Hard Lesson

Trying times for 1983 M.B.A.s

Vance Bates, 26, had expected 1983 to be kind to graduating Master of Business Administration students. Envious members of last year's M.B.A. crop had advised him that the recession was likely to give way to brighter job prospects this year. But Bates, who will receive his M.B.A. in May and hopes to land a job paying between $25,000 and $30,000 a year, is finding that things seem to have got worse. He has sent letters to 60 employers, and fears that he will have to settle for less than his first choice, commercial banking. Says he: "I never imagined it would be this way. I thought I would be deciding which offer to take, not wondering whether I would get an offer."

Legions of M.B.A. candidates from Boston to Berkeley are wondering the same thing. A record 61,000 students will receive their degrees this year, 26% more than five years ago. The stubborn recession, however, has led many firms to skip the 1983 campus recruiting season, which got under way at numerous schools last week. Result: a student scramble for jobs and a slowdown in salary growth.

Companies will dangle annual paychecks averaging about $26,000 before 1983 graduates, according to the Northwestern University Endicott Report, a nationwide survey. That bait will be only about 4.8% above 1982 offers, however, which were 11.8% higher than in 1981. Observes Gretchen Thompson, career planning and placement director at the U.C.L.A. Graduate School of Management: "There is a glut of M.B.A.s on the market. So many no-name schools are turning out M.B.A.s that companies are looking for only the very best students with the best grades from the best schools."

The less-well-known institutions are therefore being hurt the most. Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., normally attracts some 300 corporate recruiters. This year only about 200 firms are expected to interview the school's 2,000 graduate and undergraduate business students. Says Placement Director Glenn Rosenthal: "We're finding a lot of employers canceling appointments that they had scheduled for March. We've tried to be honest with our students about the outlook, and yet at the same time not demoralize them."

Not even the most prestigious schools are exempt from the no-show trend. Harvard Business School, whose 1982 graduates earned salaries ranging from $15,000 to a lofty $85,800, has so far scheduled recruiters from 300 companies for interviews with its 782 graduating M.B.A. candidates. That corporate guest list is 8% smaller than the 1982 version, which was down 5% from the year before. Placement officers at M.l.T.'s Sloan School expect some 150 firms to call, down nearly 15% from the level of two years ago.

The roster of campus absentees, ranging from U.S. Steel to Philip Morris, reads like a Who's Who of corporate America. Among the most conspicuous no-shows are major oil companies, whose profits have tumbled along with oil prices. Exxon Corp., the largest U.S. industrial firm, plans to recruit at just 19 schools this season, compared with 50 a year ago. Part of the slack is being taken up by computer and electronics companies, as well as fast-growing younger firms. Says Arthur Letcher, director of graduate placement at the Wharton School: "The Fortune 500 companies are unquestionably not hiring as many students, but small companies in high-technology and health products industries are here."

Some campus visits are little more than courtesy calls by companies that want to keep their names before the graduating students. Concedes David Lewis, who supervises college hiring for San Francisco-based Crocker National Bank: "There is a long-term public relations value even with students you don't hire." Lewis notes that some of his colleagues are skeptical about the value of an M.B.A. "It's a fairly common belief among some people at Crocker that M.B.A.s are overrated," says he. "Some still see the importance of hiring M.B.A.s, but others are asking whether it is really worth it." Crocker is hiring bachelor's degree graduates to fill several positions that had been reserved for recruits with master's degrees.

The growing M.B.A. glut may have helped change the kinds of jobs that students are willing to take. Although consulting and investment banking remain frequent top choices, more M.B.A. candidates are now turning to the once shunned field of plant management. Positions in this area can quickly lead to running a division, and they pay well. Among the more popular new businesses are venture-capital firms, which offer high salaries for the talent it takes to dole out cash to promising young companies.

Whatever their preferences, members of the current crop of M.B.A. graduates are finding that they must work overtime to land jobs. Says Michael Ferric, 24, who will graduate in June from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management: "We were told to get out there early and get our names in people's faces and not stop--to just keep hitting and hitting and hitting." This year, in other words, there is little chance to succeed in business without really trying. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.