To attend Boston University’s School of Management two years ago, Leena Dang left a sales job at Merck & Co., where she had worked four years. She says that it was a "huge decision" and that her supervisor wanted her to stay but she believed she would enhance her long-term prospects by earning a master’s degree in business administration.
That may ultimately prove true. For now, however, on the eve of her graduation, 28-year-old Ms. Dang is facing the realities of a brutal job market spawned by a weak economy. The biotech job she covets has failed to materialize, and she can’t help wondering what would have happened had she stayed at Merck. "I feel like I’m getting stuck between a rock and a hard place," she says.
It is a tight spot she shares with other newly minted M.B.A.s, whose employment expectations when they enrolled a couple of years ago were nurtured by employers’ demand for members of the class of 2001; in that year, between 80% and 95% of business-school students had a job lined up by graduation, according to surveys of students at major business schools. This year, the percentage is between 50% and 70%.
Especially frustrated are those students who left good jobs because they saw business school as a midcareer boost. Many now question whether it will give their careers any immediate jump at all. Some can’t even return to the jobs they left behind because the positions are no longer available and companies aren’t hiring. "They’re leaving with quite a bit of debt; and particularly for those who are married, it’s difficult and frustrating," says Fred Foulkes, a management professor at Boston University’s School of Management.
Business-school officials caution new M.B.A.s that they shouldn’t expect to realize the full value of the degree right away. But they also concede that over the past 20 years, many students came to see the degree as a ticket to instant gratification.
"The M.B.A. was always a long-term degree, but during the late 1990s, that perception changed" when graduates were able to net exorbitant starting salaries, says Gary Fraser, assistant dean of the office of career development at New York University’s Stern School of Business; he is hopeful that 72% of Stern’s class of 2003 will have jobs by graduation.
At Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, Fred Schwanke is scheduled to graduate this spring but has yet to get a job offer. He taught French at a Baltimore middle school for 22 years before he left to get his M.B.A., hoping to use his French, perhaps at a global company.
Few companies are interested in graduates like Mr. Schwanke, with no business experience. (French also isn’t in high demand, as least while Franco-American tensions simmer.) "I kind of got caught up in the excitement [of the late ’90s] and the idea that you can remake your life and your career," Mr. Schwanke says. "But the last few years have been a reality check."
Even at companies that are traditionally reliable employers of new M.B.A.s, students have faced new competition from nonbusiness students. Jeffrey Tucker, a vice president at consultant Booz Allen Hamilton in New York, says that while the crop of M.B.A.s hired to start this coming fall is more sizable than last year’s, the company is also "aggressively" recruiting from other graduate-degree programs and people with five or more years of industry experience. "It’s just a very tough year for M.B.A.s," he says.
Nathan Farr seconds that. Mr. Farr, who will graduate from Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business in Tempe this spring, says he entered business school assuming it would quickly elevate his market value.
But as he prepares to graduate, he is overqualified for the job he held at a Chicago industrial-distribution company for four years, and lacking fresh offers. So Mr. Farr, 28, is taking the same laborious path trod by many other job seekers -- posting résumés online and trying to build a network of contacts. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be graduating without something," he says.
Some schools say students starting in the fall have more realistic expectations of what an M.B.A. will bring them -- and what it won’t. Connie English, associate director of alumni career services at University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, has already gotten calls from students accepted for the class of 2005 who are trying to plan their careers before they commit to the investment. They are asking her how an M.B.A. will pay off in the long run, she says.
Tara Hale, a 25-year-old Stanford graduate who has been working as a marketing analyst for a medical-device company, will enter UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management this fall. She insists she has no illusions about her job prospects in May 2005. "I realize that I may not get my dream job and dream salary right away," she says. "But I know they will be much more easily attainable with the degree."
B-School Graduates Face An Aray of Closed Doors
文本屋
人气:1.45W
相关文章:
- 小学英语演讲稿:Love our hometown and A message from Mother
- The Social Value of the College-Bred - 英语演讲稿
- Obama's Weekly Address:Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes
- PROVISIONAL AGREEMENT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE
- Obama's Weekly Address:Everyone Should Be Able To Afford Hi
- Risks and challenges of the EU expansion演讲范文
- 麦克阿瑟将军国会大厦告别演讲 Farewell Address to Congress
- 英语演讲:The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Tragedy Address
- Risks and challenges of the EU expansion演讲范文大纲
- Obama's Weekly Address:It's Time for Congress to Help the M
最热推荐
- 1"Energy and the National Goals - A Crisis of Confidence"
- 2Laughter really is the best medicine for cancer pa
- 3Love and Company影片推荐:Hachi: A Dog's Tale ()
- 4英语演讲稿:Responsibility is a Badge of Honour for Youth
- 5林登·贝恩斯·约翰逊:Address to a Joint Session of Congress
- 6大学生英语演讲稿 Knowledge collaboration and all-round education
- 7Obama‘s Weekly Address:Celebrating Independence Day
- 8英语话题写作:How Do You Actually Understand Language
- 9the Sample of Chronological Resume英文简历模板
- 101984 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address大纲
猜你喜欢
- 1About your college and Specialty
- 21964 Republican National Convention Address
- 3Russell Conwell : Acres of Diamonds
- 4how to use QFD for standard making--国际会议最终演讲稿
- 5英文求职信-Building / Real Estate - Construction Officer
- 6大学生英语演讲稿 Hold Fast To Your Dreams
- 7英语演讲稿:change the world? change ourselves
- 8英语演讲稿:Hold Fast To Your Dreams大纲
- 9如何阅读英文案例 How to Read English Cases and Citations演讲范文
- 101984 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
- 11英语演讲稿:Hold Fast To Your Dreams
- 12Cover Letter Sample of Rail Yard Engineer
- 13how to use QFD for standard making--国际会议最终演讲稿大纲
- 14Adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights
- 15罗斯福:国会珍珠港演说 Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation
最近更新
- 1National Address Pardoning Richard M. Nixon
- 2Obama's Weekly Address:The Export-Import Bank
- 3TED英文演讲稿:Why you will fail to have a great career大纲
- 4FERFORMANCE GUARANTEE FORMAT(BANK LETTERHAD)
- 5人教版六年级英语教案设计《Unit 2 Ways to go to school Part B》
- 6英文求职信-Human Resources - Assistant Personnel Manager
- 7An Entrapment
- 81988 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
- 9英文简历(人力资源总监)DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES范例
- 10Words of Advice at Graduating 毕业赠言
- 11Book5 Unit 4 Lesson 2 There is an old building in my school.英语教学设计
- 12英文读后感之Review of “Is Arrogant and Prejudice”
- 13英文简历(人力资源总监)DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES
- 14《寻梦环游记》:5 reasons to watch Disney's "Coco"
- 15Recruit FM of an Entertainment Business
- 16英语演讲稿: something about dreams and reality
- 17高考英语作文:Out of School(失学),Out of School(失学)范文
- 18英语演讲稿:speech on fashion and matching clothes
- 19CONTRACT FOR SALE OF AUTOMOBILE
- 20英文简历(人力资源总监)DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES大纲