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Business Cards in Business School

One thing we sure do get a lot of in business school is business cards. We start collecting them from future classmates before we ever step foot on campus.  We get them at company receptions and recruiting events. We get them on industry Treks and at coffee chats. And we get them from guest speakers when they come to class. And after getting hundreds of them just in the past few years the one question that lingers is, how useful are they?

I remember when I got my first box of business cards back in 2009. They were white, they had nice Northwestern Law and Kellogg logos, and they got most of us excited about using them to find great jobs while in school. So we put our cards in our wallets and sent out on a mission to give them out to the world. At least initially.

Soon after, many of us came to find that business cards have been a lot more useful to collect than they’ve been to give. We spend a lot more time talking to people whose cards we want than with people that want our cards. And we spend a lot of time in business school in the job hunt process, so we’re incessantly seeking out more information.

I’m in the final year of my JD-MBA program and collecting business cards has certainly been helpful. I’ve taken them plentifully and given many of my own away. Each one with a promise. The promise to follow-up. A promise to keep in touch. And a promise to connect someone I met with someone I know. Some of those were kept. Others broken. Others still lingering.

I’m reminded about how many cards I’ve collected because I just went through a stack of cards that I had on my desk. It’s been so interesting that I’ve decided to get the other stack that sits in my closet. Not only have I come across people that were great professional contacts but also some really interesting ones. Like the a Minister of Health in Nairobi Kenya. The Chief Marketing Officer of Fandango. One of the earliest employees at Redbox. And one admitted student I met at a business school admit weekend in Cambridge back in 2009. Unfortunately, I also found some expired movie passes in the pile which was a bit of a disappointment. I’d been looking for those for a couple of months.

In some ways, I’m curious how much longer business cards will last. Despite their usefulness for me and my classmates, today people use the Internet more than ever before. Not only is it faster than using a card but it’s also easier. You can search for someone on LinkedIn to find the information they need. And you can exchange Twitter handles and email addresses faster than phone numbers and at no cost. Even though it’s not the norm today, I can envision a day where it is the norm a few years from now.

Either way, if you’re in business school today, you should get ready to collect a lot of business cards. Hopefully one of them will result in a job. Though perhaps more important than what the result is, two years from now they’ll leave you with a few fun memories.

Good luck.