MBA Students Seek Jobs in Tight Market as Graduation Comes Near
Less than two weeks before graduation, MBA student Cenzig Bayazit had a new baby, about $60,000 in student loans and no job.
Bayazit, 29, entered New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business two years ago to seek a master’s degree in business administration and expected a future of stock options, a signing bonus and tuition reimbursement.
“I thought I’d be sought after and marketable, but now I’m just frustrated,” said Bayazit, a former construction engineer who has sent out hundreds of resumes and had dozens of interviews for corporate finance jobs. “The pressure I am feeling is intense.”
Bayazit and many other students who will receive MBAs in the next few weeks are experiencing the effect of a weakened U.S. economy, including Wall Street cuts totaling more than 40,000 jobs in the last year and retrenchment at banks and securities and consulting firms, career placement officers and recruiters said.
“A few years ago there was such competition for top MBA talent we had clients asking, ‘Do we need to put in a cappuccino bar?’” said Maury Hanigan, whose New York firm, Hanigan Consulting Group, assists Fortune 500 companies with campus recruiting.
Such perks were part of the late 1990s, when jobs were plentiful in the dot-com sector and MBAs commanded average starting salaries of $75,900, along with $8,400 in signing bonuses and company cars and cell phones, according to a survey by Business Week magazine.
“MBAs used to have six or seven different offers by graduation, now they are delighted to receive one,” Hanigan said.
The Graduate Management Admission Council, a nonprofit group that represents graduate schools of business, said 26% of the class of 2002 has a job offer so far, according to a survey of 113 business schools.
“I’m sending resumes, checking Web sites, cold calling and checking the school listings every single day,” said Uri Zarnitzky, a 29-year-old MBA student at New York University. “For me, finding a job is my full-time job.”
At New York’s Columbia University, about 30% of the 750 MBA students don’t have offers, said Regina Resnick, assistant dean for career services. Last year, the figure was 15% to 20%, she said.
“It has been a tough year, between the recession, Enron and job cuts,” Resnick said. “Our students have really worked hard at doing outreach with alumni and other resources, and are looking at small to mid-sized firms.”
Some students are landing jobs after completing summer internships. Among them is John Bennett, 30, a former accountant who was an intern at Lehman Bros. last summer and will become an associate investment banker there.
“I worked hard, and I feel absolutely fortunate to have this job because so many of my classmates are still struggling,” Bennett said.
Although it is harder to find employment, MBA programs report enrollment increases for the semester that starts in September.
Forty-four percent of full-time MBA programs that responded to a survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council reported applications were up at least 21% this year.
Harvard Business School received 10,000 applications for 880 spots, compared with 8,893 for the class of 2001, said Maura O’Sullivan, associate director of communications.
At Columbia, applications for 450 spots increased 27% compared with last year, said Maria Graham, associate director of public affairs.
Dick Kwartler, editor of the MBA Newsletter in Floral Park, N.Y., said the master’s degree “has shown to have amazing resiliency. It has always been this magical thing, where they have layoffs on three floors and hire MBAs for the fourth.”
Fraser of NYU said MBA students in New York have the advantage of proximity to alumni contacts in the financial district and strong relationships between their schools and Wall Street firms.
None of that assuaged Bayazit’s apprehension.
“People say my experience and my degree is a great combination, but no one has given me a job,” he said.
