Even Harvard M.B.A.s are struggling to land jobs

Landing a professional job in the U.S. has become so tough that even Harvard Business School says its M.B.A.s can't solely rely on the university's name to open doors anymore.

- Lindsay Ellis

Twenty-three percent of job-seeking Harvard M.B.A.s who graduated last spring were still looking for work three months after leaving campus. That share is up from 20% the prior year, during a cooling white-collar labor market; the figure was 10% in 2022, according to the school.

"We're not immune to the difficulties of the job market," said Kristen Fitzpatrick, who oversees career development and alumni relations for HBS. "Going to Harvard is not going to be a differentiator. You have to have the skills."

Harvard isn't the only elite business school where recent grads seem to be stumbling on their way into the job market. More than a dozen top-tier M.B.A. programs, including those at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Stanford's Graduate School of Business and New York University's Stern School of Business, had worse job-placement outcomes last year than any other in recent memory.

Most M.B.A.s from top schools end up with good-paying jobs, and school officials say they have an edge in the white-collar job market. But the three-month figure is closely watched because it signals hiring demand for corporate climbers in high-wage fields and it usually gives schools a statistic to woo young professionals into investing in a management degree.

Ronil Diyora, from Surat, India, received his M.B.A. from the University of Virginia's top-ranked Darden School of Business last spring, aiming to change careers from manufacturing operations to technology. Diyora, 30, said he has applied to at least 1,000 jobs so far and attends networking meetups in San Francisco, but wonders if he was naive about changing industries. Graduates who need visa sponsorship by employers accepted jobs at lower rates than American students at several programs, school data show.