Companies begin to freeze and rescind MBA internship and job offers [LIST]
This article was originally featured on PoetsAndQuants.com.
It was only a matter of time. But with global markets in flux, unemployment claims reaching record levels, and all signs pointing toward an impending recession amid the spread of coronavirus, MBA hiring could already be slowing down, according to a leaked accounting of the MBA job market obtained by Poets&Quants.
The document — dated March 26th from the Graduate Career Services office of a top U.S. business school — provides a sobering view of what is to come when MBA students end their spring terms and pour into the job market. Among hiring updates for 116 major companies, many of them mainstream recruiters of MBAs, 40 already have reported some form of freeze, cancellation, or rescinding of internship or job offers. According to the document, the info gathered is based on what employers are reporting to this school and “other top MBA programs.”
Companies from industries largely impacted by the spread of COVID-19, especially transportation, hospitality, and professional sports — have been most impacted. Delta Airlines has implemented a hiring freeze. JetBlue has also put a freeze on hiring, according to the document. Mariott, meanwhile, is rescinding internship offers. NBC Sports and at least one Major League Baseball team have put a hiring freeze or canceled internships. Ticketing companies such as Fandango and StubHub are also on the list of freezing hires or rescinding internship offers.
EVEN FACEBOOK IS CANCELING INTERVIEWS FOR INTERNSHIPS
While many major MBA recruiters, including Google, Amazon, BCG, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and others, have not reported any hiring impacts so far, several other major employers of MBAs have. AB inBev has reportedly put a freeze on hiring, as has Adobe, Visa and Wipro. Disney put internships and job offers on hold but have not yet canceled them. Facebook and Johnson & Johnson is also reportedly canceling interviews for summer internships. LEK Consulting is actually rescinding internship offers and may also delay the start of MBA hires who have already accepted offers.
As of last week, officials of at least a few schools reported seeing little to no impact on hiring from the spread of coronavirus, even though many officials privately worried that the market could collapse (see This Year’s MBA Job Market: How Bad Will It Get?). After all, at the worst of the Great Recession, some MBA grads who headed to Wall Street not only found themselves out of their new jobs. Some even had to return the signing bonuses given to them by the investment banks and money management firms they joined. The recession-ravaged MBA Class of 2009 may offer a guide for what to expect, though it could be worse: At the top ten business schools, MBA employment rates at graduation dropped an average of 21% from 2007, according to an analysis by Poets&Quants. At the next 15 highly ranked schools, the drop was even steeper: 23%.
The MBA students who are most at risk right now are those who have not yet accepted or landed a full-time job. While some employers will almost certainly pull back their offers—and at Stanford one student told Poets&Quants that he had already heard of classmates in that category—most employers will likely honor their commitments. Oddly, some of the big brand business schools could bear the brunt of the downturn. That’s because at such schools as Harvard and Stanford, a larger percentage of MBA students tend to look outside the mainstream for jobs—in startups, early-stage companies, private equity shops, and VC firms that do not hire many MBAs and tend to be off-cycle in their MBA hires.
INTERNSHIP OFFERS ARE ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE
Just look at last year’s employment rates at graduation for Stanford and Harvard: 67.5% and 77.3%, respectively. For the Class of 2019, one of the best MBA job markets ever, those are very low MBA job rates. They reflect self-confident graduates who have targeted employment in companies that do not bring in many interns who return to campus in September with a job offer already in hand. At HBS, only an average of 38% of the students convert their internships into full-time jobs. At many other schools, the conversion rate is well over 50%. Back in 2007, two years before the Great Recession vacuumed up lots of jobs in 2009, 93.5% of Stanford MBAs and 94.3% at Harvard had jobs at graduation.
Also vulnerable right now are internship offers to MBA students. As one veteran career management official tells Poets&Quants, “The short-term impact will be on internships,” says the source. “Internships are where companies can pull back pretty easily. It happened in ’01 and ’08 because you can always find employees to work on short-term projects. Why pay MBAs to do that?” Managing interns at a time of significant challenge is also considered a drain on resources. And students who do manage to hold on to their internships may see fewer full-time job offers come from them.
