Scant Pay Growth for Business Grads

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Indeed, those undergraduate business students who have managed to secure jobs consider themselves fortunate. Micah Potts, 23, a senior at the University of Oregon's Charles H. Lundquist College of Business landed a job as a financial developer at Precision Castparts (PCP) back in the fall, but he reckons that about 40% of his fellow business majors are still looking for positions. Not as many companies have come to campus to recruit this fall as in the past and some are cutting back on the number of offers, he said. "I know of lot of smart people doing finance who don't have jobs, so as far as it being rough out there, it totally is," Potts said.

Tougher Time to Graduate

Students who don't have jobs lined up are starting to feel anxious about their prospects, especially as they follow the media reports about the economy slipping into recession, said James Chang, director of career services at the Lundquist College of Business. "I think the one change is the number who watch the news, and they do bring the concern that, 'Gosh, I am graduating at a tougher time with fewer opportunities,'" Chang said. "It's more an anticipatory buzz of students worrying how this will affect them. It's not that we're necessarily seeing a big shift or change in the employment landscape."

At Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., students who have secured jobs by graduation will likely see salary levels on par with the median salary of last year's graduating class, which was $49,500, said Les Morrison, executive director of corporate relations. Postings on the school's job board were down about 15% in February from a year earlier but have picked up a bit in the past two months. The school is "somewhat more optimistic that we are going to at least come very close to what last year's numbers were in terms of the number of opportunities we are presenting," Morrison said.

Students in the midst of their job search now said they are being proactive in reaching out to employers in unconventional ways. Jessica Larsen, 22, a senior who is a business management major at Bentley, said she is looking for a marketing job at a nonprofit or financial firm but is extending her search beyond the school's job board. She is doing extensive networking, information interviews, and reaching out to alumni in her field, steps she feels will give her a leg up in the job market. She has applied for about nine jobs so far and is waiting to hear back. "I don't feel nervous at all. I understand it's different than it has been in the past, but I don't think it's a negative," Larsen said. "It's just made me more creative about how I go about finding a job. I'm definitely using it to my advantage."

Damast is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.