Business School Applications Rise, But Job Prospects Are In The Toilet

BusinessWeek:

After nearly four years as a management consultant at such firms as Deloitte Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton, Ari Perlman was itching to try his hand at investment banking. So this summer the 26-year-old MBA student at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business signed on with Lehman Brothers for an internship. Then all hell broke loose. With the economy unraveling and much of Wall Street seemingly on the brink of collapse, Lehman slashed bonuses for interns. And by the time Perlman returned to campus, the company had filed for bankruptcy. Lehman's last check for Perlman's travel expenses? Bounced. An e-mail explained that a new check would be in the mail. Eventually. "I haven't heard anything from them since," says Perlman, who's now looking for a consulting job. "And frankly, I am not too hopeful."

On the nation's B-school campuses, hope used to spring eternal. No more. Students like Perlman are downsizing their expectations, rejiggering career plans, and settling for less as the cascading effects of the global financial crisis start to be felt at MBA programs around the country. With companies pulling back on second-year recruiting and competition for the few remaining finance jobs becoming fierce, students are entering what surely is the toughest MBA job market since the dot-com bust. "I think next fall is going to be very, very difficult," says George G. Daly, dean of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "This is terra incognita."

Despite the gloomy outlook for current students, applications to B-schools are on the upswing, driven largely by applicants who have been laid off or are otherwise hoping to ride out the recession. With more applicants to choose from, admissions officers can be pickier, making 2009 a difficult year to land a slot at a top B-school. Meanwhile, professors and deans are attempting to make sense of the financial crisis in the classroom, offering new electives and town-hall-style meetings on the meltdown, altering syllabi, and writing new case studies based on recent market-churning events. Risk management, until recently an unpopular elective, is expected to become a more important part of many B-schools' curriculums in three to five years, a trend that Robert Meyer, co-director of the Risk Management & Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, calls "potentially transformational."

Read the whole story: BusinessWeek

Comments

[JackNasty]

More MBAs: haven't they already done enough damage?

[Paul]

Graduates of American business schools have been taught that you don't have to know anything about what you are making to manage a company.

The result of this is that manufacturing in the US is being exported to China and other low wage countrues.

Putting an MBA in charge of a company is the kiss of death.

[getoffmedz]

Didn't the Shrub get an MBA bought and paid for?

[Overberg3959AC]

Too many lawyers

America is the only country in the world where you can sue your neighbor for having a hangnail.

[francoise]

I read an interesting study on this subject lately. A primate specialist from Atlanta explains that the high number of weapons and lawyers in the US might be due to a lack of peacemaking skills.

Primates like chimps or bonobos develop complex peacemaking skills in zoos whereas they don't display these abilities in open spaces in Africa.

America being such an empty space, Americans can live far from one another and can avoid having to make peace with close neighbors. Hence Americans have lost the ability of being diplomats, of making compromises, of talking to reach an acceptable consensus.

Therefore when faced with a problem Americans call their lawyer or grab their gun.

In overcrowded Europe we don't have the opportunity of living in wide spaces as you guys do in the US hence we're better at diplomacy, and we don't need so many lawyers or guns.

Well, that's what the primate guy I read said. I thought it very interesting.

[Myshkin57]

Well, notice that people in the cities tend to be more concerned with racial and gender equality than those in rural areas. It makes sense to me.

However, I think the 'nuisance lawsuit' stuff is mostly mythology created by politicians who need something to rail against. The number of big-dollar frivolous lawsuits that are brought each year is pretty small, but everyone remembers the few they hear about and not the millions and millions of legitimate lawsuits.

[Overberg3959AC]

AS long as manufacturing and hi tech jobs are shipped overseas America will flounder

[totalliberal]

Isn't there an isolated island we can ship this people too.

[Myshkin57]

I hope so. I'm sure we could send them there without provisions, too, because they would be convinced that no matter what the market forces would provide for them.

[ErnestineBass]

Hmmmmm...t­hough I doubt very many of them are too into the whole "loaves and fishes" thing...

[Myshkin57]

Good. At most schools, an MBA is a joke degree.

[vjthedj]

I remember a few years ago, my girlfriend of that time wanted to desperately pursue a MBA. I fought hard tooth and nail against it, saying that there are too many. MBA is not as respected as it once used to be 10 yrs ago. I vouched for her to go into a healthcare related field. She is so much happier now. There is no job security anymore in obtaining a MBA.

[Haditup2here]

When is the US is going to understand that our economy and workforce is too top heavy to deal with the Global Economy. I have been stating that there were just TOO MANY business executives and business majors for some time now. It is the engineers and scientists that develop the products and the doctors and health care specialists that provide services in their respective fields -- not the other way around. Besides, a great deal of business executives do not seem to know a great deal about the market in terms of their field of business and do not know anything beyond cutting costs and seeking more profit. That is why companies like GM probably spent more money in lobbying and advertising as opposed to research and development or why we are behind other countries in terms of our wireless networks. Let's face it. When you go beyond some of the Ivy League schools and competitive MBA programs, colleges and schools of business for other Universities (private and public) are not necessarily competitive and the math is probably not even rigorous as the requirements for even a Biology Major. It would be interesting to see what would happen to enrollment if the average salary drop with a significant decrease in job prospects.

