Historical data of MBA hiring through a recession

I think it's 2008=2001, etc.


even worse....

Am I right to assume that the people who aren't getting jobs straight out of the MBA are largely the people at the bottom 20-30% of their class? If that's the case, none of us GMATclubbers need to worry too much, right? We're all exceptional individuals who won't be in the bottom 20%.

Honestly, the people who are not employed are likely a mix of what you mentioned, but also people with high expectations. There are definitely people who go into an MBA primarily to career switch into a selective field (like investment banking) and won't give up until they get it, even if this means they are unemployed for 6-9 months after graduation. Personally, I think this is a wise choice. If you want to be a banker, taking a corporate finance job at Google just to have a paycheck and be employed upon graduation isn't going to get you there.

I wouldn't say that. You could be last in your class and companies won't know, at least for schools with GND.

Internationals probably take a big hit

I don't think it'll be that bad for the class of 2011 (I say selfishly and optimistically...) I'm currently working in the HR group in my company and our plan is to not scale back as heavily on recruiting as in the last slowdown. We're hearing similar things from many other HR departments (none of those other departments are at banks/PE/hedge funds). It seems a lot of companies are experiencing shortages in their management/executive pipeline and they think it's largely due to the recruiting cutbacks from 7-8 years ago. My guess is that you'll see a slight decline in the recruiting numbers over the next 1-2 years, but not as deep as in 2001-2003.

I've heard the same thing you mentioned about investment banking.

yeah, we actually have second order effects of that problem around here. Because there's no 28-32 managers/mid-level execs people only stay with the company for 4-5 years and then leave. Young employees dont see anyone moving up through the ranks so they see no career track with the company and assume you have to leave to advance your career. We actually had a big recruiting push planned for this year but it's been scaled back (still above average levels) because of budget cuts.

It definitely doesn't work out like that. The key factor is that some people took summer jobs in industries that weren't hit by the end of the summer. What that means is that a lot of people in marketing, consulting and other industries received job offers as normal, and most had until December or so to make a decision. Those who were in finance got job offers at a much lower rate. As a result, some industries had already filled their recruiting targets and were no longer hiring, even though some of the very best candidates were again looking for jobs. Sure, a few jobs opened back up in things like consulting, but acceptance of summer offers were extremely high and thus little second year hiring was needed.

A friend of mine would have his choice of finance jobs in a normal economy, but the hedge fund he was with over the summer is not doing any hiring. He's among the top 10% here for sure, and definitely way more qualified than almost everyone that entered the less competitive industries last summer. I'd definitely hire him over anyone that went into marketing or general management, and most of the people that went into consulting, but he's sill looking for a job. Those who were in finance last summer (some of the best and brightest out there) are competing against a much tougher group (all the others from finance) for a much smaller pool of jobs (because yields were high across the board from the summer).

2008 = 2001
2009 = 2002
2010 = 2003
2011 = 2004

'08 and '01 both graduated just before the market took the huge hit (both happened in the fall after they graduated).

As for who takes the hardest hit, it definitely can be the best and the brightest as pelihu said. What your goal and background are probably play a much bigger function. A drastic career change will be much more difficult when the job market is tight.