When planning began for the reorientation program for students returning to the Sloan School of Management at MIT last September, the initial goal was to help them choose courses wisely and start them thinking about what their dream job might be. That goal changed over the summer.
The job market for graduates of MBA programs has rapidly worsened, so reorientation evolved to include far more emphasis on identifying potential employers, polishing resumes and networking.
"It's been a long time since people had to pound the pavement," said Sloan's dean, Richard Schmalensee. "`Reorientation' is the right word," he said, because the school had to shift its own attention to help its students do the same thing.
With the deteriorating economy and the threat of further terrorism -- and as dreams of e-business riches are being replaced by nightmares of unemployment -- business schools are doing a lot of reorienting. Deans are trying to figure out what they need to do in this volatile new world to find employers for their graduates, even as they welcome an avalanche of applications from laid-off workers or people seeking to hone their skills to avert being caught up in layoffs.
This year, far fewer companies -- 30 percent fewer at some schools -- are visiting business school campuses to recruit, and those that are have made clear that their hiring needs have plummeted, according to students and officials at MBA programs. Patrick Harker, dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, called this "the worst job market in a very long time," adding that the current economic climate is a shock to students. "This group of students has never seen a down market," he said.
Interviewing skills
To cope, students are exploring industries that would once have held no interest for them as they find that the consulting jobs they coveted a year ago are now unavailable, insecure or simply unappealing. That is also leading faculty members to reassess the classes they offer, as the popularity of courses about the Internet and start-ups wanes. At the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, more than 475 students will attend a winter workshop next month on interviewing skills; that number is up from 150 last year.
"We are in a period of introspection," Harker said. The issues are not new, he said, but the downturn in the economy, coupled with the terrorist attacks, has cast them in sharp relief. The top priority this year is finding jobs for graduates, most of whom have never seen a market this tough.
"We've reached out beyond the traditional recruiters," like consulting firms and investment banks, Harker said. This year, there is more activity by smaller companies that once might not have thought they could attract Wharton students, he said.
Even students at Columbia Business School, which has had very strong relationships with banks and consulting firms because it is in New York, are looking at relatively staid and perhaps more stable employers, like Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Unilever and General Motors, said Meyer Feldberg, the school's dean. The environment is similar to that of 1991-92, Feldberg said. "It was very much like this during Desert Storm," he said, referring to the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.
This year is likely to be much harder for MBA students at schools that were once considered off the beaten track for many prestigious employers but began attracting their attention during the tight labor market of the late 1990s, said Sidney Harris, dean of the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. Many recruiters, under orders to hire very few people, will limit themselves to the most selective and best-known schools, he said. He estimated that the number of employers recruiting at Robinson had fallen by at least 30 percent this semester.
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