Todays economic news.

Numbers released last week showed that unemployment increased by 0.3%. Not a good sign.
Peter Schiff correctly predicted the problems in the housing market and it looks like he (among others) will be proven right this time too about the recession.

Personally its not gonna hold me back. I would be a little concerned about an internship this summer but I would be far more concerned if I was graduating this year or the next. In 2.5 years I think that things will hopefully be turned around.

Also I happen to be aiming for an industry that is pretty stable and actually is going to really benefit from extremely high oil prices.

However, China continues to boom. Less than 20% of China`s exports go to the USA nowadays, and China is expected to prop up the world economy next year.

- Eurozone is still strong with inflation fears
- China still expecting 10% growth over the next 2 years
- India following closely behind China in expansion


This emphasises the changing economic global landscape and the importance of understanding International awareness. I`m glad I applied to some Asian schools to try to capitalise on the first hand experience. USA schools may be top of the tree at the moment, but the vision of what the focus of the curriculum of the future should be may well change, and lead a surge of applicants tgo investigate the potential of changing economic landscapes.

Afterall, a lot of people remain in the USA after finishing their schoolong there. If the opportuniites to develop, career-wise, start off-shoring, it will make for interesting changes. For Example, Singapore, with its 4.5 million people, has over 7000 multi-national companies based there, and have targets to increase its population to 6 million within 10 years, mostly through immigration. NUS, which i also applied to, reportedly are expecting 5000 applications this year for a class of 150

Interesting times ahead. Personally, my target is to continue to work in Asia after an MBA, no matter where i study. The main impact for me, if i was to study in the USA, is internships.

It seems like I am destined to interview for jobs during recession. In undergrad, I interviewed in Fall 2001 for internships (ouch) and fall 2002 for full-time jobs (ouch-ouch). That WASN'T fun at all. I got to the point that I interviewed with EVERY company willing to invite me for the interview, including Steak and Shake... At the end, I was offered a full-time position with a Big 4 firm but every time I think about the job-hunting torture I went through, I shiver.

My guess is that in case we do have a recession in 2008, companies are going to scale back on the intern hiring in 2008 academic year both in b-schools and undergrad schools because of the uncertainty in the economy. Lower tier schools will probably see a bigger decline in the number of positions/companies interviewing on-campus.

Financials are in a mess too; of course big daddy Goldman Sachs is not doing too bad.

One thing though - It is difficult to tell if major companies would be affected that much. Amongst the ones listed on the NYSE or the Nasdaq, I am not sure if there are too many companies that would qualify as U.S companies in the strict sense of the term. Many companies derive significant revenues from overseas and so this may not be so bad for them.

Just a theory.

In which case recruitment for said companies would still be high... Afterall, it`s only the USA which may be going into recession. So there is still plenty of opportunity unless you are single-minded about working in the USA

I think this is something to seriously think about when debating a top school and a lower ranked one with a scholarship. Also if jobs are tighter then career changing will also probably be more difficult because if they arent hiring as many folks.

As stated earlier... only if you are considering the USA... The rest of the world provides many opportunities these days.

Also consider that the UK has now overtaken the USA in average salaries.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7177397.stm
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7174372.stm

I think with the overseas argument you are forgetting that if it is that bad here a lot more people will head overseas. If the UK has a lot better opportunities people will start flocking to london instead of NYC. If a company is hiring but instead of sending you to their office in Chicago they want you to go to Paris, people will take it.

Its will have a trickle down affect, the tougher it is here, the more people will go over season. I think a recession in the US will definitely have an affect on the job market for MBAs as a whole.

As for UK salaries being higher you are failing to look at the insane cost of living in places like London, where the COL actually makes NYC look reasonable in some ways.

The worst part of the recruiting season for an MBA during a down year is the possible renege on the job offer.

I don't really care about working my but for one because I'll do what it takes. But if I do get one, it better come to fruition.

I heard that in 01-02, I banks hired tons of MBAs and then told them, "Sorry, we can't hire you. Hey, but you can keep the signing bonus."

It`s relative... A lot of the work has moved away from London (except finance), and onto the M4 corridor. Cambridge has a hell of a lot of tech startups and costs of living there are not significantly higher...

I worked in London for 6 years and now I`m in Tokyo, and comparing costs, i would say they are roughly similar. It all depends on what you spend your money on. the cost of living in London is not substantially higher comparing those 2 cities (not lived in New York so can`t really compare).

In terms of going to the UK to work, MBAs are restricted anyhow, only graduates from 50 schools have the right to get a work permit. Also, generally speaking, the UK is not MBA crazy. It`s not in the radar of the vast majority of companies there. i.e. The value of an MBA is not as significant in the UK, although it is slowly increasing.

Here`s a quote from a friend who moved to the USA and used to live in London

nervous, I feel your pain. I was looking for a job in the spring/summer of 2001. I must have interviewed with 20 companies (and this is from the career center and career fair of a top engineer school, no less), they all said they wanted to hire me, but the hiring freezes prevented anyone from doing anything. It was pretty sad. The Defense companies were still hiring, so I ended up there. And the rest is history.

I think we're probably similar to the 2001 applicant pool, where the market is crashing down (hopefully no 9/11). Next year it'll probably be a b*tch to apply, if conditions continue.

As togafoot said, it's true that Asian economy may still be strong, and with my focus on international business in Asia, I might just go do an internship in Singapore or China, like I said in my essays anyways.

This would make me consider the strength of a school's international program and their entrepreneurship program. I think Stanford and Haas will be ok. UCLA has the entire SoCal startup market to themselves. Kellogg has great brand name, though I'm not sure how strong they are in getting Asian connections and West Coast entrepreneurship connections if the economy is down. Hrm... UCLA seems a bit better than Kellogg yet again with the economy in mind, for my focus, that is.

That happened undergrad as well. I had several friends who went through that. I was actually part of the last start group at my first consulting firm. Everyone else who opted for a later mid-summer start date, never did. They got strung along for a while and eventually their offers were just rescinded.

Having been through it once, I must admit I'm pretty scared of having it happen to me again... Especially the risk of taking a job offer from your internship -- in August of 2008, for a start date in June of 2009... thats a long time, and a lot can happen in that period...

the fear is justified, but you are going to GSB, rhyme, and you should be much better off than most MBAs graduating in 2009, if a big recession hits.

There is always some job somewhere.. the only problem is it becomes a bigger pain to find it...especially during recession...

Well, perhaps a lot of students will decide to stay where they are careerwise and not take on a near six-figure debt only to be confronted with a lackluster recruitment opportunities.

Is there really a consistent relationship between growth in MBA applications and the shape of the overall economy? This is a perfectly innocuous question!

By the way, BusinessWeek came up with this in October - before the merde had really hit the fan. https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/co ... ding+a+job

I think a lot of the recent interest US and UK schools are generating is not due to the faltering economy, but rather attributed to the MBA's growing popularity abroad. Surely, rising disposable incomes in emerging economies such as China and India, where culturally, professional education enjoys very high respect also have something to do with it.

My thoughts exactly. You would ONLY go to business schools if you were laid off and would think, well, instead of hunting for a job in a bad environment why not go get a degree now.
However, there havent been any major layoffs, have there? Therefore, I dont think we should expect an extraordinary rise in MBA applications.

I mean, arent you thinking along the same lines? Many of us probably have great, decently paying jobs, which we will give up hoping to find better ones later on. Now that bet seems to become riskier.