What's Your Story Idea? June 15, 2009, 3:18PM EST

MBA Tales: Searching for Work in a Recession

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The idea for "MBA Tales: Searching for Work in a Recession" came from BusinessWeek reader T.S. Aditya Raghav, who will start his MBA at IESE in Spain this fall.

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She began talking with a contact who worked at General Electric (GE) whom she had met earlier in the year through the same Sustainable Enterprise Program where she had found her internship. She didn't know if GE had a position for her, but figured it couldn't hurt to continue the conversation. At worst they could recommend her to someone in the industry who did have an opening.

Over the next six months, the talks with GE became serious until finally, in April, she was offered a position in the company's renewable energy leadership program. In August 2002 she began a three-year stint at GE Wind Energy. She left GE to become a project manager for Horizon Wind Energy, a subsidiary of Spain's EDP Renováveis (EDPR), a global renewable energy company. Today she remains in the renewable energy sector as a development director at Clipper Windpower.

Part of Narang's current role is recruiting new talent, and the qualities she looks for in a hire are the same ones she used to find her needle in the haystack. "I'm impressed by candidates who are sincere about their enthusiasm for the company and the industry and have spent the time really getting to know it," she says. "Focusing specifically on what they are interested in will help them to develop an in-depth perspective that potential employers will value."

THE NETWORK ADVANTAGE

It may be good advice, no doubt, to develop a focus, but in many cases who you know is just as important as what you know. Just ask Eli Murphy.

It had been a year since Murphy graduated with his MBA from Georgetown's McDonough School of Business (McDonough Full-Time MBA Profile) in the spring of 2002, and he was still looking for a job. "I don't think I could have gone much longer," he says. True, he didn't have student loan debts like many of his classmates, thanks to a tuition grant he received because his father was on the law school faculty, but the pressure of being without full-time work was getting to him. Enter his family physician. "I went in for a physical, and the doctor and I got to talking," Murphy says. "I told him that I was looking for work and what I was looking for. He told me he had a number of patients at the Corporate Executive Board (EXBD) and that I might consider checking it out."

Murphy did just that, and was impressed with the company, which provides executive education programs. He submitted his résumé and, soon after, was hired. He has now been at the Corporate Executive Board for six years and is currently senior director of content delivery. Sure, he credits his MBA for preparing him for the job, but it was his connections that got him in the door. "You'll have better success finding jobs through who you know than what you know," Murphy says. "The people I know who find jobs the fastest tend to be the ones who take advantage of the network and who aren't afraid to ask people to take a look at their résumé."

For these five members of the Class of 2002, the job search was much different than expected, but with focus, flexibility, patience, and a little luck, each was able to find the position they were looking for. It just took a them a little longer.

If there's one thing the MBA Class of 2009 can take from the experiences of the 2002 grads, says Haas alum McNally, it's that nothing's forever. "It definitely can get frustrating, but the group of people we're talking about are the lucky ones," he says. "It may not feel that way right now, but anyone that's had access to a great education is in a good spot. Things will work out eventually."

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Gloeckler is a staff editor for BusinessWeek in New York.