The recent financial turmoil has turned many students away from careers on Wall Street-to seek for jobs on other streets. But while undergraduates face an open canvas of opportunities, students at the Fuqua School of Business might not have the same flexibility in their career searches.
Although the current financial crisis has diminished career opportunities in finance, the availability of jobs outside the field and Fuqua's reputation as a top-tier business school will lessen the impact of the crisis on its students, Fuqua administrators and professors said.
Campbell Harvey, the J. Paul Sticht professor of international business at Fuqua, said because the demand for qualified people with financial knowledge will still exist, students at first-rate business schools will see a noticeably smaller effect on their job searches than those from second-tier programs.
"It might take a little longer to get the job you really want. It might be that you have three rather than five job offers," he said. "[Those are] the effects for Duke students coming from a top [Masters for Business Administration] program."
Still, the economic downturn is affecting students' futures. Sheryle Dirks, associate dean for career management at Fuqua, wrote in an e-mail that even though it is too early to evaluate the exact nature and duration of the crisis's effects, some employers have decided to cancel recruitment plans or are choosing to make more last-minute hiring selections.
Sanjiv Prasad, a second-year MBA student studying finance, said he foresees companies being a lot more selective in hiring employees and interns. He added that he had already noticed companies hiring a smaller number of interns this summer, when the crisis was just bubbling and coming to a head.
Although Prasad received a full-time job offer from Morgan Stanley, his summer intern company, he noted that many of his peers who interned in finance over the summer did not get full-time offers from their respective companies.
Prasad said the current crisis has made him realize the benefits of medium-sized or specialized firms that are less susceptible to setbacks than bigger companies. It is now more likely for students to apply for jobs in smaller companies or management and consulting positions instead of using those prospects as back-ups, he added.
Harvey said he hopes the lack of opportunities across the country will encourage students to seek jobs abroad, and cited international financial hubs like Frankfurt, Germany, Zurich, Switzerland and various cities in Asia as places to consider job hunting.
"[Fuqua] has positioned itself as a globally distributed business school [with] campuses in different countries. This is exactly the way our students need to approach the job search," Harvey said. "They need to do what we do as a business school and look beyond the U.S."
In dealing with the varying effects of the crisis head-on, Fuqua has offered a number of services to help students and keep them aware of the situation at hand.
The Career Management Center at Fuqua has launched a "multi-pronged and comprehensive" response, including new approaches to preparing students for job searches, extending business development and a new on-campus recruiting model, Dirks said.
Harvey has also held several well-attended in-person and virtual town hall sessions where he answered questions posed by students regarding the crisis.
Yet despite diminishing career opportunities, the change in the economy has had no effect on the academic interests of Fuqua students, as many noted an increased interest in the subject of finance. Michael Brandt, professor of finance at Fuqua, said he had record-high enrollment in his finance class this term, which started Oct. 30.
"It just shows that people, from a curiosity standpoint, really want to learn what got us into this mess and what can get us out and how not to repeat it," said James McNamara, a second-year MBA student studying entrepreneurship and strategy.
Although employees and companies are still warily dealing with the aftereffects of the crisis, Harvey said he hopes financial companies will learn a lesson from the current sitution.
"In a way, this episode has taught us that the people who're doing the managing have failed to do their jobs," he said. "In the course that I teach, I have been highly critical of the risk management approach taken by [those companies for years].... You need students like mine to go out there and do this correctly."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.