Recession Grads' Survival Tips

Downturns are part of the business cycle. MBAs who graduated in past recessions say there are ways to make them work

by Alina Dizik

For MBAs entering the job market in the coming months, this is an anxious time. Employers are turning cautious, and some economists are saying a recession may have already begun.

While self-focused grads may think they're the first and only people to face a challenging job market, they're not, of course. The U.S. economy went into recession from July, 1990, to March, 1991, and from March to November, 2001, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. MBAs who entered the job market during those downturns have seen the valleys and peaks, and remind fresh graduates to retain some perspective.

When Jeremy FitzGerald graduated from Columbia Business School in May, 1990, she remembers "the markets were about to fall off the cliff." Despite the recession, FitzGerald took a job on Wall Street, where she ended up doing advisory work for banks affected by the real estate downturn. "It was so acute that a month into the job, I was reporting to the board of directors," recalls FitzGerald. Another shake-up happened before the 2001 recession, and the headcount at FitzGerald's firm shrunk by 75%. Again she "was left standing, picking up a lot of the work." Nowadays, FitzGerald is a managing director at Capital Trust (CT).

FitzGerald points out that expansion and contraction are natural cycles. "It always feels uncomfortable, but you get some perspective on it once you've been through it a few times," she explains, adding that the tougher adjustment from B-school to work can turn into a good learning opportunity.

The Value of Networking

How do you do that? For one, previous recession grads say current students shouldn't rely solely on career placement services. B-school recruiting gets tougher in a downward economy because companies hire later—often on an as-needed basis. Instead, use all the networking skills you've built up over the years.

Todd Gemmer, a 2001 grad from UCLA's Anderson School of Management, says that for him it was especially tough in the tech industry where he wanted to work. "I left a good-paying job, paid a lot of money to go to school for two years, and left with debt and not a lot of great prospects," he recalls. To land a job as a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley (MS), Gemmer reconnected with an old classmate he met while completing his undergrad at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. "It really made me appreciate the value of the networks I had built," says Gemmer, who remains satisfied with his career move.

Timing Career Switches

Others recommend grads keep their career leaps small, instead of making a total career switch. Martin Doyle, a 2002 grad from Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, says he found a position by switching from R&D to the corporate side of a biotech company during the last recession. "It would have been great to move into work for a winery, but when positions are limited you have to put down some of those pipe dreams," says Doyle, who now works in business development at Applied Biosystems.