Job Offers Aren't Coming In for MBA Students This Year
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Future Money Briefing for Tuesday, September 1st. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Usually at this time of the year, students pursuing an MBA are fielding job offers from corporate recruiters visiting college and business school campuses. But this year, with many schools holding remote-only classes or delaying on-campus learning, a lot of recruiters are shelving their fall hiring plans. And for many students, that puts the start of a traditionally lucrative career track on hold.
It usually comes with the promise of a big salary boost. At top programs, sometimes your earnings after an MBA can be nearly $200,000. And people go get an MBA for, it can double your salary, triple your salary. It can launch you through the corporate ranks.
Why aren't companies recruiting second‑year MBA students this fall?
But the outlook isn't totally bleak for MBA students. Our reporter Patrick Thomas will tell us who is hiring. That's after the break.
This is the time of year when consulting firms and other big companies normally start recruiting second-year MBA candidates for their next class of employees. Not so this year. Many business students could find themselves without any job offers. Our reporter Patrick Thomas joins us to discuss what's going on. So Patrick, why have companies backed off hiring second-year MBA students? Has business dropped off that much?
Well, part of the reason that firms don't want to hire second MBAs that didn't intern with them is there's a little bit more uncertainty about what's going to happen these next four to five months. Are we going to see another surge in the virus? How long is this economic downturn going to continue? So what firms are doing is saying, look, we're going to make offers to our interns that have gone through our onboarding process, that have been with the firm for a little while, and we're just going to hire those students. And we're just not going to take the risk of spending money on campus recruiting and going after students who we don't have the familiarity with. And we're just going to take a little bit more cautious approach of sticking with interns and
not going through the usual recruiting cycle. And for context, normally this time of year is the busiest for MBAs. When they get back on campus for their second year or just during the fall in general is when recruiters are normally swarming campuses. They're doing networking mixers after In the evening, they're setting up coffee chats.
How has COVID‑19 changed the traditional on‑campus MBA recruiting process?
In the morning, this is normally the busiest time of year for a lot of MBA students as they network with so many employers, alums that come back. It's normally just a chaotic period. Normally, job offers are just during this time of year. People know a year in advance where they're going to work, and that just isn't the case this year.
You know, I wonder what these companies are going to do about the need to recruit in person and on campus. Regarding COVID-19, I don't think anybody really can see the future beyond a couple of months from now. We could still be in this position a year from now.
Yeah, all their recruiting is pretty much virtual right now. And again, normally this is a very person-to-person experience where you're on campus, a lot of face-to-face interaction. And this year, with it being uncertain, they just don't know how many students they're able to hire. One of the firms we talked to, EY, Ernst & Young, said they just aren't sure what their numbers are going to be. And normally they come to campus and they say, here's how many we're going to take. here's what we're looking for this year. Here's what we need to fill for our next pipeline of, of young managers. Right. And this year that just, they're like, well, in EY's case, they're like, well, we'll still interview students.
We'll probably take some, but we just really don't know right now. I mean, like you said, they can't see the future. It's just hard for everybody and they can't do the usual in-person recruiting. It's just all virtual and That has its benefits and drawbacks of you're able to cover more ground virtually. You don't have to fly out your recruiters everywhere across the country to these schools.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:05–0:49
2
Why aren't companies recruiting second‑year MBA students this fall?
0:49–2:37
3
How has COVID‑19 changed the traditional on‑campus MBA recruiting process?
2:37–4:58
4
Why are employers favoring interns over campus hires this year?
4:58–5:42
5
Could virtual recruiting permanently reshape MBA hiring after the pandemic?
5:42–7:30
6
Which industries and companies are still hiring MBAs amid the slowdown?
7:30–8:27
7
What happens to students who lost internships or had offers rescinded?
8:27–9:19
8
How are business schools responding to harder placement challenges?
9:19–9:38
Speakers
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