Job Market Heats Up for MBA's.

[woo me with science]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576359460228597754.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By MELISSA KORN And JOE LIGHT

After two years of sharp declines in hiring, M.B.A. students are having more success landing jobs, and getting them earlier, than during the depths of the financial crisis.

The increase comes as companies become more optimistic about their opportunities for growth, gaining confidence that new hires now will pay off down the line.

While there remain some pockets of weakness in industries such as health care, hiring at many traditional career destinations for M.B.A. graduates, including finance and consulting, are nearing pre-recession levels. Hiring is up by double-digits at consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and Accenture PLC, compared with 2008 troughs. Similar gains are being seen at financial-services companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley.

Overall, 57% of full-time M.B.A. students in the U.S. had offers by mid-March, compared with 40% a year earlier, according to a Graduate Management Admission Council survey released last month of 905 companies and 127 business schools nationwide. And the improvement continues as the latest school year closes out....

(more at link)

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Makes sense. Finance capitalism seems to be immune to being shipped overseas.

[rfranklin]

2. Corporations need ideas on how to wring more profit from their wretched employees...

while maintaining the same level of pay.

[kick-ass-bob]

3. So what does someone with an MBA actually do?

I'm (for once) not trying to be snarky. :) What sort of job does an MBA perform on a day to day basis? From my viewpoint as a statistical researcher, it seems like they tend to be middle men (or women) or manager types. Please educate me as I know only DU can do :D

[thecrow]

5. My guy is a MBA

He works as a CFO of a business, which means he handles all the financial ins (such as billing) and outs (such as payroll, or paying vendors) of the business. He also is responsible to the auditors, who naturally check up on what he is doing. He works long hours and seems to like it. He worked hard for that MBA, too. Got it with honors a few years ago :)

[kick-ass-bob]

6. Thanks. So I guess entry MBAs would do these lower level things?

Or do they generally go straight into management level positions?

[dmallind]

10. All kinds of things

I for instance am a supply chain guy - purchasing, planning, logistics, etc. I've done a lot of QA and continuous improvement work too. But my counterparts with similar degrees work in finance, sales, engineering (usual combo for plant managers is eng and MBA), even research and statistical jobs too (a core requirement of almost all MBA programs is statistics/quantitative methods). All levels from entry to exec, but generally yes the non-management guys with them (2/3 master planners who work for me for example)get them to help them get into the management ranks.

[global1]

4. I've Had The Theory That The U.S. Economy Tanking Was Directly Related To The Rise In.......

MBA diploma's being awarded. Just to let you know - I have an MBA myself.

I'm just so disgusted with 'business' in general. Customer 'service' seems like a thing of the past. Much of marketing is 'deceptive' - just pull the wool over the consumers eyes to raid their wallet. Squeeze every last drop of energy out of your employees. Company profits need to go up every year - but that doesn't need to come from new and better products, innovation or customer loyalty. Many companies achieve that just by raising their prices and either lowering the quality of their products or charging the same price for a lesser quantity or quality of product.

In my mind - we've created people (MBA's) that have lost the ethical standards that built this country. Things like taking pride in their work. Building better products. Craftsmanship. Quality. Service. (I know I didn't have to take an 'ethics' course to get my MBA). Instead it appears that we instilled 'greed' into the education of MBA's.

I don't know the time period when getting an MBA became very popular and business schools started to crop up and offer them for a dime on the dozen - but I'm almost sure that if were were to track the rise in MBA graduates through the years and the fall of the U.S. economy through the years - there would be a strong correlation between the two.

I think it is time to re-examine the curriculum's of business schools. I think we should demand that 'ethics' courses be required. I think it is time to begin to re-instill principles of Quality, Service and Pride.

Just my two cents.

[NightWatcher]

7. we've gone from making stuff to moving numbers from one side of the desk to the other

with everyone taking their cut and finding a way to pass it on down the line.

My brother has a MBA and brags that it's almost a con. Company A hires an MBA who makes their bottom line "look" better by reshuffling debts, income reports, and other business tools to make things look better than they are. Then the MBA has to guess when to jump ship before it sinks.

MBA's to me seem nothing like a Middle Man who moves things around and takes his cut, similar to a drug dealer who steps on good shit just to take a cut....lowlife scum

[global1]

8. Your Brother's Comments Are Spot On.....

I had a personal experience with an MBA product manager for a major pharmaceutical company that was negotiating a deal with a company I was working for. He had to provide us with a manufacturing forecast and when we commented on it that it was grossly unrealistic (too high for the market) his response was that by the time the deal goes through - he wouldn't be in this job anymore to take the hit should it go south. He admitted that he fudged the numbers to make him look good and was using this deal as a stepping stone to a better job.

This is what plagues our business community now and unfortunately is the cause for bringing it down.

[MadHound]

9. Heats up for MBA's, cools off for the rest of us.

What a sad statement of the priorities in this country.