Finding A Job May 26, 2009, 10:21AM EST

MBA Jobs: For Some, a Waiting Game

Some companies are now asking graduating MBAs to delay their start dates for months, and many students are expecting the worst

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For this year's MBA grads, "no" seems to be the answer to everything. No offers. No jobs. No internships. No call-backs. No interviews. Thanks, but no thanks. For those lucky students who already have an offer in hand, even yes comes with a no attached: Not yet.

In recent weeks, cash-strapped employers who have made firm offers have begun delaying start dates for MBA hires, mainly in service-based industries such as consulting, but also in more isolated instances at companies in industries ranging from consumer products to electronics.

Three- to Six-Month Delays

And it's not only new MBA grads who are facing delays. "We've had a couple of companies say to our interns: 'Can you start a couple of weeks later?' " says Jeffrey M. Fischer, director of the MBA Career Management Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School (Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Profile).

The delays for post-graduate permanent positions are usually anywhere from three to six months. Some companies such as Deloitte, which has confirmed delayed start dates for a handful of new MBA hires in its consulting practice, are providing graduates with partial compensation. Others are giving them an up-front signing bonus and even health benefits, while still others are offering little more than a handshake and a promise, leaving many wondering if the jobs will exist three or six months down the road.

With no money coming in, they're also wondering how they'll get by. One 28-year-old student at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile) had her start date with a global beverage company pushed back from just after Labor Day to January 2010. All she got was a relocation payment, and she won't get her signing bonus until 30 days after she starts. As a result, she'll may need to move in with her parents to make ends meet. "I really need that money now," she says, "not in six months."

"Assume You Don't Have a Job"

Like many graduates who told BusinessWeek about their delayed offers, this MBA insisted on anonymity for herself and the company, saying she feared alienating her potential future employer. BusinessWeek contacted all the companies that reportedly delayed start dates for these hires; all but Deloitte were unwilling to discuss them or provide details.

For graduates, delayed start dates create a dilemma: How do they stay on the good side of their intended employer while still hedging their bets to make sure they end up with some kind of paying job? Some have taken short-term opportunities at other employers, while others are secretly looking for other jobs, and still others are working for their future employers without pay until their official start date, just to keep their foot in the door.

Career counselors are advising students who have delayed start dates to seek temporary work to pay the bills and quietly pursue other positions so they can hit the ground running if their hoped-for job disappears. Some are less hopeful than others. Harry Kraemer, a former Baxter (BAX) CEO and current Kellogg professor, advised MBAs at a recent panel discussion at Kellogg to treat the offers as nonexistent and hope to be proven wrong. "If your start dates get pushed back," he told them, "just assume you don't have a job."

Pushing back start dates during dips in the economic cycle is not unheard of. In fact, employers have been known to delay start dates in every economic downturn, most recently in 2002.