Tauber Institute for Global Operations

Satisfied Tauber Student _{on Google}

May 6th, 2018

My experience with Tauber was very positive! The Tauber Institute is a great way for engineers and MBAs to broaden their learning through business/engineering courses and a multidisciplinary, high impact 14-week internship. Engineers who join the program are able to take advantage of the Ross School of Business course guide and participate in a series of leadership modules designed to prepare you for the operations intensive internship. As an engineer, I found that Tauber was a great way to combine my technical engineering knowledge with business knowledge, and it helped me pursue a career in operations that I otherwise may not have achieved.
The Tauber Institute is a unique program since it guarantees its students a high-impact, multi-disciplinary internship. Many of the companies that partner with Tauber and sponsor summer projects, are Fortune 100 companies including Microsoft, Target, Boeing, GM, etc. Many of the sponsors, in addition to using a Tauber team to solving a complex, multi-disciplinary problem, use Tauber as a recruiting method to get access to the University’s top engineering and business talent. Coming in as an engineer, I learned so much from the MBAs in the program, and my team was able to have a huge impact in just 14 weeks.
The Tauber Institute provides in an incredible level of support including a whole team of faculty advisors, communications and team dynamics coaches, and a Tauber director for every project team. The Tauber curriculum helps prepare students even with non-operations background to be successful during their Tauber Project.
On top of the immense professional and leadership development opportunities that Tauber provides, the Institute fosters an incredible community through social events and gatherings. I have made some great friends through Tauber and know that I can count on them if I need anything in my future endeavors.
Overall, the Tauber Institute helped me learn about the world of operations, expand my skill set, and develop relationships with many students and companies, and I got a job offer out of it too! I would highly recommend engineers or MBAs that are interested in a career in operations to consider the Tauber program.

Disgruntled TauberStudent _{on Google}

Jul 5th, 2018

Tauber was established with good intentions but it is unfortunately run by a bunch of unethical directors who have no idea and are unconcerned with providing value for its students. Tauber advertises that being part of the program will expand career opportunities. Having gone through this program I can honestly say that this claim is 100% false.
Although Tauber guarantees you an internship, they will not mention that 70% of their partner companies/internships will result in no offer or an offer that is significantly below the average MBA starting salary (well below $100K). Unfortunately, the Tauber directors will not tell you this and will do everything to hide this information to include lying to your face. What’s shocking is that the partner companies that didn’t give job offers to Tauber interns gave offers to their regular MBA interns who were non-Tauber. What’s more shocking is that some placeholders of this year’s Tauber’s signature Spotlight event did not receive job offers from their internships while non-Tauber interns at those companies did receive job offers.
After Tauber screws you over with your summer internship, you are forced to go through full time recruiting. What’s surprising is that there are less companies coming for full time recruiting than during internship recruiting because companies try to fill most of their employment slots through their summer interns. By dedicating yourself to Tauber, you are excluding yourself from these opportunities so that Tauber can eventually use you to their advantage and screw you. Also, Ross’s part time and evening MBA students will be participating in full time recruiting. Essentially you will be competing against significantly more people for a smaller number of opportunities during full time recruiting. If you were wondering, recruiters make no distinction whether you are a Tauber MBA or Ross evening/weekend MBA. Most recruiters have never heard of Tauber.
The companies that gave offers to Tauber MBA’s also hire regular non-Tauber MBA’s, except for one company. Although that company has a good hiring program, there is no point in joining Tauber unless you are narrowly focused on that one company and are willing to risk all other employment opportunities for it. Occasionally we will get job alert emails from Tauber but for some BS position in a no-name company that nobody wants. Although Tauber touts its Spotlight event as a way to network and develop career opportunities, none of the people who come are involved in their company’s hiring process. The only person who came to hire Tauber MBA’s was looking to fill a warehouse manager position for his family business located in a depressing rustbelt town.
The real question to ask is why does Tauber exist? Tauber acts like a really bad consulting firm that uses its students to solve their partner companies’ operations problems. The more projects that Tauber can staff, the more revenue they generate. All the partner companies care about is having Tauber students solving their operations problems. All Tauber cares about is making their partner companies happy while generating as much revenue as possible. Your employment will never be a concern to Tauber. During recruiting, Tauber will never reach out to you or leverage its relations with its partner companies to assist you. Once you do Tauber’s dirty work they forget about you so that they can start focusing on screwing over next year’s Tauber students.

