The Seattle Times had an interesting article today about recruiting for UW MBA and Computer Science students.
https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... unt19.htmlTwo excerpts:
(Mods feel free to edit or delete if quotes are too long or not allowed)
1.) "Newly minted MBAs face a job market further complicated by the meltdown of the financial sector, typically a major consumer of business talent.
"Naturally, financial services is kind of in a shambles," said Paula Klempay, director of MBA Career Services at the UW Michael G. Foster School of Business.
The loss of Washington Mutual and Safeco has exacerbated the situation locally. But it's not nearly as big a blow as the collapse of major financial institutions has had on larger East Coast business schools, any of which might typically send several graduates to a firm like Bear Stearns, she said.
Dimmer prospects in finance have caused some MBAs to look at opportunities in other sectors, such as technology. Others are sticking it out."
2.) "Interning is important
Economic conditions also have elevated the importance of internships.
More than 80 percent of MBA students are accepting full-time positions in the companies where they did internships, compared with 40 to 50 percent a year ago, said Klempay."Because those students are accepting, that means fewer positions came on campus in the fall for forecasted summer hiring," Klempay said. "So it's a little bit of a domino effect."
Intel, for example, offered high praise for UW MBAs but had only internships to offer during fall recruiting, Klempay said.
"That's where a lot of the companies are finding themselves," she said. "It's delightful for them to have these very high internship-conversion rates, and so the rest of the field is sorting itself out now."
Most of the companies signed up for a UW computer-science recruiting fair later this month are offering internships only. The department's fall recruiting event was oversubscribed, Lazowska said.
"Most companies realize that they need to continue to hire interns, even if they're not hiring permanent employees," he said. "Interns become permanent employees a year or two later; if you shut off the internship pipeline, you won't be able to hire when things return to normal."