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“MBA Job Outlook Improving”
Author: Alison Damast
Source: BusinessWeek.com http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/feb2010/bs2010021_018515.htm
Excerpt from the article:
With uncertainty about the economic recovery looming, students trying to secure full-time offers are entering a job climate that looks eerily similar to last year’s brutal MBA job market, career services officers say. Compounding the problem, fewer second-year students came back this fall with full-time job offers from their internships, they say, making an already tight job market even more competitive. This fall, recruiters continued to shy away from campus and many are being cautious about hiring, according to a recent survey of 78 business schools by the MBA Career Services Council (MBA CSC), the umbrella group for business school career placement officers. Recruiting remains down, with 79% of schools reporting a decline in on-campus recruiting for full-time MBA jobs in the fall of 2009, the same number as the previous year. To assist students, career services officers are using many of the same tactics they used last year to dig up jobs. They’re cold-calling recruiters, adding executives in residence to counsel MBAs, and tapping into alumni networks. Meanwhile, they’re preparing students to seize on what they believe could be a last-minute flood of job opportunities that they expect will emerge closer to graduation.
At the same time, there are a number of signs that the MBA job market could improve, albeit slightly, in the coming months and a growing sense of optimism prevails among career services officers, says Kip Harrell, president of the MBA CSC. According to his group’s survey, full-time MBA job postings appear to be rebounding; 34% of schools reported an increase in full-time postings this fall. And, perhaps even more important, fewer schools are reporting declines, with 48% of schools seeing a reduction in full-time postings, as compared with 70% of schools last year.
