Economic Crisis Wallops Business Grads

With the financial world in free-fall, recent business-school graduates are finding fewer jobs and fierce competition for the ones that remain, Business Week reports. “A lot of the factors affecting my future employment are out of my hands,” said one MBA student preparing to hunt for a job in an increasingly tight market after graduation next year.

Many students are now considering risk-management and consulting tracks as alternatives to specialties like investment banking. Despite the bleak outlook for business grads, universities are nevertheless seeing a jump in applications—which in turn makes things tougher for applicants—and changing their programs to reflect the current situation. “There are many lessons in financial management and strategy that will come out of this last year and a half, and will probably extend into the future,” one professor said. (More business school stories.)