Dashed Dreams

Dashed Dreams

By RONALD ALSOP
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 17, 2003

Many career hoppers are missing the mark this year.

Traditionally, the M.B.A. degree has guaranteed students a fresh start in a new career. But no longer for graduates like Jonathan Brenner, who is shocked at how hard a career switch is proving to be. Formerly a consultant in the energy industry, he enrolled at the Olin School of Business at Washington University because he viewed its M.B.A. program as a sure passport to the health-care industry. "I'm intrigued by things that enhance life," he says, "plus the continuous innovation in health care spells long-term opportunities for me."

He planned his career transition methodically. In addition to his business-school courses, he took classes at Washington University's medical school, did consulting work for a biotechnology company and helped assess the market potential for pharmaceutical discoveries at the medical school. During the summer between his two years in the M.B.A. program, he landed an internship at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, a Cambridge, Mass., consortium of hospitals and academic and research institutions, where he helped evaluate the market for the center's emerging technologies.

QUESTION OF THE DAY How important is an M.B.A to a successful career in business? Cast your vote.

Despite his single-minded approach and determination, Mr. Brenner still hadn't snagged a job by early September. But he wasn't idly biding his time. He worked on a summer project at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis using his business skills to make the process for diagnosing and treating heart attacks more efficient -- another signal to potential employers of his dedication to the health-care industry.

"I'm qualified enough to get my foot in the door," he says, "but there's a vast pool of candidates out there with strong résumés. When I applied to b-school, I certainly had not anticipated a recession that wouldn't go away."

A Risky Business

Nor had most other class of 2003 graduates. Like Mr. Brenner, the majority of M.B.A. students are career switchers. In the past, such students enjoyed the luxury of shopping around for jobs and testing out a new industry during their summer internships. But now with so many graduates competing for so few jobs, recruiters can afford to be very choosy. They are less inclined to take a risk with a career switcher when there are plenty of M.B.A. graduates with past experience in their industries or job functions. Indeed, many recruiters in The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive survey urged schools to admit more applicants with "relevant work experience."

FIND OUT MORE More information on the career and salary outlook for M.B.A. students, plus winning job strategies, is available in "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Top Business Schools, 2004," a Wall Street Journal Book, published by Free Press and available at WSJbooks.com.

"Students used to have the fluidity in the job market to change careers pretty easily," says James Beirne, a staffing manager at Hewlett-Packard Co. "But today they have to show me credentials that match up with what I'm looking for. We're doing more just-in-time hiring for very specific needs."

During the go-go economy of the 1990s, applying to business school wasn't such a risky decision. Many M.B.A.s received multiple job offers, six-figure salaries, and an embarrassment of riches in their packages of bonuses and perks. The days of such instant gratification are long gone.

Now, because of the prolonged job slump, many potential M.B.A. students are even questioning the degree's value, and fewer are applying to business school. Why, they wonder, should they invest more than $100,000 in a degree that no longer ensures them a lucrative new career?

Job Function or Industry?

Indeed, job-placement rates this summer run the gamut. At many of the lower-ranked schools, only 50% to 60% of students had accepted job offers by summer. But at Harvard Business School, nearly 90% of students had received at least one offer by graduation and about 80% had accepted a position.

Recruiters and career-services directors are advising students not to be too ambitious. The best strategy: Change either your industry or your job function, but not both. That was how Jay Poole's job quest played out. He sought his M.B.A. at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University because he wanted to move out of human resources at a small bank in North Carolina and into a more strategic decision-making role in a consulting firm or corporate-finance department.

For Mr. Poole, changing job functions was a higher priority than entering a new industry. So he turned down a summer internship in human resources at Home Depot Inc. to return to his former bank for a few months of corporate-finance experience. "The perception of HR people like me is that you have good people skills but limited analytical abilities," Mr. Poole says. "The internship demonstrated my practical analytical skills." When graduation rolled around, Mr. Poole managed to secure a job in corporate strategy but couldn't pull off an industry switch, too. He ended up joining SunTrust Banks Inc. in Atlanta.

