Many 2023 MBA Grads Still Struggling to Find a Job

Class of 2023 MBA grads are still struggling to find jobs nearly a year after graduation.

At Harvard Business School, only 86% of Class of 2023 job seekers received offers within 90 days—a significant slowdown compared to the 95% job placement rate for 2022 and 96% for 2021.

The slowdown isn’t only impacting Harvard. At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, only 89% of MBA grads had a job offer by the three-month mark—a drop from 93% in 2022.

“I had no idea, a year later, I’d still be searching for full-time employment,” AJ Edelman, a Yale MBA grad, tells The Wall Street Journal.

A SLOWDOWN IN HIRING

Like many 2023 MBA grads, Edelman has submitted hundreds of applications and is still looking for a job nearly one year after graduation.

That’s in large part due to the slowing of hiring in popular MBA industries, such as tech and consulting. At large consulting firms, such as Bain and Ernst & Young, start dates for new hires have been delayed as business remains slow. Tech companies, such as Meta, have pulled back on hiring and laid off thousands of workers as they seek to cut back on overspending from the pandemic.

“This year’s slow hiring market created unique dynamics as students with deferred start dates sought gap employment or alternative full-time roles,” Kristin Fitzpatrick, HBS’s managing director of MBA Career & Professional Development, tells P&Q.

While MBA grads are usually hired with little experience, Abigail Kies, head of the Yale School of Management’s career center, says companies are now much more selective in their hiring opting for candidates who can demonstrate relevant experience.

“The choices employers were making were more based on history and experience than has usually been the case for MBAs being hired,’ Kies says.

Even those with tech backgrounds—once considered ‘recession-proof’ careers—are now faced with an industry cutting thousands of jobs.

“Very quickly, the landscape started turning very, very grim,” Enrique Melendez, an engineer who graduated in May from UT’s MBA program, says. Melendez, who took on debt for the degree, says he is now living on savings and has cut his spending, such as on dining out and a gym membership.

Despite facing a tough economic reality, Melendez is hopeful that he’s better off with his MBA in the long run.

“Over the short term,” he says, “it’s been really painful to have to go through this.”

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Daily Mail, P&Q, Business Insider, Nerd Wallet

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