At the moment, the hiring outcome is changing rapidly from only a few days ago when some schools had not yet heard of many cutbacks. “From the information I have at this point, I have not heard anything regarding the spread of coronavirus impacting full-time or internship positions for our Georgetown McDonough business majors,” said Talia Schatz, director of the Undergraduate Career Development Center at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, last week. Schatz said she had seen no internship or job offer cancellations.
“Not yet,” Schatz added. “I think companies are trying to make sure their employees are safe and transitioning to teleworking and virtual offices right now. So no word yet if employers are starting to rescind offers, defer start dates, etcetera. As of now, I have not received any communication — or even fear of that happening — from any of my students.”
CREATING NEW WAYS OF INFORMING AND COACHING STUDENTS
But schools are aware it’s a possibility and are doing what they can to stay ahead of it. According to Abby Scott, the assistant dean of Career Management at the University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business, her office has set up a few new Slack channels to monitor the situation and keep “information flowing to and from students.”
“So far, we have been able to crowdsource and share some timely positive news about interviewing continuing virtually and job offers still coming in,” Scott says. “We know the situation is very fluid so a channel like Slack has been an effective new tool for us.”
Akin to McDonough, Scott says they continue to keep in touch with employers as everyone adjusts to remote work and are also offering virtual services to students.
This article was originally featured on PoetsAndQuants.com.
COVID-19's Impact on MBA Hiring
These 40 companies have reported disruptions to recruiting and hiring, according to a document from a top U.S. business school obtained by Poets&Quants.
Company | Status |
---|---|
AB inBev | Freeze |
Adobe | Hiring freeze/expect internships to move forward |
American Airlines | Accepted offers are still valid |
Back Country | Rescinding intern + FT |
Cisco | Interns delayed |
Cook | Freeze |
DaVita | Freeze |
Delta | Freeze |
Disney | Holding but not cancelled |
Experian | Internships cancelled |
Internship interviews cancelled | |
Fandango | Internship paused/hiring freeze |
Glassdoor | Freeze |
Hasbro | Freeze |
Herff Jones | Freeze |
Hulu | Rescind/internship program paused |
IMAX | Canceling internship |
Intel | Under review |
J&J | Summer internship cancelled |
JetBlue | Freeze - honoring current offers but no new hiring |
L'Oreal | Talent Management Program on hold |
LEK | Rescinding internship offers/May also delay full-time start dates |
Mariott | Rescinding internship offers |
McChrystal Group | Postponing offers indefinitely |
MLB - Washington Nationals | Internship cancelled |
NBC Sports | Hiring freeze |
NVIDIA | Hiring freeze |
Plug n Play | Hiring freeze |
Roku | Canceling internship/hiring freeze |
Sephora | Cancelled internship |
Simon Kucher | Hiring freeze |
Sony | Some hiring/paused internship recruiting |
StubHub | Rescinded |
Sysco | Internship cancelled |
Toast | Rescind |
Varsity Tutors | Rescinding internship offers |
Wasserman | Hiring freeze |
Wipro | Hiring freeze |
Yelp | Internship cancelled |
ZipRecruiter | Canceling internship |
Get the data Created with Datawrapper
This article was originally featured on PoetsAndQuants.com.
