I went to the Mardi Gras Career Fair on Tuesday. While geared mostly towards undergrads, I was able to make a few good connections. Whomever said, “You get a lot of no’s but it only takes one yes,” is right on the money.
This is a tough time to be entering the job market. An informal survey of my class showed about half of them don’t have a job. This is below last year’s class, I believe they were at 60% this time last year. It’s even worse for the Masters of Finance folks. The MFIN program is a one year program geared exclusively towards finance. Most/all of these students are basically 5 year seniors: they did their undergrad degrees at Tulane and are getting a masters in finance after one year. There’s about 40 kids in this year’s MFIN class. 3 have jobs. No, that’s not a typo, three out of forty have jobs.
Justin, one of my classmates, emailed me with his thoughts on the Career Fair. Justin writes:
Overall I think the career fair was a good event if you were an undergrad, but it definitely wasn’t geared for MBA’s. While several of the employers at the career fair did hire for advanced degrees, the great majority of them were there for undergrads, and when I mentioned I was an MBA they directed me toward their company’s website. I did manage to get a few business cards and will be in contact with some of the recruiters I spoke with, so I’ll let you know how that goes when I find out.
As soon as you sign in for the fair they give you a booklet with the name of all the employers and what degree they are looking for as well as what program/position they are looking to specifically recruit for, if any. I think it would be helpful if this information was on the fair website and you could look at it prior to attending the event. I know it would have saved me a couple of hours of my time.
Thanks, Justin! My experience was similar, irrespective I’d go again. Any opportunity to network, meet people in your field of interest and make contacts that can help you later on down the line is a good one. Of the interviews I’ve had thus far, only one of them was attained without the help of my personal network. Every other job interview I’ve had has been due to who I know first, what I know second. Maybe it’s the second part that’s hurting me???
Have a great weekend, I’ll be hunting the jobis-maximus.
Joel Yarmon
3 responses so far ↓
Prospective MFin students // Apr 11, 2008 at 10:47 am
I got admitted to the MFin program recently and am trying to get some information about the current and previous MFin class’ placements, from the reading of this blog it seems the outlook is quite bleak, but its nearyly 3 months old, so whats the update? I would really appreciate any response.
Musaab Javed
joel // Apr 11, 2008 at 11:45 am
I spoke with an MFIN two days ago. He’s still jobless, and estimates that about 50% of his class is in the same boat. This is a pretty unique time to be looking for a job: 80k jobs lost last month, 65k the month before, the Bear fallout, the dollar’s weakening, etc. Bottom line: it’s gonna take a while to find a job.
Musaab // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:17 am
So this won’t be good time for an international student to come to tulane and get an MFIN? because I am guessing I will most likely to have to go back since it would be very hard to land a job. and joel one more thing if you could answer, realistically how good is the MFIN degree and I mean placement/career wise, is it worth what it costs, do employers know well enough about it. I am sorry for asking you such pointed but I have no other avenue.
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