Two years after entering MBA programs, business school graduates are now finding that the job market they left holds little similarity to the one they\u2019re returning to.<\/p>\n
A declining economy and changing employment opportunities have more and more graduates of even the most prestigious business schools waiting longer for job offers after graduation. Stanford\u2019s Graduate School of Business (GSB) is consistently ranked in the top five business schools in the nation, but employment statistics for its graduates have shown a sharp downturn in the past year for the Class of 2009.<\/p>\n
For the Classes of 2005 to 2008, the percentage of GSB graduates seeking employment who accepted offers by three months after graduation has stayed steady around 94 percent, with 98 percent of the Class of 2008 receiving job offers and 93 percent accepting offers by three months post-graduation.<\/p>\n
The Class of 2009, however, had less optimistic prospects. At graduation, 74 percent of graduates seeking employment had job offers and only 69 percent had accepted positions. Three months later, still only 90 percent had offers and only 85 percent had accepted employment.<\/p>\n
The near-eight percent drop in three-month post-graduation employment rate from 2008 to 2009 reflects a drastic change in an economy that may not rebound for several years. The change is similarly evident at the prestigious UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business \u2014 three months after graduation, just 85.4 percent of the Class of 2009 had received job offers, when the number had held steady at 95 percent since 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the fundamental hiring environment deteriorated throughout the year in response to the uncertainty around the economic crisis,\u201d wrote Pulin Sanghvi MBA \u201897, assistant dean and director at the GSB\u2019s Career Management Center, in an e-mail to The Daily. \u201cA greater proportion of MBA recruiters moved their recruiting processes toward \u2018just in time\u2019 hiring, which left fewer opportunities that could be secured by students months in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanghvi also said that, in the hopes that the economy would improve and in order to avoid companies\u2019 hiring freezes, many graduating students postponed their job searches from fall to spring. The crisis, however, only heightened in the spring; as a result, many 2009 graduates were forced to push their job searches until much later in the year, often undertaking short-term or entrepreneurial projects in the meantime.<\/p>\n
Current GSB students agree that the economic crisis played a role in the drop in employment rate. But they also suggest that students, in this uncertain economic climate, are tending to wait longer for a \u201cdream job\u201d than accepting whatever comes along.<\/p>\n
First-year GSB student John Krzywicki explained that the economic downturn resulted in fewer students with multiple offers and fewer students with desired offers, leaving more students holding out longer for a specific job.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople come to the GSB with high expectations,\u201d Krzywicki said. \u201cThey think, \u2018Why should I settle?\u2019 and they extend their search a bit longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krzywicki predicted that despite the drop in MBA graduate employment rates, prospective students would still seek the degree. \u201cMost people think that bigger trends [in employment] wouldn\u2019t apply to them,\u201d he said. \u201cMore people are considering startups and taking less traditional approaches to careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second-year GSB student Ann Wessing echoed the same opinion about students willing to postpone immediate employment for a more desirable position. \u201cThis is a tough economy, but I know people who had job offers that didn\u2019t take them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Wessing also explained that although an MBA now carries less of an employment guarantee, she doesn\u2019t expect that to deter most prospective students. \u201cPeople at the GSB are here for a lot of reasons \u2014 for jobs, yes, but also for academic resources and new experiences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all assuming that this issue will be resolved by the time we graduate,\u201d she said, adding that she herself has had job offers but hasn\u2019t yet accepted any.<\/p>\n
Sanghvi believes the GSB graduates\u2019 problems will be present for at least a few more years, noting that many economists expect the national unemployment rate to remain high for several years to come. However, he noted that the Class of 2010 is adapting by beginning the job search sooner and recognizing the need for greater flexibility in industry and function.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the GSB\u2019s employment reports reflected a need for more flexibility in job areas for graduates, with 73 percent of the Class of 2009 reporting a change in industry from their pre-MBA positions. In past years, the corresponding statistic was usually around 55 to 65 percent, peaking in 2008 with 81 percent.<\/p>\n
Sanghvi emphasized that while the future may seem more bleak, future graduates of the GSB can rest assured that, at the very least, the two recent major industry busts \u2014 the dot-com crash and the recent crisis \u2014 have already passed, and the economy has room to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Class of 2010 will be graduating into a more difficult job market initially, which will require greater flexibility on their part,\u201d Sanghvi said. \u201cHowever, the two economic dislocations that my class had in front of us will be behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two years after entering MBA programs, business school graduates are now finding that the job market they left holds little similarity to the one they\u2019re returning to. A declining economy and changing employment opportunities have more and more graduates of even the most prestigious business schools waiting longer for job offers after graduation. Stanford\u2019s Graduate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2933,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2933"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}