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CONTACT: communications@mail.cox.smu.edu

DALLAS (SMU) - Dennis Grindle has been named director of the SMU's Cox School of Business Career Management Office. Grindle brings with him 18 years of career management experience for some of the nation's top-ranked business schools, including Duke University, University of Texas, and UCLA.

"We are pleased to have Dennis Grindle at the Cox School of Business at a time when the global market is in transition and many high-tech and e-business firms are recruiting on a just-in-time, as-needed basis. His extensive experience at other nationally ranked schools will be invaluable to our MBA students as well, as they pursue their career goals," said Cox School of Business Dean Al Niemi.

One of the newest recruiting tools Grindle will implement at the Cox School of Business is e-recruiting, an online solution that automates many of the manual activities performed by career counseling offices. E-recruiting will enable Cox students and staff to schedule job interviews and post résumés electronically, providing prospective employers access to the information they need to make timely hiring decisions.

"We will encourage students to take advantage of networking opportunities through Cox's Mentor Board, Alumni Association, on-campus interviews, professional MBA students, and various conferences and consortiums," Grindle said. "Our goal is to continue to enhance the reputation of the Career Management Office with recruiters as well as our students and alumni."

Grindle and his staff will tailor career development plans to meet the unique needs of individual students. Each student's career plans will be evaluated using a five-step process comprised of self assessment, career research, career decision-making, career search and career goal attainment. Students will perform a re-assessment after they complete their summer internships at the end of their first year to determine additional steps needed to meet career goals.

The Cox School of Business American Airlines Global Leadership Program, the international conferences hosted by the school, and the cultural interaction that occurs daily among faculty and students from more than 40 countries, Grindle says, are what develops an international understanding that permeates all aspects of a Cox business education. He adds that the e-business emphasis is a thread running throughout the curriculum, rather than in a single isolated course offering, making Cox graduates very attractive to most recruiting companies. Before joining the Cox School of Business, Grindle served as associate director of the Career Services Office at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Previous to that, he was director of UCLA's MBA Career Management Center. He earned a graduate-level career guidance certificate from Cal State Long Beach in 1982 and completed the Executive Program in Management at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA in 1992.