Can Wall Street Stage An MBA Comeback?

Wall StreetMichael Crehan, the associate director of Graduate Business Career Services at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said he is seeing more students on his campus seriously considering jobs at banks.

For example, there are already ten students from the class of 2015 who have accepted jobs at institutions like Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Credit Suisse and M&T Bank. That’s already nearly double the number of students who went into banking from the class of 2014, he said.

WALL STREET TREKS DRAWING MORE MBA STUDENTS

In this environment, the treks are taking on greater weight and importance for students, especially those for whom it is their first exposure to Wall Street. Most recently, there has been more clarity into compensation, which has been on the upswing for finance jobs, Crehan said.

“For the class of 2015, the New York banks raised their compensation levels. I don’t think that is what drives people, but it certainly didn’t hurt because salaries were pat for a few years,” he said.

With the Wall Street trek season drawing to a close, students are now entering the next phase of their courtship with Wall Street, which means flying down to New York nearly every weekend through the holidays to meet with bankers. At some schools that will translate into students missing their 4:00 p.m. Thursday classes as they scramble to catch a 5:00 p.m. plane departing to New York. Competition is fierce as students compete for bankers’ time along with students from other top programs who are flying down from Chicago or Durham, said Tait, the Ross student who organized last year’s trek and the former president of Ross’ Finance Club.

“Most people who are interested in Wall Street will overweight recruiting versus academics in those situations,” Tait said.

Scott DeRue, the associate dean for executive education at Ross, used to teach a core leadership class to first-year MBA students, where he said he saw this play out first-hand. One Thursday in November last fall, nearly 40 students missed class because they needed to be in New York City. Another time, a student nearly in hysterics begged him to switch the date of a final exam so she could make a social mixer in New York, he said.

“The sad reality is that students feel powerless. If there’s a social outing in New York, they have to go,” DeRue said. “There’s a dark side to these treks and what students need to go through to get on the short list for these investment banks.”

DON’T MISS: STANFORD MBAS SHIFT AWAY FROM TECH TO FINANCE or WALL STREET GAINS AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

 

 

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