Corporate Hiring Plans For MBA 2020 Interns & Graduates
So far, most corporate recruiters are holding the line on their internship and full-time job offers. But several have either frozen their hiring plans or even plan on rescinding offers already made
Company | Current Status* |
---|---|
A&E | Business as usual |
AB inBev | Freeze |
Abbott | Business as usual |
Accenture | Business as usual |
Adobe | Hiring freeze/expect internships to move forward |
Amazon | No changes as of now; still hiring and giving offers. |
American Airlines | Accepted offers are still valid. |
Amgen | Business as usual |
Amphenol | Business as usual |
AT Kearney | Business as usual |
AT&T | Rescind |
Back Country | Rescind - intern + FT |
Bain | Business as usual |
Bank of America | Business as usual |
Barclays | Business as usual |
BCG | Internship program to go forward |
BofA | Business as usual |
Capital Group | Business as usual |
Chartis Group | Business as usual |
Cisco | No changes, interns delayed |
Citi | Business as usual |
Citi Consumer Banking | Business as usual |
Cook | Freeze |
Credit Suisse | Business as usual |
DaVita | Freeze |
Dell | Business as usual |
Deloitte | Business as usual |
Delta | Freeze |
Delta Partners | Business as usual |
Discover | Business as usual |
Discovery | Business as usual |
Disney | Holding but not cancelled |
Ecolab | Business as usual |
Eli Lilly | Business as usual |
Epson | Business as usual |
Evercore | Business as usual |
Experian | Internships cancelled |
EY | Business as usual |
Business as usual/internship interviews cancelled | |
Fandango | internship paused/hiring freeze |
Fortive | Business as usual |
Companies | Hiring Status* |
---|---|
Fred Alger | Business as usual |
Gartner | Business as usual |
GE | Business as usual |
Genentech | No changes as of now |
General Mills | Business as usual |
General Motors | Business as usual |
Glassdoor | Freeze |
Goldman Sachs | Business as usual |
Business as usual | |
Guggenheim | Business as usual |
H&M | Business as usual |
Hasbro | Freeze |
HEB | Internship program to go forward |
HelloFresh | Business as usual |
Herff Jones | Freeze |
Houlihan Lokey | Business as usual |
Hulu | Rescind/internship program paused |
IBM | Business as usual |
IDEO.org (not IDEO.com) | Rescind |
IMAX | Canceling internship |
intel | Under review |
IU Health | Business as usual |
J&J | Summer internship cancelled |
JetBlue | Freeze- honoring current offers but no new hiring |
JP Morgan | Business as usual |
Kalypso | Programs under review |
Kearney | Business as usual |
KPMG | Business as usual |
L'Oreal | Talent Management Program on hold |
LEK | Rescinding internship offers/May delay FT start dates |
Liberty Mutual | Business as usual |
Mariott | Rescinding internship offer |
Mattel | Business as usual |
McChrystal Group | Postponing offers indefinitely |
McKinsey | Business as usual |
Microsoft | Business as usual |
MLB-Washington Nationals | Internship canceled |
Moelis | Business as usual |
NBC Sports | Hiring freeze |
NBCU | Business as usual |
Nike | Business as usual |
NVIDIA | Hiring freeze |
Pacific Life | Business as usual |
PayPal | Business as usual |
Piper Sandler | Business as usual |
PJT Partners | Business as usual |
Pug n Play | Hiring freeze |
Company | Status* |
---|---|
Prudential | Business as usual |
PwC | Business as usual |
Qualtrics | Business as usual |
Richemont | Business as usual |
Roku | Canceling internship/hiring freeze |
Salesforce | Business as usual |
Sephora | Cancelled internship |
Sequoia Consulting Group, NY | Cancelled internship |
Simon Kucher | Hiring freeze |
Sony | Some hiring/Paused Internship Recruiting |
StubHub | Rescinded |
Sysco | Internship canceled |
Toast | Rescind |
Business as usual | |
Universal Music | Business as usual |
Varsity Tutors | rescinding intern offers |
Visa | Hiring freeze |
VMware | Business as usual |
Walmart | Business as usual |
Warner Media | depends on department |
Wasserman | Hiring freeze |
Wayfair | Business as usual |
Wipro | Hiring freeze |
Wonderful | GCS is reaching out for update |
yelp | Internship canceled |
Zillow | Hiring freeze |
ZipRecuiter | Canceling internship |
ZS Consulting | Business as usual |
Prudential | Business as usual |
PwC | Business as usual |
Qualtrics | Business as usual |
Richemont | Business as usual |
Roku | Canceling internship/hiring freeze |
Salesforce | Business as usual |
Sephora | Cancelled internship |
Sequoia Consulting Group, NY | Cancelled internship |
Simon Kucher | Hiring freeze |
Sony | Some hiring/Paused Internship Recruiting |
StubHub | Rescinded |
Sysco | Internship canceled |
T oast | Rescind |
Business as usual | |
Universal Music | Business as usual |
Varsity Tutors | rescinding intern offers |
Visa | Hiring freeze |
VMware | Business as usual |
Walmart | Business as usual |
Warner Media | depends on department |
Wasserman | Hiring freeze |
Wayfair | Business as usual |
Wipro | Hiring freeze |
Wonderful | GCS is reaching out for update |
yelp | internship canceled |
Zillow | Hiring freeze |
ZipRecuiter | Canceling internship |
ZS Consulting | Business as usual |
Source: Poets&Quants Get the data Created with Datawrapper