Even Harvard MBAs Are Struggling To Land Jobs (msn.com) 54
Nearly a quarter of Harvard Business School's 2024 M.B.A. graduates remained jobless three months after graduation, highlighting deepening employment challenges at elite U.S. business schools. The unemployment rate for Harvard M.B.A.s rose to 23% from 20% a year earlier, more than double the 10% rate in 2022.
Major employers including McKinsey, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have scaled back M.B.A. recruitment, with McKinsey cutting its hires at University of Chicago's Booth School to 33 from 71. "We're not immune to the difficulties of the job market," said Kristen Fitzpatrick, who oversees career development at Harvard Business School. "Going to Harvard is not going to be a differentiator. You have to have the skills." Columbia Business School was the only top program to improve its placement rate in 2024. Median starting salaries for employed M.B.A.s remain around $175,000.
Major employers including McKinsey, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have scaled back M.B.A. recruitment, with McKinsey cutting its hires at University of Chicago's Booth School to 33 from 71. "We're not immune to the difficulties of the job market," said Kristen Fitzpatrick, who oversees career development at Harvard Business School. "Going to Harvard is not going to be a differentiator. You have to have the skills." Columbia Business School was the only top program to improve its placement rate in 2024. Median starting salaries for employed M.B.A.s remain around $175,000.
Oh no (Score:4, Interesting)
Won't someone please think of the poor Harvard MBAs during this challenging time in their lives?
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You've likely already paid off their student loans, now we need to set them up with Basic Universal Income so they can remain an active, vital part of the US economy...
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until bots can do that also.
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Isn't this missing important context? Is it just Harvard MBAs, or is it all MBAs?
Maybe this isn't so much an MBA problem, as a Harvard problem. When you flush your credibility over the course of decades, it seems that eventually it will catch up to you.
We don't need more managers. (Score:2)
This rise in MBA unemployment is very easy to explain, actually. Businesses around the world have begun to realise that they don't need that many managers after all. They need people who can do the walk instead just doing the talk. Who would have thought?
Re:We don't need more managers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: Experienced MBAs have determined fresh newly graduated MBAs are not needed.
This isn't so much the leopards eating peoples' faces, as much as the leopards eating their own young.
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This isn't so much the leopards eating peoples' faces, as much as the leopards eating their own young.
Wont someone think of these poor morbidly obese leopards?
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An MBA graduate? (Score:2)
Why would I hire one, when I can get OpenAI, Grok and Gemini together for a lot less?
Re:An MBA graduate? (Score:4, Funny)
Why would I hire one, when I can get OpenAI, Grok and Gemini together for a lot less?
Heck, you could probably substitute opinions from Reddit for those of an MBA and get equivalent results.
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Especially from the more "alpha male" subredits.
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Why would I hire one, when I can get OpenAI, Grok and Gemini together for a lot less?
Ha! You'd probably get more production out of the "AI flock" as well.
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I shudder at the thought :)
Poor MBAs (Score:4, Interesting)
How will businesses continue to collapse on themselves after hype-fixating on next quarter's profits for long enough they eat themselves from within if we don't fill the entire management structure with MBAs? Or is the business world preparing to replace middle management with AI? That'd be a truly giggle worthy moment, the MBA mentality killing the entire MBA job market.
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Or is the business world preparing to replace middle management with AI? That'd be a truly giggle worthy moment, the MBA mentality killing the entire MBA job market.
That's beyond "giggle worthy" - it's full-on poetic justice. Thanks for pointing it out - you've just brightened my day considerably!
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This seems more of a warning to me. An early indicator of the upcoming economy with the oligarchs running the show. https://www.usnews.com/news/na... [usnews.com]
This is what the country voted for. I’m sure these individuals will improve egg prices and lower your taxes.
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As opposed to what? You sweet summer child. Google robber barons, gilded age or just study history, and you'll find that oligarchs running things is the norm. Unless you think the Soviet experiment and the Great leap forward were good ideas that just need more time to work out.
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The middle class has been in decline since the 70's and we just elected some one who (going by their first term in office) will shovel even more money at the affluent. Basically, we just voted for more decline.
Especially if those crazy tariffs Trump promised go into effect, the wealthy wont even notice the inflation that's bound to follow that will hurt the rest of us.
There’s a reason why (Score:2)
These people are sitting together. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/a... [nbcnews.com]
They’re in charge and not even hiding it. You may be a Harvard grad but you’re still not in the big club.
