(FORTUNE Magazine) – What attracts hot young business talent? Among new MBAs, size surely matters; big companies--and their outsized paychecks--are predictably among the most popular employers. Increasingly, though, what separates the McKinseys (way cool) from the McDonald's (way dull) is the quality of the job offer. Peddling a gig with a yearlong "development" program? Forget it. Today's MBAs ache to make an impact fast--sans training wheels.

That's the message from campus placement officials and a recent survey of 2,221 MBA students from across the U.S. by the Stockholm-based academic consulting firm Universum. A marked trend: Savvy companies are pitching jobs with more flexibility. Even students routed to, say, a marketing slot are being promised broader exposure, such as the chance to work with a high-profile task force outside their functional area. This desire to develop wide-angle smarts is one reason that for the past several years one in four MBAs has chosen management consulting right out of school. "Students are awfully keen on strategic jobs," confirms Tom Fernandez, assistant dean at Columbia's B-school. "Even those headed to Wall Street want to do more big-picture work."

So investment banks and consulting firms still rule the dream list, and many companies that have moved up among the top 50--notably Lucent, Nortel, and Dell--offer fast-track programs for MBAs. Sums up Cheryl Dowdall, director of career services at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School: "If you show up on campus, you'd better be a truly exciting company." Also worth noting: MBAs now seem to be viewing the first job out of school as more crucial. Last year Universum found that 17% of MBAs planned to hit the eject button after just one or two years; this year a mere 5% are thinking short-term.

--Shelly Branch