Being on the student’s bench does not insulate MBA candidates from the reality of the job market. As a matter of fact, they may feel it more than many other graduate students, because the job search is an integral part of the “total MBA experience”. According to many accounts I read on internet, more than just a few students regard it even more important than their actual classroom experience. And it’s well known that job search for MBA students starts right after they survive the first semester and head into internship interviewing season at the end of January. From that point it is an incessant job search marathon permeating the whole life of an MBA student, that ends only with the job offer.
In regard to job opportunities for MBA graduates, and even many people with MBA degrees who had years of experience, year 2009 was often called outright brutal. This word was widely used by the media and by career centers representatives in business schools. Arguably it was the worst market for MBAs in decades. In about two years MBA graduates went from Hero, when they could cherrypick from multiple job offers, to Zero when many MBA-ers could not land any job even for months after graduation.
From the media and a few personal encounters with current MBA students last year I gathered the general mood among the second year students was pretty much “gloom and doom”. First year MBA students were cautiosly optimistic. They hoped that there was time for the economy and the job market to turn around by their graduation. I was starting my part-time MBA program at that time with exact same expectation, that by my graduation the MBA job market will be vibrant again. Granted, I have three years before graduating from a part-time MBA program, so I felt I had enough time cushion to ride off the bottom of the MBA job market.
Even though the current MBA job market is not highly relevant to me right now, still I have been keeping an eye on the hiring news. The first sign of change came when I read an article “MBA Job Outlook Improving” in Businessweek on February 3. I took a note, but did not make much out of it.
Then on February 19 another article in Businessweek Deloitte Consulting is Hiring read as follows: ”The big-name audit firm is awarding hundreds of jobs to established consultants as well as newly minted MBAs and undergrads’ That was interesting not by itself, but because it was a second article showing optimism in a short time span. Also, Deloitte hiring is most likely reflecting the trend in the industry. So, I took a closer note, and started to think what I could do out of it.
Today I received an email from the Career Center at GWU School of Business. The catch line “Professional MBAs your stock is rising!” The letter went on saying that the Center is receiving “increasing number of calls from employers interested in hiring”. So, may be there is something to this budding signs of improving hiring for MBAs. Now, I am listening. I hope it will continue that way and will be full-blown MBA hiring bonanza by my graduation 
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This is an interesting post. Thanks for the insight. Cheers!