In the midst of an unstable national economy, graduates of the Olin Business School are settling for second choices or short-term solutions in their search for jobs.
These economic issues are exacerbating problems that have faced business school graduates for years. Troy Rumans, who graduated from the business school last year, said that a lack of job availability has made it harder for those without advanced degrees in business to find work.
“What’s been happening with the job market is that because it’s more difficult to find a job, people with master’s degrees are applying to entry-level jobs, so people just with undergraduate degrees have much more difficulty getting those jobs,” Rumans said. “It’s not impossible; there’s just not as many options.”
Rumans’ own job search was limited by location. Wanting to stay in St. Louis, he had to take an offer to work in a management training position with the Bernar Group, a company that does direct marketing for AT&T. While the job was not his first choice, he now plans to stay there long-term.
“The only job in St. Louis that I could apply for is where I’m working now,” he said. “In terms of finding work, a person looking for a job is going to have to be open to more than one location no matter where they are.”
While Rumans is satisfied with his job, he says he is the exception rather than the rule.
“The difficulty in finding employment has been a long-standing issue,” he said. “Many of the people that I’ve talked with in the B-School concentrated on finding a job early in their senior year. Very few people I talked to [received a job of] their first choice, and very few people wanted to stay in that position long-term.”
To help combat these difficulties, the business school trains its students on how to get a job beginning in their sophomore year. This training includes formal classes and individual work through the Weston Career Center, which focuses on Olin students.
Jim Bierne, an associate dean and the director of the Weston Center, said that the training is multi-tiered and more complicated than it was in past years.
“Over the course of every year we run a couple of workshops addressing issues around establishing and managing your career, how to manage all the data that’s out there,” Bierne said. “It’s a process; it’s an education.”
Bierne said, however, that though the current economic crisis dominates the media, it only affects specific sectors of the business job market. As a result, the Weston Career Center has maintained its high success rate of past years, placing 98 percent of its advisees in jobs following graduation.
“At the national level my peers across the country are still claiming that [the economic situation] is not affecting schools at all, except in financial services and some real estate development areas,” Bierne said. “If you read just headlines it’s a pretty sour economic situation, but there’s still a voracious appetite for bright undergraduates and graduates.”
Another career path open for business school graduates is that of starting their own companies, an option that Washington University promotes through the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which helps students create startups while still in school.
Ken Harrington, the center’s managing director, said that rather than hurting the market for startups, the nervous economy provides ample opportunities for students with new ideas.
“Paradoxically, it’s one of the best times to start a business,” Harrington said. “If you’ve got a good idea, it’s not necessarily sensitive to economic factors. It ought to be disruptive enough [of the market] that it’s attractive to customers and investors.”
But Harrington also said that the route provided by Skandalaris is not for everyone.
“It’s based on if somebody is truly the entrepreneur type,” he said. “There are some people that wouldn’t ever choose to found a business.”
Rumans, who took advantage of the opportunities provided by the business school while he was on campus, said that the school helped him avoid the economy’s detrimental effect.
“The school is very much on top of their game in terms of preparation for finding work,” he said. “There are resources aplenty.”
He added, however, that those who are affected negatively by the economy should not expect a quick fix.
“Unfortunately with a situation such as this, change is not very quick,” Rumans said. “It’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”