becomes an immersion of a typical corporate team project culture thereby practicing the very skills industry report students lack. In the model presented, students serve as consultants by developing an executable marketing plan for implementation by a client company. The procedures presented yield an experience providing students with performance expectations, much like an individual working in a business environment. During the semester-long journey, students develop the key competencies to specifically address the highlighted skill gaps from surveys among hiring managers. Although most CSPs are tools to help students hone some abilities, most projects typically become nothing more than another teaching tactic. The distinctiveness of the immersion approach presented in this article expands the use of CSP with a rigorous corporate-like in-class experience for both face-to-face and fully online courses. This article describes procedures educators can use for developing a classroom experience integrating real-business world pressures, coaching, and accountability to better prepare graduating students for their careers and satisfy the skills business managers expect.

Online learning in management education amid the pandemic: A bibliometric and content analysis

“…With the unexpected shift to emergency remote teaching due to the pandemic, a major challenge is teaching a course that usually takes place in face-to-face modes while it was redesigned to deliver education at home, for example, internship, face-to-face networking, team building, company visits and business exhibition or trade shows. The aforementioned examples were traditionally better to be conducted in a face-to-face setting (e.g., Ng et al, 2020 ; Park & Jones, 2021 ; Thompson et al, 2021 ). Currently, business and management have transformed online to reach customers and colleagues under the new norm of virtual communication caused by the pandemic ( Dwivedi et al, 2020 ; Iivari et al, 2020 ).…”

Career Readiness Skills for Marketing Majors: An Examination of Soft Skills, Hard Skills and Course Applications

“…assists them with experiencing a diversity of viewpoints. Groups also provide an opportunity for individuals to demonstrate that they work well together with other students on a project including dividing the workload equitably and getting work in on time so that group progress can continue (HiHello, 2022;Mackenzie, 2021b;Marr, 2022;Omoth, 2022;Rampton, 2022;Schlee & Karns, 2017;Singh, 2022;Thompson et al, 2021). How each individual acts on the team towards others (interpersonal skills) gives students a chance to exhibit if they listen to diverse opinions, if they are responsive, and maintain good rapport with other students.…”

“…Teamwork-working with a group of people to achieve a goal (Bortz, 2022;Career Builder, 2021b;David et al, 2021;Delong & Elbeck, 2018;Dewar, 2023;Forbes Expert Panel, 2022;Garner et al, 2019;HiHello, 2022;Kovacs & Zarandne, 2022;Mackenzie, 2021a;Melnichuk, 2022;NACE, 2022a;Orechwa, 2021;Riley & Nicewicz, 2022;Thompson et al, 2021;Zay, 2022)…”

“…Leadership-ability to influence and guide others (Bortz, 2022;Burt, 2023;Career Builder, 2021a;Chase, 2023;Dewar, 2023;HiHello, 2022;Krakoff, 2022;Ferell & Ferell, 2020;Garner et al, 2019;Lyons, 2023;Mackenzie, 2021b;Marr, 2022;NACE, 2022a;Omoth, 2022;Orechwa, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Zay, 2022).…”

“…Marketing students need to understand qualitative versus quantitative research and the various tools they may use within each domain (Bullock, 2022;Doyle, 2022b;Duggal, 2022;Kovacs & Zarandne, 2022;Thompson et al, 2021). Marketers need "research to build out campaigns, inform strategy, and create content" (Krakoff, 2020, para.…”