When Robert Kneiser`s senior classmates at Marquette University were stressing out, agonizing about finding work in the ”real” world, he wasn`t worried. That was two years ago.
Today it`s Kneiser`s turn to have anxiety bouts. He`s about to complete a two-year master of business administration program at Pennsylvania State University (he graduates in May) and has yet to receive a job offer.
His anxiety is heightened by recent reports showing job prospects for college graduates, particularly those with MBA degrees, at a record low.
Denise Smith, who`s graduating in May from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, described the job market as ”kind of tough. You have to be persistent.”
Kneiser agrees. ”Before, when I was in undergraduate school, I could relax because I knew I would be going on with my education. Now I`m feeling a little more sense of urgency. I can`t just keep going to school. I`ve got to find something. And I`d like to have something definite by the time I graduate.”
That sense of urgency was shared by the more than 200 students who came from across the country Thursday to attend a one-day career fair sponsored by the MBA Consortium. The consortium comprisea 15 of the nation`s smaller, though well-regarded, business schools. They`re all members of Business Week magazine`s annual ”Second Top 20” list of business schools.
Job prospects for this year`s crop of MBA graduates are indeed glum. According to Northwestern University`s Lindquist-Endicott survey of job prospects, not only do this year`s estimated 1 million college grads face the worst job market in 20 years, the demand for MBAs is also on the decline.
The career fair, held at Hotel Sofitel O`Hare in Rosemont and two years in the planning, was the brainchild of Fran Cort, executive director of the MBA program at Case Western Reserve.
The schools involved in the consortium have several things in common, Cort said. ”We`re good, but most of us have regional rather than national reputations. We have relatively small MBA programs in comparison to a University of Chicago or Northwestern,” she said.
And, she said, it`s precisely because of those factors that it has often been difficult to attract major corporate recruiters to individual campuses. That difficulty has increased recently, as a tighter economy has forced companies to cut recruitment travel budgets.
Of the 2,500 corporate recruiters from around the country invited to attend the job fair, 53, representing 13 companies ranging from consumer-food companies to banks and financial institutions, attended.
Conference planners compiled some 600 resumes of students from the schools and mailed them to recruiters. The idea was for recruiters to prescreen those they would like to interview in person, thus assuring that those attending the job fair would have interviews scheduled-and increasing the possibility of job offers.
A lot of the luster is gone from MBA degrees, the darling of postgraduate education in the go-go `80s. In those ”good old days,” business schools just had to produce MBA graduates, then watch them wait for job offers. No more, Cort said, forcing students and schools to be more aggressive and innovative. For one thing, the overabundance of business-school graduates allows employers to be even more selective.
It also gives them an abundance of skilled people to choose from, said Sharon Lawrence, a recruiter for Pizza Hut.
Lawrence, who is based at the pizzamaker`s Downers Grove office, is typical of many of the recruiters who said their companies are doing more regional recruiting, rather than criss-crossing the country.
Despite the gloomy forecasts, Thomas Beretich, who will be graduating from New Orleans-based Tulane University`s business program in May, remains hopeful.
”Some of my friends have the attitude that they`ll have to take whatever job is offered to them,” he said.
”I disagree. I`m not going to take a job if I really don`t believe I belong at the company.”
