Thanks to the credit crunch, dire predictions about the global economy are barely out of the headlines and bank after bank announces billions in losses and possible redundancies. While enrolling on a prestigious MBA course is one way to ride out a dip in the economy, what is the jobs market like for MBA students who will graduate this year and are looking for a job right now?

It’s business as usual for many London Business School (LBS) students who were offered jobs after successful summer internships in the relative calm of last year. Those with offers from financial institutions have not had them rescinded but there are signs that recruitment by investment banks is weakening in traditional areas, including sales and trading, says Lara Berkowitz, the associate director for finance careers at LBS. In contrast to very strong recruitment on campus in the autumn – across all sectors – when some big banks returned in the spring, the areas that they had been recruiting in had diversified into private wealth management and asset management.

Elsewhere the financial jobs market is pretty robust, Berkowitz says, as recruitment in private equity, corporate and commercial banking and hedge funds is still going strong. If anything, this year’s MBA graduates looking for a career in finance could be the lucky ones. “There’s always a little bit of a trickle-down effect so we’re . . . bracing for what is going to happen next year,” Berkowitz says.

Simon Tankard, the head of the careers service at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, is “cautiously quite positive” about prospects. Despite reports of job offers being rescinded by some banks, and companies generally being more selective, there are opportunities for talented and proactive students, he says.

“We [hear] very positive reports about institutions needing to continue recruiting through the recessionary climate because the short-termism of what they have done in the past has not worked well for them later,” he says.

Goldman Sachs is one investment bank that intends to take a long-term view on recruitment, says Sarah Crawford, its head of graduate recruitment for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The bank intends to honour the offers that it has made to MBA students but the answer for next year is wait and see. “We will look closely at the markets and our hiring needs,” she says. “No matter which way things turn, we will keep a steady pipeline of MBAs coming through.

“We tend to hire about 50 interns into investment banking, securities, private wealth and merchant banking – and we don’t expect to see a significant drop-off.”

James Platt, the head of MBA recruitment at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), can offer some reassurance to those set on a career in consultancy. The firm is recruiting at the same levels this year, he says. “Our need to bring people in is somewhat independent of any short-term ups and downs in the market. MBAs are absolutely core to what we do.”

But competition is even fiercer, Platt says, as candidates with a background in investment banking and from other consultancies are now applying to BCG. “The impression I get from the CVs I am seeing is that we are seen, perhaps, as being quite safe and therefore we are getting increased applications and broader applications,” he says.

This message is in tune with another favourite destination for MBA graduates – the consultancy Bain & Company. “Bottom line, we are still hiring,” says Nick Greenspan, a partner and its head of European recruitment. Talent is a scarce resource so the firm is always on the lookout for the right people, he says. “If there is a change, it’s that we now see more applicants from nonMBA students. We see more applicants from industry.”

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