Oh my! (Score:2)
Re:Oh my! (Score:4, Interesting)
I dated someone once who constantly complained about not being able to find a job. I was like "find a company you want to work for and get your foot in the door with any role available." I was thinking along the terms of a "mail room" type of job, but it could be whatever. She was absolutely adamant that she was above that level of work despite being fresh out of college with zero experience. Totally entitled. I just couldn't understand that way of thinking.
Re:Oh my! (Score:5, Insightful)
I just couldn't understand that way of thinking.
I'll help you out here. Imagine for a moment that you want to start a business, and have found an investor willing to take out a quarter million dollar loan to help you. Would you expect them to wash dishes and scrub floors?
If people wanted to start out at the bottom in an entry level position and entry level salary, they'd skip college, student loans, and instead just start working. What sense does it make to spend four years of your life going into debt rather than making money if you're going to start at the bottom anyway?
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This is to you and the GP.
People who get an entry-level job don't have to start in the mail room or washing dishes. But they do have to start on a lower rung of the ladder, because they don't have the experience that justifies being higher.
And most of those entry-level positions require a degree in something. Those who don't have a degree are the ones who start in the mail room or the kitchen.
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All of this thread assumes that companies are promoting from within and that there is a ladder for you to climb. In some cases and industries this may be true, but there's an increasing tendency to let people languish and not promote them, and instead hire people for higher positions at a lower salary than you would get if they just promoted you. Financially it often makes sense for a company to do this.
This is a strategy commonly used now, as I understand it, and so if you aren't taking that into conside
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And most of those entry-level positions require a degree in something.
Be careful about describing a degree as "required" - if an employer has a true entry-level position and they receive 100 applications. If 75 of the applications are from college graduates, the employer may self-limit their review to college graduates, because presumably they represent a better value/potential to an applicant with only a HS diploma.
This came up a few years ago when a McDonalds Franchisee said they only hired college graduates because they were receiving so many college graduates as applicant
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I just couldn't understand that way of thinking.
I'll help you out here. Imagine for a moment that you want to start a business, and have found an investor willing to take out a quarter million dollar loan to help you. Would you expect them to wash dishes and scrub floors?
If people wanted to start out at the bottom in an entry level position and entry level salary, they'd skip college, student loans, and instead just start working. What sense does it make to spend four years of your life going into debt rather than making money if you're going to start at the bottom anyway?
There are those with this mentality that didn't go to college. I have a relative, through marriage, that had this mentality out of high school. So much so that when someone finally convinced her to start at an entry level job, after a week she tried to call a meeting to tell the owners they were running their business wrong. After a few rounds of firing she realized that wasn't really the way the business world worked. Even if she was right (she wasn't), you don't come in as a new hire and expect the bosses
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Part of the problem is that the degree isn't itself really that important in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it's often a checklist item that companies demand for certain classes of jobs. Pursuing a degree gives you both explicit and implicit advantages though, and many of them have more to do with getting access to the right people and building the right foundation to make yourself marketable. If the only thing you get out of a 4 year program is a good GPA and a degree, you've missed out on a huge part
Re: Oh my! (Score:2)
I don't know about being "above" working in the mail room, but you'd be right to worry about taking a mail room job if you were, say, a data science grad. Doing work way outside your field is basically equivalent to a gap in your resume, and that can easily be a career ender if it goes on any length of time. Taking an entry level position can be forgivable though.
I've met people who have been unemployed multiple years, and usually it's not wanting to take a pay/title cut or leave their preferred industry. T
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I dated someone once who constantly complained about not being able to find a job. I was like "find a company you want to work for and get your foot in the door with any role available." I was thinking along the terms of a "mail room" type of job, but it could be whatever. She was absolutely adamant that she was above that level of work despite being fresh out of college with zero experience. Totally entitled. I just couldn't understand that way of thinking.
Modern companies don't work like that any more because they're all holding out for that unicorn applicant. For every open position a company will get hundreds or even thousands of people applying. Even then you'll see that job listing open for months on end. There is no such thing as a "mail room" job today. If your resume and skills don't match exactly you won't get hired. Even if you are considered you better not ask for anything extra because they have 10 people in line behind you who will work for less.
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This is some 1972 fantasy shit. There is no ladder, and job fields are more specialized now. If you start in the mail room, you're locked into building facilities management. If your goal was to become a marketing director, you would literally never get there. Also, if you stay in one company, your salary will likely never go up - you have to bounce between related companies every 2-5 years.
There is some room to specialize and end up in a different field by going down a path while you are bouncing between c
ChatGPT strikes again (Score:2)
Someone has figured out that ChatGPT can produce an MBA's output, and doesn't draw a salary.
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Someone has figured out that ChatGPT can produce an MBA's output, and doesn't draw a salary.
Of course not, you’ll need an image generator for that. Output quality may vary.