Once they're admitted to business school, career changers don't have a minute to waste these days. They can't rely any longer on the career-placement office and on-campus recruiters. Instead, it's all about hustle and ingenuity. Students must choose an industry and job function to focus on even before they crack open their first textbook. Then the hard work starts -- networking with alumni, cold calling prospective employers and figuring out which skills are most transferable from their past work life.

John Webb, a recent graduate of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, decided he could parlay his leadership training in the U.S. Army into an auto-industry position by relating the job of a product manager to his role as a military officer. "A product manager has to work hand in hand with the sales force and take their advice when creating the overall marketing plan," he says he told recruiters. "That's like an officer's relationship with his noncommissioned officers in creating their military training plan." Toyota Motor Corp. bought his pitch and hired him for its general management associate program.

Getting the right internship is a critical first step. Some M.B.A. graduates even took unpaid internships this summer to help fill the void on their résumés. Elizabeth Schrader realized she needed all the energy and ingenuity she could muster to make her career leap in her summer internship. Her goal: a switch to investment banking from her previous career in product development and marketing at Procter & Gamble Co.

That's an audacious jump these days. So during her first semester at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, she swung into action along with a few other students whose sights were set on investment and finance jobs, too. Twice a week for two months, they left Ithaca, N.Y., in a car caravan at 2 a.m. en route to Manhattan to spend the day roaming the Wall Street area. They called on Cornell alumni and other contacts at the major investment-banking firms, dropping off their résumés and giving a brief pitch about their skills and passion to work on the Street.

Ultimately, the gambit paid off for most of the students. Ms. Schrader met with 70 people on Wall Street and succeeded in spending her summer at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. "No one owes you a job," says Ms. Schrader. "You can either play victim or be flexible and agile. Some students make the mistake of trying to get companies to buy what they're selling rather than sell what the recruiters are buying."

Get a Plan B

Part of being flexible means having a backup plan. Bob Springer had hoped his M.B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University would be his launchpad from engineering into real-estate development. But his networking and informal interviews with companies were hardly encouraging. The responses were all pretty much the same -- "Your background is great, your skills are great, keep in touch." His summer internship in the real-estate banking group at Bank of America and his course work weren't enough to overcome his limited work experience.

Fortunately, a guest speaker in one of his classes turned out to have real-estate experience and an interest in developing residential projects near downtown Nashville, not far from the Vanderbilt campus. Mr. Springer invited him to go out for coffee and the meeting ended up lasting nearly three hours. Now, he and Mr. Springer, along with some potential investors, are planning to create a real-estate partnership.

"The most important thing for a career switcher is being creative and not putting yourself into a corner saying that you have to get a certain salary and a certain title," says Mr. Springer. "You also need a passion for what you want to do that people will pick up on."

Follow Your Passion

Passion has even enabled some students to marry their personal interests with new careers. Justin Stone, a first-year M.B.A. student at Cornell, had enjoyed a long love affair with motorcycles and aspired to work one day for his idol, Harley-Davidson Inc. But he also knew the company hired more engineering and manufacturing majors than M.B.A. students. What's more, his background was largely in investment banking, not manufacturing.

Undeterred, he pursued the manufacturing management major at Cornell and read motorcycle and manufacturing publications to understand the company better. When he first approached Harley, the human-resources department proved to be a brick wall. A little cunning was clearly needed. Posing as a potential supplier, Mr. Stone learned who was in a position of authority at the manufacturing level and eventually persuaded the executive to hire him.

To do that, he marketed himself as the perfect summer intern, with both manufacturing skills cultivated at Cornell and an infatuation for the company and the culture of motorcycling. "M.B.A.s shouldn't give up just because a job posting isn't there," Mr. Stone says. "If you reach out to the right person, you can create a position for yourself. It takes focus and persistence." For safe measure, though, Mr. Stone kept his connections warm in the financial-services industry in case he needed a fallback.