UMTSA 邁阿密大學台灣同學會

[Empress]

New Haven, Connecticut, May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Concerned by the bleak job outlook for his graduating M.B.A.s, Jeffrey Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management, dispatched an appeal to alumni.

``Industries that traditionally hire M.B.A.s have been hit particularly hard in this economic downturn,'' Garten wrote in March. He asked alumni to ``help where you are able'' by hiring Yale's newly minted masters of business administration.

With the U.S. unemployment rate at an eight-year high, business school deans nationwide are repeating Garten's message. For the second year in a row, graduating M.B.A.s -- who have spent as much as $122,000 to gain the coveted business degree from such schools as Yale, Harvard and Columbia universities -- are struggling to secure employment. Since March 2000, New York-based securities firms alone have shed 79,500 jobs.

``I am not in panic mode yet, but I am considering bartending,'' said Harrell Smith, 30, a former trader for BNP Paribas SA who's about to get an M.B.A. from Columbia, in New York City. Smith is trying for a management position in finance or media, yet concedes: ``I'm getting progressively more upset and depressed.''

A Duke University survey of M.B.A. students at 10 U.S. schools found that 60 percent had a full-time job as of mid-March, compared with 86 percent in 1998. Two percent reported that their offers were rescinded. The survey said annual starting salaries for graduating M.B.A.s has remained ``relatively flat, at $87,808 this year, versus $86,540 three years ago.''

``It's the toughest recruiting environment this school has seen in a long time,'' said Matthew Merrick, the director of career services at the Harvard Business School.

Like Garten, Harvard Dean Kim Clark sent letters to more than 60,000 alumni asking for help, Merrick said.

Alumni Connection

``One of the key things we have going for us is that alumni hire our students,'' Merrick said. About 900 students will graduate with Harvard M.B.A.s in June, and Merrick said a bit more than three-fourths have at least one offer.

``Five years ago, the percent would have been 90 to 95,'' he said.

Deborah Farrington, the director of the Harvard Business School's alumni association and the founder of StarVest Partners LP, a New York-based venture capital firm, regularly fields calls from students seeking job advice and tries to counsel them.

``It's a very tough time,'' she said. ``The type of call I get is, `I'm really interested in private equity. How do I go about it?' And I tell them, `Look, there are not a lot of people hiring.'''

Yale's Garten declined to be interviewed.

Bygone Era

When Smith and other members of Columbia's class of 2003 were applying to graduate programs three years ago, the era of multiple job offers, signing bonuses and other perks for M.B.A.s had just started to wane with the collapse of the dot-com sector.

``It was still a buyer's market,'' said Smith, who interned at Yahoo! Inc., the owner of the world's most-used Internet site. Now, he's struggling to get interviews in his field.

``The feedback we are getting from recruiters is that for each job, there are 500 resumes,'' Smith said. ``All things considered, life could be a hell of a lot worse. Most of us feel it's just an unlucky break to be graduating in this economy.''

Last year, 65 percent of students at the Stern School of Business at New York University and 70 percent of students at Columbia graduated with jobs in hand, according to school officials.

The U.S. economy lost 48,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate climbed to 6 percent from 5.8 percent in March, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Banking, securities and consulting firms have all curtailed hiring, recruiters say.

`Seasoned People'

Gail Sobel, a partner at New York recruitment consultant Prescott, James & Thomas, said many firms that recruited M.B.A.s in the past aren't bothering this year.

``They can't even think about M.B.A.s when there are so many good seasoned people out there,'' Sobel said.

Nancy Pascal, managing director of AlleyRecruiting LLC, a Wall Street recruiting firm, said demand for new M.B.A.s has declined since 2001.

``The market is already overflowing with highly qualified individuals that hold strong degrees and credentials that have been out of work for one to two years,'' Pascal said. ``New graduates and seasoned M.B.A.s are competing for the same jobs.''

Alison Corazzini, the head of investment bank recruiting for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., said the bank is offering slightly fewer jobs this year than last, while declining to provide numbers.

Getting in the Door

``It's much harder for people to get in the door now,'' Corazzini said. ``We actively manage the numbers that are coming in so we don't have to rescind offers.''

Richard Bub, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant studying at NYU's Stern School, doesn't regret pursuing an M.B.A. Still, he's not encouraged about his prospects in media or corporate and business development.

``Some days you get so depressed and tired of thinking about it,'' said Bub, who says he dreads the prospect of moving back to his parents' home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to cut expenses while he job-hunts. ``That would be the last resort.''

Julie Collins, the interim dean of the business school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said 56 percent of the graduating class has a job offer. Of those, 24 percent are in financial services, 19 percent in consumer goods and 13 percent in management consulting, she said.

``I'm surprised to see financial services and consulting still there,'' she said. ``We haven't seen anything like this since the early '90s. It has become really hard work to find a job.''

Non-Profit Sector

At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in Philadelphia, some students are seeking jobs at non-profit organizations, a sector M.B.A.s haven't gone near in recent years, said Peter Degnan, the director of M.B.A. career management.

More optimism emerges on the West Coast.

``Last year was a really low point, but this year we have seen an increase of 16 percent in terms of companies coming to campus to recruit,'' said Andy Chan, the director of M.B.A. career management at California's Stanford Graduate School of Business.

About 70 percent of forthcoming grads have jobs, he said. Graduates command median starting salaries of $95,000 with a signing bonus of about $20,000, he added.

At Columbia, Dan Shaffer, a former stock analyst, concentrated on media management and took courses at the film school. He's moving to Los Angeles to find work at a movie studio.

``I'm not expecting a signing bonus or a six-figure salary,'' he said. ``What bothers me is the uncertainty of knowing how long my savings will last before I get a job. I'm trying to avoid the bartending thing.''