[Overberg3959AC]

that takes having smart kids......­..........­....someth­ing the USA does NOT have. The failing of grade 1-12 pumping idiotic Buybull c r a p into their heads.

[MovingtoNorway]

Go get an honest job.

[mrcontinental]

More moneychangers? Definitely not what we need.

[iambusto]

we definitely dont need any more art & literature majors in the country !! and then those same students pursuing these majors are going to whine about student loans.

listen kids, if you wanna pursue art/litera­ture...at least have the sense to go to colleges where there is minimal tuition...­.def dont rack up bills studying worthless discipline­s..

[mrcontinental]

Indeed

[Myshkin57]

If you do some research you find that most businesses no longer want students who majored in business because their writing and communication skills are so poor. Liberal arts majors are in as high or higher demand in the business community.

[francoise]

iambusto,

I disagree with you.

Art and literature are a great help for all to understand the world.

Read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and you'll understand human nature and accept its unperfecty.

Read Cormac Mc Carthy's No Country for old Men and you'll understand the cruelty of capitalism.

Just two suggestions but I have a lot more and I'm just a construction worker.

[blindhog]

One has to be blind not to see the writing on the wall. Right now MBAs are the last thing parents should be pushing their children to.

We need welders, construction engineers, anything to do with the infrastructure and construction industry.

With the cost of higher education so out of reach and with the knowledge that a student loan will never be erased by bankruptcy, it is foolish to consider post graduate work at this time in our history. Parents should be looking to trade schools for their childrens' education with what lies ahead of us.

[arvay]

let's hope that now the financial system won't be offering outsized rewards and smart people will be attracted to science and the arts, where they can contribute something rather than parasitically feeding off the productive parts of society.

[iambusto]

arts is a productive part of society ?? i cant stop laughing :)

[Myshkin57]

You are clearly looking at the small picture. Many things considered arts have resulted in major advancements in society. Do you know who first figured out the predicate logic needed for much of what computers do? It wasn't a science guy and it definitely wasn't a stuffed shirt in a business suit. It was a philosopher by the name of Gottlob Frege.

And another philosopher, Leibniz, developed calculus concurrently with Newton.

Further, scientific methodology was not figured out by doing science but by doing philosophy.

I won't go into all the things that writers of literature and artists have contributed to society but they are many and varied

This misconception that all contributions to the world come from scientists and manufacturers is harmful to us all.

[arvay]

There as a time when no one without a truly comprehensive education including an understanding of the value of culture and art, could make it into the leadership of the business class. We need to re-establish that tradition, so that anyone who asks what the value of art is is automatically eliminated from any management role.

During the European Renaissance, financial innovators like the Medici had the education and taste to sponsor great works of art and architecture. Our much poorer society has handed us louts like Donald Trump, whose taste only reaches as far as bordello/casino.

Our business world is full of ignorant barbarians, whose only goal is to parade their status like aroused baboons. No one should be allowed to pass muster without a thorough grasp of both science and art.

[addisonsteele]

The US economy would improve dramatically if every MBA was fired.

[iambusto]

The US economy would improve dramatically if people in their twenties went to colleges instead of knocking up their girlfriend and couldnt afford to go to school anymore so took up a job at subway to support the girlfirend and the baby.

[francoise]

Don't you have the pill and condoms in the US yet ?

Geez, I heard about some deep s h i t holes only visited by crows but I didn't know these sort of uncivilized holes were in the US !

;-)

[TheVicar]

And, for that matter, the schools granting MBAs should be de-accredited. Want to offer MBAs? Then you can't offer anything else.

MBAs are fake degrees anyway -- stuff a reasonably bright high school student would have learned, with a strong focus on instilling short-sighted greed.

[sf girl]

You sound just a bit angry/bitt­er/jealous­, besides misinformed. Clearly you don't know much about MBA programs. If you want to de-accredit every university that offers a business degree you won't be left with enough schools to educate everyone in this country.

[iambusto]

look at the high school dropout rates in the country...­i doubt these same losers are applying to business schools ok !!

[MovingtoNorway]

Right after closing half the law schools.

[Overberg3959AC]

Bingo.

[harriettubman]

I'm a college graduate and this is my perspective on higher education:

1) Get a degree in something you enjoy. I saw too many people getting degrees in areas like psychology, a degree you can do nothing with at the bachelor's level.

2) Colleges are all about money. That's why they don't like to transfer credits; you won't be there as long. Find a reasonable priced state college. Most CEOs graduated from a regular state university. Not some Ivy League school.

3) College costs have surpassed inflation and its ridiculous. Look at your student fee bill. If you're not happy with your professor, complain. You're paying their salary. I can't tell you some of the lame PhD's teaching class today. Some have no experience in their fields either.

Colleges CLAIM to charge the potential earnings of a degree. That is BS. Do they know where you plant to live or work? That determines your salary, not them. I've seen people in my field earn more on the East & West Coasts, while paying nothing in the Midwest.

You need a skill in life. Don't fall for the hype. If college isn't for you, get a trade.

[MovingtoNorway]

You are a wise person. No future as a university president