Is an MBA from what is widely seen as the most prestigious business school in the US truly recession-proof? That claim—often implied, if not fully articulated—has been put to the test this spring at Harvard Business School. There’s “a lot of anxiety and trepidation about the job market,” says Albert Choi, a second-year student now planning his own business.
For the past several months, speculation has swirled around the class of 2023 that as much as half of the 984 graduating students haven’t landed work. While it’s too early to know how many graduating MBAs will find jobs, sources—students, faculty and career advisers at other schools—describe anecdotally a final semester suffused with worry and a higher share of the class leaving school unemployed, at Harvard and beyond.
As their May 25 graduation approached, Choi and several classmates said they were surprised at how many peers had struggled to find jobs, at least those appealing to their passions. “Every time I’m at a dinner and we go around and ask who has jobs, it’s usually about half and half,” said Miriam Silton in early May. “I was at a brunch before exams. There were six of us—and three didn’t have jobs.”
In an emailed statement, Kristen Fitzpatrick, managing director of HBS’s career counseling office, suggested that students were prematurely nervous. “While it is still early in the process, we are encouraged by interest in the market in HBS graduates,” she said, adding that a better picture will emerge by summer’s end, “as our students often wait for the right opportunity.”
“Historical data,” she said, “shows us that our employment numbers don’t vary much year-to-year even in a down economy.” Harvard’s data indicates that in four of the past five years, 94% to 96% of graduating MBAs seeking employment received a job offer within three months of commencement. (In 2020, the share was 90%.)
But two longtime faculty members say that the job market for HBS grads is especially tough this year. “The HBS job market has always been cyclical,” says John Dionne, a senior lecturer in business administration. Not only are fewer companies recruiting for fewer positions, he says, but he knows of a few cases where companies rescinded offers.
“Typically, at this time of year—weeks before graduation—less than 10 percent of our graduating students are looking for jobs,” said Jeffrey Bussgang, a senior lecturer at the school and a partner at the venture firm Flybridge Capital, in an email. “Today, that figure is more like 30 percent. It is the worst hiring environment for our MBAs since 2009.” Harvard spokesman Mark Cautela says that over the last decade, typically about 80% of students have accepted offers by graduation.
And as goes Harvard, so goes the whole B-school universe. John Helmers, president of MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance, an association of B-school career counselors and corporate recruiters, says lean hiring in 2023 has dominated member conferences around the world. “The conversation was the same no matter big or small, high rank or lower rank,” he says, differentiating among schools. “It is obviously pervasive, at a macro level—there’s a lot of settling that still needs to take place.” He says students are resigned to “things happening that are out of their control. They’ve come through Covid, and now they see the ripple effects in the economy, and it’s another hit. They need to be resilient and flexible.”
In Cambridge, the first indications of trouble appeared last fall as the full-time recruiting season got underway. Tech companies—in recent years, among the top three destinations for HBS graduates—largely withdrew from recruiting. Varun Annadi, who’d come to Harvard from Google, found to his surprise that he couldn’t even land an interview with his former employer. “And I had internal referrals and an excellent record of employment there,” he says.
Things looked no better in the finance industry, also among the top three fields sought out by HBS grads. Annadi points to a classmate who “worked in private equity before and has had, like, 20 interviews with various PE shops—all of whom have said they’re extremely talented, but they just aren’t hiring right now.”
The top echelon of the consulting industry—McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co.—is also a popular landing pad for Harvard grads. Known colloquially as “MBB” in Cambridge, the three firms primarily hire from their summer interns, but they also recruit additional graduating students—“dozens and dozens,” according to Bussgang—during the fall.
Not last fall. While Annadi was deciding whether to start his own company—and he since has—he also applied to all three firms: “I got rejected almost immediately.” Silton, who’s headed to Boston Consulting, says, “I don’t know anybody who got a full-time role with Bain or BCG who didn’t have an internship.” (McKinsey, which hired about twice as many students last fall than the year earlier, according to the firm’s partner in charge of global talent attraction, Blair Ciesil, appears to have been the outlier of the three, and it’s the only one to comment on its fall hiring for this story.)
Dionne says many students are looking to buy existing companies by tapping or organizing so-called search funds of wealthy investors. “I tell them they’re not going to be worth less to someone for going out and trying to find a business to own and run,” he says. “It’s exploiting your youth.”
Others are looking to start their own businesses, even though, as Annadi says, “the venture investing party is over.” Annadi is bootstrapping his company, Atomic, an AI-powered financial planning platform designed to be offered as an employee benefit. Choi, who before enrolling at Harvard worked with founders at Citybridge Education, a nonprofit that funds innovative education projects in Washington, DC, says starting a company “was never on my radar.” But in talks with prospective employers in the fall, he could sense that good jobs had grown harder to find. And with all the competition, he says, “even when you found those jobs, they would be harder to get.” A cocktail party conversation prompted Choi to dust off an idea for an app that makes restaurant recommendations as it learns about user preferences. “I’m giving myself about three months to find some initial early-stage funding and then, after that, about nine more months with some milestones along the way.”
Many of those who did land consulting jobs found that they wouldn’t begin working until next year. Cautela says the number of grads with delayed start dates “does not represent a large portion of the class.” Some are now seeking interim work, despite an exhortation from Bain, reported in the Wall Street Journal, to “go on an African safari or take a painting class!!” Silton, for one, is hoping to secure an eight-month gig at a young, growing company that she found through classmates. “It’s a little bit weird,” says Silton. “It’s not an internship—I'm going to be an MBA graduate. I want to be integrated with the team. But in a way, it’s an internship because it’s temporary. So how do I thread that needle?”
The elite consulting firms have sharply cut the number of summer internships on offer to the HBS class of 2024, according to Suzie Jiang, an incoming co-president of the student management consulting club. Historically, HBS students interested in consulting “only go to ‘MBB’ for internships, but this year—because things were so bad—a few students went to Tier 2 firms,” she says. “A lot of people didn't get an internship at all.” Instead, she says, many of those students are taking subsidized summer fellowships at the school’s entrepreneurship center.
John Dionne, who went through a similar experience when he graduated from HBS in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, counsels taking the long view. He eventually landed a senior role at Blackstone Inc. and today serves on several corporate boards. “The HBS job market has always been cyclical,” he says.
It may take years, but “ultimately the Harvard MBA finds their way,” Dionne says. “In 35 years, I haven’t met a Harvard MBA who didn’t ultimately get where they want to go or find a better place for themselves.”
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