Important Takeaways:

• …a large number of 2023 M.B.A. graduates job searches have collided with a slowdown in hiring for well-paid, white-collar positions.
• An M.B.A. can cost more than $200,000 at a top school but typically pays off as a launchpad for a new, more lucrative career or the corporate leadership fast track. Many in the spring class of 2023 say they are still awaiting that payoff. These M.B.A.s entered the job market just as three sectors that heavily recruit them—consulting, tech and finance—hit downturns and put the brakes on hiring. Some graduates with consulting jobs have had their start dates pushed to later this year. Meanwhile, the number of openings in software development, marketing, banking and other professional fields has fallen from a year ago.
• At Harvard Business School, 20% of job-seeking 2023 M.B.A. graduates didn’t have one three months after graduation…
• At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, 18% didn’t, compared with 9% in 2021. About 13% of those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management didn’t have a job within three months, up from about 5% in 2021
• Employers are hiring more selectively than they did in recent years, often picking candidates with relevant experience over new graduates, according to alumni and career coaches.
• “I had no idea, a year later, I’d still be searching for full-time employment,” said 32-year-old AJ Edelman, who decided to pursue a Yale M.B.A. to ease his transition from a skeleton-racing career into a management role in technology. Hundreds of applications later, he estimates, he’s still looking.

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