William Chen _{on Google}

May 5th, 2018

While Tauber isn't perfect, it is an excellent program to get a broad but comprehensive operations education. My experience at Tauber has elevated my already amazing experience in the Ross MBA program.
The program gives students plenty of opportunities to learn about the world of operations through classwork, factory tours(locally and abroad), and an internship. However the most important feature is working across disciplines with engineers. Knowing how to both communicate and leverage the talents of engineers is an incredibly valuable skill. You'll share classes and work on projects with engineers leading up to the internship. During the internship you'll be on a team with at least one other engineer to help solve complex operations problems.
As for recruiting, the expectation that full-time recruiters should know Tauber is absurd. The companies that do target Tauber companies are not to be scoffed at. Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, McKinsey and, BCG are just some of the companies that know and hire Tauber grads. Historically most, if not all Tauber MBAs will have a job lined up by the graduation. The exceptions tend to be people looking for more niche or geographic specific jobs.
That being said Tauber could improve on helping its students secure full-time jobs. Tauber does guarantee an internship though a partner company, but does little to help students find full-time opportunities. Tauber does make it very clear throughout the year that internships won't always translate to full-time offers. However, keep in mind this is also true for the regular MBA program. Tauber internship to full-time offer rate was 40-45%, while the general MBA program is 30-35%. Students will end up with a job, but not without a little extra hustle. It would be nice if the program could facilitate additional full-time opportunities.

Peter Rasmussen _{on Google}

Jul 2nd, 2018

Along with MIT Sloan’s LGO program, Tauber is the top graduate level operations program in the country. If you are an MBA student wanting to go into operations or a graduate engineering student wanting to improve your business skills before entering the workforce, Tauber is an outstanding choice for you.
As a current second-year Tauber MBA student, I have benefited enormously from opportunities that only would have been possible through Tauber:
1) Internship opportunities. As someone who came to graduate school hoping to change industry AND function, it would have been very difficult for me to get an internship in the industry and function I wanted if it were not for Tauber. Tauber invests a great deal of effort in vetting the summer projects to make sure that you are getting a high-quality internship experience. My project was very intellectually challenging and different than anything I had done before. During the internship, you get access to business and engineering faculty mentors for the summer project and other resources, like a team dynamics coach and research librarian – all of which I found to be extremely valuable resources. As a Tauber student, you are guaranteed to get an internship, which lifts a huge weight off of your shoulders during recruiting season, when your non-Tauber peers are stressing out.
2) Career/networking connections. Tauber hosts numerous networking events throughout the year to introduce you to prospective employers. Tauber staff were extremely helpful in making personal connects to the companies that I was interested in. For example, before one of the major networking events, one of Tauber’s staff emailed me (without me asking) to tell me the names of people from the companies I was targeting who would be attending the event. After the event, she made a personal email introduction to one of them for me. On a separate occasion, I was meeting with a Tauber staff member in his office to discuss one of my classes, and again without me prompting, he volunteered to make a personal email introduction to someone in the industry I was targeting.
3) Full-time opportunities. Tauber graduates earn the same salaries (or higher) than non-Tauber students, and a slightly higher percentage get a job within three months of graduation. It’s also worth noting that many of the companies that Tauber partners with recruit at Tauber but not at Ross. The company that I ended up interning for (and receiving a full-time offer from) is one of them.
4) Social cohort. I’ve met many of my favorite people through Tauber. Tauber hosts many social events throughout the year, and Tauber students organize many more on their own.
I strongly disagree with the negative reviews posted below, which do not represent the opinion of the vast majority of Tauber graduates and are filled with false and misleading claims. For example, one of the posts claimed that “some placeholders of this year’s Tauber’s signature Spotlight event did not receive job offers from their internships while non-Tauber interns at those companies did receive job offers.” The fact is that both members of the winning team received offers and one of them accepted the offer to return to that company. The same post also incorrectly suggests that Tauber graduates have a harder time getting jobs or earn lower salaries than non-Tauber students. That’s completely false. In 2017, 98% of Tauber graduates had a job within 3 months of graduation (as compared to 97% for non-Tauber Ross MBA graduates) and their base pay was the same or higher than regular MBA graduates, depending on what function they decided to pursue. For example, 2017 Tauber MBA graduates going into operations positions earned a median salary of $121,500 as compared to $120,000 for non-Tauber MBA graduates.
Tauber is a world-class operations program – and an outstanding choice for anyone hoping to study operations at the graduate level. I highly recommend it.

Moses Pezarkar _{on Google}

Jan 25th, 2018

I was a part of the Tauber Institute from 2017-18 and just finished my internship in August. I have been extremely satisfied with my experience. I am pursuing a graduate degree in Manufacturing Engineering and my internship was exactly in the field I want to work in. I was also able to secure a full-time position in the company I worked for during the summer. Someone mentioned in one of the reviews below that this program is only for MBAs. This is completely wrong. Most of the projects have a lot of engineering content. Besides the internship, the facility tours were a great opportunity to visit companies and see how they operate. I would highly recommend students interested in Operations, Industrial or Manufacturing Engineering to consider this program.