Nice...resurrecting satanic panic there! (Score:2)
Harvard has been basically pissing in their mouths for the last 10 years, with the reverse racism admissions, with the anti-Israel protests and the betrayal of the furthest left-wing Jewish alumni by the "Queers for Palestine" protesters singing "From the Mountains to the Sea" in Harvard Yard. When the wealthier Jewish alumni realized the LGBTQ activists were turning on them in favor of Islam, they flipped out and abandoned the youngsters.
You have evidence of any of these claims? I fucking live a mile away...whatever you're describing is extremely rare. How confident are you that any protests is from actually Harvard students? Harvard Yard is an urban area, next to a popular subway stop, wide open to the public and easy to get to and convenient from Boston. Queers for Palestine is not a mainstream movement and I am skeptical there are more than a tiny handful of actual Harvard Students involved.
You're correct in that it is a moronic m
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If your delusions were real
All I can think of when I see crap like AC is spewing: "In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there." DJT 10-September-2024
That's the intelligence level of the people you are arguing with. They hear crap like that from their choice of media and will happily parrot it without question to anyone who will listen.
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You have evidence of any of these claims?
Can you explain the plagiarism & antisemitism scandals, and why Claudine Gay is still a Harvard professor?
People are rightly asking why this University is "elite". Harvard has blown up its reputation, and has not addressed the issues in a way that leads to a recovery of its former status.
Academia is overrated ... (Score:2)
... and has been for decades now. Yes, there are occupations where a degree and even an academic rank makes sense, but these days academia is largely a badge & vanity thing, bloated with nigh pointless subjects and topics, mostly as a money-making scheme, particularly in the US. With the huge shifts happening in society these days it's no real surprise that this would eventually catch up to the USA Ivy League.
One word (Score:2)
GOOD!
Ohhh noooo (Score:2)
By the way, been hearing about Harvard grads not finding the jobs they want for the last 20 years. This is not new, it's just worse now that universities like this are left commie brainwashing places.
MBA: before and now (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with modern MBA is the fact that the current enrollment of alumni are the just graduated, zero experience ones. And that is the key piece of the problem. You see, MBA used to be a place where one would exchange experience, expertise, real world problems and solutions. You have fresh folks with perhaps one or two internships, and that is about it. Not that the teachers cannot do that, but it is limited to one person point of view and some textbook examples at best.
When you have enterprises looking to do more for less, they cannot afford the 6-digit figures (plus sometimes very generous perks) hiring someone to oversee multi-million dollar budgets, while expecting this person to deliver results never delivered before, or with plain zero experience in the managerial position being asked.
MBA is still helpful, but not for the freshmen. Maybe these Harvard folks would land a job as a regular worker and then the MBA could help them climb the ladder quicker than a non-MBA peer, but as is, MBA is broken and folks putting the designation at their LinkedIn profiles, helpless.
Interesting stat, need detail (Score:2)
It would be interesting to see the stats by work experience and undergrad major. HBS' average work experience is 5 years, and they require 2 to apply. Given a 5 year average, I suspect there are a lot 2-4 year students in that 24% pool and the employment numbers for more experienced grads are higher. I would also expect some majors have a better placement rate than others.
Since Booth was mentioned, a quick look at their site shows 96% of 2023 grads looking for jobs had a job offer. Which brings up a g
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Which brings up a good point; how many, if any, of that 24% were not looking for a job?
You really think people attend Harvard MBA because they want to be a better-educated, more well-rounded person and not to land a better job (or even any job)?
A Harvard MBA costs $150K ($75K/year), BTW
This is inconclusive. More data is needed (Score:1)
The data provided in the article is from a few business school over a period of the past two years. This isn't enough data to reach the casual explanation that there's a decline in the number of correlated jobs that these graduates are seeking. In other words, there could be a number of other reasons for the increase in the unemployment rate: 1) A change in perception of the value of a business degree. That is, it's lower than in the recent past 2) A lower "quality" of students enter business schools. Or, t
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Remember the trade schools the Gov't shutdown? (Score:2)
The federal government shutdown many for-profit colleges and universities because they over-stated the employment of their graduates? Anyone remember what the employment rates were for those programs?
The unemployment rate for Harvard M.B.A.s rose to 23% from 20% a year earlier, more than double the 10% rate in 2022.
One out of four Harvard MBA graduates can't find a job? Any metrics on the other majors at Harvard?
Maybe Harvard needs to be denied federally-backed student loans for their MBA Program? [politico.com]
maybe (Score:2)
Maybe nearly a quarter of Harvard MBAs were affirmative action admissions, or appear to be?