2008/2009, not good time to graduate???

nnm

Just heard from my professor that his sister, who just graduated from Columbia b-school this summber, was laid off by Citigroup IBD in New York, right after she finished her training.

Along with her, there are about 40 new hires kicked out at the same time. Citigourp just wrote off billions of dollors loss in credit market, accounting for 60% drop in profit.

We haven't got many good news since this year. Lehman Brothers annouced squeezing of new hire; UBS lost money in last quarter and the title of the news said "1,500 jobs expected to go";  etc etc

We also heard people talking about recession (what a scray word....), no matter the probability is 30% or 50%, the economic of US is definitely slowing down. Job market, cosumer index, exchange rate and real estate market, you name it.........

I really think it's a bad time to graduate from 2002. Unfortunately, I am doing so.

What do you guys think?

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-10-28 23:54:10编辑过]

simbasl

take it easy, nnm.

This is how IBD, or in general Investment Banking works.  It fluctuates year over year.  Consulting is relatively stable, though you can still find some prevous examples that big names lay new joiners off (or significant delay the on-board date) when the market turns down.

You are pursuing opp in consulting, right? It still looks OK, esp. here in Greater China.

nd4spd

You career is going to last for more than 30 years. You have to survive the recessions sooner or later.

inseadsh

nnm, I think you are overworrying a little bit.

It is true that the banks are having a difficult time because of the subprime mortgage crisis, esp in Q3, when we see profit decline in quite some banks. However, I think more people would remain to be positive about the future global economic growth because: (1) The Federal Reserve is now closely watching the U.S market and will do whatever they can to avoid the market sliding into a recession. The 50 basis points interest cut worked well to reboost market confidence; (2) The U.S impact on the global economy is not as strong as before, which means that the present subprime issue is not likely to drag down the development of global economy. As we can see, the European and Asian branches of the bulge bracket banks are performing well relative to their NY headquarters.

A quick clarification about UBS: They did lay-off 1500 people, but mainly in leveraged finance sector where business was significantly damaged due to the credit bubble. You have to bear in mind that UBS has around 80K employees globablly. So far, I havent heard any major slash of employees like what happened in 2003. 

yaoyao99

It's always a good time to graduate and it's never a good time to go to school, =)

胡搅蛮缠

what about 2010? a good time to graduate?

rock2007

以下是引用胡搅蛮缠在2007-10-2 9:13:00的发言：
what about 2010? a good time to graduate?

Don't know.  But I think will not be better than 2008 & 2009.

jessicaf

It is the worst of times; It is the best of times  识时务者为俊杰，通机变者为贤达.

rockytundra

以下是引用nd4spd在2007-10-1 22:53:00的发言：
You career is going to last for more than 30 years. You have to survive the recessions sooner or later.

Layoff is not serious for those who have already worked in an industry for a while.

It's much harder for the new MBA graduates, especially for career switchers.

If you can not find a job in short time after graduating from a B-school. What will you do if you are pressured with heavy debt? Keep looking for dream jobs though you don't know when you can get it? Or just take a job irrelevant to your MBA to start your after MBA career? In the latter case, how easy is it for you to switch back to the career you want as an MBA?

perfectbeam

guys, we may be a bit optimistic about this. Seriously, fresh graduate, esp fresh MBAs, are definitely sensitive to the recession or this sort of things. Not just IB, mate. If IB went down, some strong ppls would turn to consulting or GMs or whatever things, you know. Plus, the layoffs are normally seniors or at least experienced guys. The competetion would be fierce for fresh gradutes if a lot of thoese guys were on market.

Sometimes I can still hear of somebody talking about the bad times of 02,03. Anyway, I will cross my fingers.