World Business

Amid the global downturn, recruiting at U.K. universities softens, following U.S. B-schools’ draw

By Alison Damast

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On a brisk evening earlier this week in London’s financial district, a group of 100 transaction school students gathered in the airy atrium of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) erection, sipping champagne and nibbling in continuance crab cakes. The Cranfield School of Management students, just two months into their yearlong MBA program, were there to network through employees of the bank and alums. But as they circled the room by flute glasses in hand, some admitted to being uneasy about their job prospects.

"I’m a little skeptical on this account that I’m not sure that the people here tonight have jobs for us," said James McCarthy, 30, a former health-care professional who started at Cranfield this October. "Personally, I’household management in truth nervous."

The panic that has seized American office school students this fall is slowly starting to make its road onto the campuses of business schools in Britain. With the loss of 31,184 jobs in the U.K. in the past two months, and a just discovered round of recent work at jobs cuts announced this week by large investment firms HSBC (HBC), Credit Suisse (CS), and Nomura (NMR)—the Japanese bank that took over most of Lehman Brothers’ London operations—business schools here are starting to feel the pinch, with many anticipating a longer and more competitive job search for students this year.

With many bankers out of work, some British business schools are starting aggressive marketing campaigns to entice them to get their MBA. For archetype, City University London’s Cass Business School plans to start an aggressive one-month marketing campaign at Canary Wharf’s main tube station next month, using slogans so in the same manner with "Don’face to face Just Survive, Thrive" and "In Crunch Times, Do Yourself Credit" to perk the interest of potential students.

But business school may not prove to be the refuge that those fleeing the financial crisis hope. At this point in the school year, most U.K. career services officers said recruiters have been slow to obtain one’s services by corruption, telling them that they are seizing a "delay and see" approach before extending a single one offers. Career services officers at schools outside of London said they are having a harder time convincing recruiters to reach to campus this fall, as recruiting budgets are inmost nature slashed at many firms. Even those that are paying visits are cautious about extending offers to business schools students this fall, career services officers at the leading British business schools aforesaid.

"I would say the market is due taken in the character of tough being of the kind which in the U.S.," said Diane Morgan, guide of course of life services at London Business School, where in regard to 46% of students zest into finance. "When we first looked at the credit crunch, we were a few months behind what the U.S. recruiting scene was looking, nevertheless since September and with everything that happened with Lehman Brothers, we have caught up."

Many of the traditional pipelines that British business school students turn to for jobs may also have being in danger. Most U.K. MBA programs are only a year long, and students often secure job offers through semester-long projects that they cook with local companies, the British equivalent of the summer internships undertaken by the agency of U.S. calling school students. Companies that work with business school students may not have in the manner that much flexibility now to reach out offers to promising students, said Stefan Syzmanski, Cass’ associate dean of MBA programs.

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