If you think that an MBA from an elite business school, such as Harvard, will guarantee a good job, you are probably wrong. With organisations focused on hiring talent possessing specific or specialised technical skills in an automation and AI-driven post-pandemic era, candidates with generalist skills are not in demand. So what if they have an MBA from a prestigious institution.
On the Harvard Business School website, the recruitment/employment data for the class of 2024 shows that 70 per cent of the students sought employment and 85 per cent received an offer. While only 77 per cent accepted offers, a significant 30 per cent did not seek employment. This is because, 14 per cent were going the entrepreneurship way, while 13 per cent of the students were already employed or sponsored by companies. Job search has been postponed by one per cent, while three per cent have not landed jobs for other reasons.
Things have taken a turn for the worse. As per media reports, only about 10 per cent of the spring MBA graduates from Harvard were still unemployed in 2022, three months after graduating. However, the percentage of such hopefuls has grown to a whopping 23 per cent now. In fact, for the first time in over a decade, such a huge number of students remain jobless after completing an MBA.
Unemployment is not a problem limited to Harvard graduates alone. Students from other known institutions are also finding it difficult to land suitable jobs.
The unemployment rate in the US had gone up to 4.2 per cent in November of 2024, while it was 4.1 per cent in October 2024. The number of unemployed individuals rose by 1,61,000 to 7.145 million, while employment fell by 355,000 to 161.141 million.
