MBAs: Uncle Sam Wants You

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She's now living in Lesotho, a small country in Africa advising the country's ministry of health on the efficiency of HIV/AIDS programs through the Clinton Foundation. The program pays "literally half as much" as some of the offers she received from mainstream consulting companies, but she hopes the experience will set her up for an ever more influential, better paying position in the future. Still, she said, in her B-school days she had imagined working in Washington when she graduated, not living in Africa in a house surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire and a guard keeping watch at night.

An Odd Couple

Government and nonprofit jobs typically aren't as glamorous as those in private industry, and public sector hires can bid farewell to their dreams of riding on the corporate jet. A few jobs listed on the federal jobs Web site include finance director for a sculpture garden, accountant for the Army Corps of Engineers, and bankruptcy analyst for the U.S. Trustee Program in Greenbelt, Md. Other federal agencies are seeking accountants, tax examiners, auditors, and budget and financial analysts. At the nonprofits, there are also a wide array of roles for MBAs. Many smaller nonprofits have only one employee with a business education, and that person often handles all the organization's finances.

Public sector jobs are in especially high demand as a wave of baby-boomer retirement hits the federal government. With more than 200,000 new government jobs expected as part of President Obama's economic stimulus plan, the number of positions available to MBAs and others is sure to grow. The government bailout of banks, and the regulatory push that's sure to follow, both represent real opportunities for MBAs. "Somebody's got to redesign the governmental rules of the financial market and someone has to oversee the redistribution of the government funds," says Jeannette Frett, assistant dean and director of MBA career services at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, where student interest in nonprofits and government is up 50% this year. "It's an opportunity for those who were interested, and continue to be interested in pursuing careers on the financial side."

Because MBA graduates and government or nonprofit positions are not a typical match, connecting students and recruiters poses more of a challenge than it does for companies that base their hiring cycles on the academic year. While several federal agencies make the occasional campus visit, much of the impetus for finding government jobs falls on the shoulders of the applicant.

"The federal government is a terrible recruiter, that's the bottom line," said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group which promotes federal employment. Of course, some agencies are better than others. The intelligence community is proactive, Stier says, as is NASA, and the Labor Dept. has an MBA fellowship program, but these are the exceptions to the rule. Most government recruiting takes place on the only official federal recruiting site, USAJobs.gov.

In dark times, though, sifting through search results on USAJobs.gov, doesn't seem like much of an obstacle. Career services directors, too are making an extra effort to connect with nonprofits and government, as they continue to be relatively unaffected by the hiring slump. More schools than ever are signing up for the Partnership for Public Service's "Call to Serve" training, aimed at demystifying the government application process and other campuses are setting up their own nonprofit and government recruiting workshops.

Rebecca Joffrey, co-director of career development at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, said that for the first time she would be heading down to Washington to learn more about government jobs by talking with alumni in high-level government positions. Even after the financial crisis is over, she hopes that the new, stronger connection between business schools and nonprofits and government persists. Jennifer Brooks, senior associate director of the career management center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, says she thinks a wider array of career options may be MBA students' silver lining in the financial crisis.

"(Students) want jobs where they can make an impact," Brooks said. "And they want jobs. That's No. 1."

Anne VanderMey is a B-schools writer at BusinessWeek.