http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/04/24/the_call_of_wall_street/
The call of Wall Street
Credit crisis aside, MBAs are still graduating in droves and finding work
By Robert Weisman
Globe Staff / April 24, 2008
Despite the credit crisis that has devastated banks, crippled hedge funds, and thrown thousands of highly paid financial employees out of work, the lure of Wall Street is proving stronger than ever for graduate business students entering the workplace this spring.
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Financial services - buying and selling stocks, trading exotic investments, and doling out financial advice - remains the most popular destination for tens of thousands of US students earning master of business administration degrees this year, according to academic consultants, administrators, and business students themselves.
Many accepted job offers from banks, brokerage houses, or private-equity firms after summer internships last year. That was before the crisis triggered by subprime mortgage defaults emerged full-blown, sending markets into a tailspin and precipitating the fire sale of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. But among those toting freshly minted MBAs into the turbulent financial sector, there are few regrets.
"It's gotten more attractive," said Rob Daly, 26, an MBA candidate at Boston College's Carroll School of Management who plans to work as a financial consultant for investment bank Duff & Phelps. "Call me a contrarian. But when everybody starts talking about the subprime mortgage problems, maybe that's when they're winding down."
Brigitta Herzfeld, 30, who will collect her MBA from Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said she's comfortable with her decision to work for financial giant Goldman Sachs, advising wealthy clients on their personal investments. But she has no illusions that "wealth management" will be easy.
"It's going to be a hard first few years," Herzfeld said. "We're starting in a tough period. It will be harder to pull in new clients. But markets always go in cycles, so it will be nice to ride that full wave."
Even first-year MBA students, who will make their initial Wall Street forays during internships this summer, say they're confident that boom will follow bust and markets will rebound. "This is the perfect time," insisted Aurelien Pichon, 30, a French student at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "Once the corrections have been done and the strategies have been revised, everybody will ramp up again."
For now, Wall Street employers are scaling back. Financial firms plan to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs, the deepest cuts since the high-technology bust earlier in the decade. Citigroup Inc. recently disclosed it will pare 13,200 jobs, while Merrill Lynch & Co. said it will cut 4,000. And as many as half the 14,000 employees of Bear Stearns are expected to lose their jobs after the firm is absorbed into buyer JPMorgan Chase & Co. Even the vaunted Wall Street bonuses, long MBA bait, are vulnerable to the downturn.
But that's not deterring MBAs, typically a breed of ambitious Type A personalities, or the Wall Street firms that hire them.
"Financial services firms are always interested in talented MBAs," said Timothy Butler, senior fellow and director of career development programs at Harvard Business School in Boston. "And the retiring baby boomer generation will create a big need for knowledge workers in that industry. The firms have to balance their intermediate and long-term needs against the short-term financial crisis."
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So even as they lop off more expensive senior management jobs, the firms are eager to fill their pipelines in anticipation of better times ahead. Most recruit aggressively on business school campuses, and still dangle six-figure starting base salaries - higher than any field except management consulting - to MBAs at the elite schools.
"We need to continue to hire talent regardless of the market conditions today," said Sarah Quarterman, global head of campus recruiting for Merrill Lynch. "Our recruiting is focused on the market of the future. These students aren't going to be actively adding value till 2010. And by then today's market will probably be a distant memory."
"The prestige and opportunities associated with a Wall Street career will always be attractive," said Lauren Francis, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan. "And despite economic cycles, investment banks recognize the importance of maintaining a strong pipeline of talent."
While figures aren't yet available for the class of 2008, the share of MBA students entering financial services has been on the rise in recent years at leading business schools. The percentage reached a decade-high 44 percent at Harvard in 2007, the most recent year for which statistics have been published. In a survey of students at all full-time MBA programs last year, the Graduate Management Admission Council, an association of graduate business schools, found that 27 percent planned to seek jobs in finance, more than any other sector.
"Clearly, in the hierarchy of disciplines at business schools, finance is at the head of the class," said Tim Westerbeck, managing director at consulting firm Lipman Hearne Inc. in Chicago. "It's become the superior discipline in terms of how they define success. Wall Street, despite layoffs, still employs a lot of people. And the eternally optimistic MBA student doesn't see this as an opportunity that's going away."
Some educators think it might be healthy, however, for graduating business students to work in another field before entering venture capital or private equity - or instead of entering those fields.
"Get a real job," advised Howard Anderson, a Sloan School professor and former venture capitalist. "Think about taking a line job at a company where you're really needed. One of the things I tell my MBA students is get a job where you develop a skill set you can use your entire career. Then if you become a venture capitalist and companies ask you what to do, you'll know what you're talking about."
Still, for many students, Wall Street's attraction remains strong, even in a financial crisis. "I still think it's the place to be," said Matthew Vamvakis, 29, a first-year Tuck student who's interning this summer at JPMorgan's private wealth management business in New York. "And at this point in our careers, we're still the least expensive, highest value talent that Wall Street can get their hands on."
Twenty-nine-year-old Carroll School student Zamir Klinger, a former high-tech engineer, said he's looking forward to working as a mutual fund analyst for financial firm Eaton Vance Corp. in Boston. "I made a big switch from engineering to investments because this was what I wanted to do," he said. "This is a long-term career for me."
But business students might reassess their career choices in the future if conditions in the financial services industry continue to deteriorate - especially if Wall Street salaries start to decline and bonuses dry up - warned John A. Challenger, chief executive of Chicago consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
"The financial rewards have been so great there for many years," Challenger noted. "As the Wall Street firms try to protect their pipelines, one of the things we haven't seen yet is a sense that people are going to make a lot less money."
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.
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