WSJ Your Money Briefing - Why It’s Tough for Harvard M.B.As to Find Jobs Right Now

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Twenty-three percent of job-seeking Harvard M.B.A.s are still looking for a job three months after leaving campus – an increase of 20% from last year. Wall Street Journal reporter Lindsay Ellis joins host Ariana Aspuru to discuss why the latest crop of elite graduates are taking longer to land a gig.  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Arianna Aspudu for The Wall Street Journal. Some graduates of elite business schools are struggling to find jobs after completing their business degree. The vast majority of schools that I was looking at saw twice as many recent graduates on the job market this year still looking for work three months out than they did two years ago when the market was really hot. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter, Lindsay Ellis, after the break. a TFSA or learning about investing tools, we're here to help. But keeping your cat off your keyboard? That's up to you. Reach out to TD Direct Investing today and make your investing steps count. Plus, enjoy 1% cash back. Conditions apply. Offer ends January

31, 2025. League MBA graduates. Wall Street Journal reporter Lindsay Ellis joins me. Lindsay, why are MBA graduates experiencing a tougher time landing jobs? Overall, it is a tough market for white collar workers and companies are looking for people with direct experience in many cases, making it harder for MBAs who may be trying to pivot into a new field from a degree program. That might be more difficult to make the case that they would be the exact right fit for an open position. Recruiters also, as recently as 2022, would come to campus early in the school year and

would try and hire a ton of MBAs. And now companies are more apt to do virtual recruiting and they are hiring when they have a clearer sense of their business needs, which might be closer to graduation or even after. That all adds up to MBA graduates who came onto the market after leaving campus in 24, that they are having a more difficult time finding work than those even two years prior. In your story, you highlight how difficult it is to land a job

by using one of the most prestigious schools in the country, Harvard Business School. What's going on with their MBA students? So almost a quarter of the Harvard Business School graduates who left campus in 2024, who were looking for jobs, didn't accept one three months after graduation. Their career center leader, Kristin Fitzpatrick, she told me that graduates need to have the skills that just going to Harvard is not going to be a differentiator.

And she says that she doesn't expect the super selective job market to change much. Is this happening across the board with students? So Harvard is certainly not alone here. As part of the reporting for this article, I reviewed five years of employment data for more than a dozen MBA programs. And these programs were among the highest ranked in the country. And only one that I found, Columbia Business School, saw better year over year outcomes from the class of 2023 to the class of 2024.

The vast majority of schools that I was looking at saw twice as many recent graduates on the job market this year, still looking for work three months out than they did two years ago when the market was really hot. So recent graduates from these extremely prestigious business programs are having longer searches and accepting jobs at lower rates than they did even two years ago. Lauren Henry For this story, you also spoke to some MBA graduates who are in the thick of trying to land a full-time job. How are they managing it? Jessica Lange Many of them tell me that networking has been

key. They are spending a lot of time reaching out to folks on LinkedIn or for informational interviews to try and get a good sense of what companies might be hiring and building those interpersonal connections to potentially get a referral when a job opens up. They're coupling that with sending mass applications to a variety of companies that are posting job listings online. Many people I talk to have several tailored versions of resumes. Some are using AI to make sure that those resumes are extremely sharp. At Duke, a bunch of recent graduates would meet up at a friend's house or a classmate's house

and kind of all submit applications together. So I think there are a lot of recent graduates would meet up at a friend's house or a classmate's house and kind of all submit applications together. So I think there are a lot of people in the thick of it and in some cases they're banding together to go through it as a class or at least with numbers. And it seems like in previous years recruiting was a big part of landing a job after graduation and just getting that foot in the door. Has that changed? So there are a few things that have changed for campuses. A lot of companies laid off many recruiters during many of the contractions that we saw starting in 2023. And so that means that for campuses, there are fewer known points of contact inside these companies. For example,

tech companies used to have MBA-specific recruiters and if that person lost their job, you know, it might be more difficult for a campus to know who's the best point of contact, how do I get my foot in the door here. The other piece of this is that following the pandemic, some companies replaced those campus visits where you shake hands with a recruiter with virtual events that are open to all. Building those relationships, the students and the company, that's a little bit more challenging without that direct face time.

For someone in the market for a new role, what can they take away from the experiences of these MBA graduates? We do stories all the time about how difficult it is to land a job for white collar workers across the board. Sort of what can we learn from this? Overall, the number of unemployed Americans who are looking for work for at least six months

has increased by more than 50% since the end of 2022. And for job seekers more broadly, one thing to know is that even with an elite credential, it's tough out there. I'm hearing from those who have landed work in career advisors that networking is key, especially for companies that have cut back on recruiters in recent years. Making sure that you have the skills to stand out is also important. If you can find ways to learn the skills in the job that you want through an online class, through indirect experience, that might make it an easier sell when you're putting your

name out there for a position. That's WSJ reporter Lindsay Ellis and that's it for your Money Briefing. This episode is produced by Jess Jupiter with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Arianna Aspudu for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.