MBA Grads Looking Beyond IB

The job market is so bad these days that even top MBA program graduates are being forced to take corporate finance positions because they can’t find jobs in investment banking – or so says a feature in Financial Week.

The era of aggressive recruitment by bulge bracket firms is over and this year’s graduates are snapping up jobs just to pay back loans, hoping to move into investment banking later in their careers.

Financial Week reports:

As big banks including Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs cut tens of thousands of jobs, MBA students who just a few years ago would have been aggressively recruited by companies now expect to fight for the handful of positions available…

While companies are still sending recruiters to campuses, they are not hiring as many people. MIT [Sloane] officials estimated that recruiters on its campus were offering 20% fewer positions this year.”

With fewer spots open, career counselors are suggesting students look beyond the traditionally popular choices of financial services, consulting, venture capital and hedge funds.

And while American students are considering emerging markets as potential job targets, international students are thinking their home countries could offer more opportunities, the paper concludes.