As Baltimore-area business students watch the country’s top investment banks collapse and as the industry’s future grows increasingly grim, students are freaking out over employment prospects.
Three of the country’s five big investment banks — Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns — have been taken over, and the other two — Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs — have converted into bank holding companies regulated by the Federal Reserve. And while most citizens are worried as the economy stumbles and the market ricochets dramatically, students searching for a job in an industry in which the best and largest have failed are fretting even more.
“Our students have been apprehensive, absolutely,” said Elinda Kiss, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Some of them are going to rethink what their first jobs are going to be.”
Job offers are not coming in as early this year, and Kiss has seen a spike in the number of students coming to her during office hours, most seeking reassurance and advice.
For several years, Kiss has taken a group of business students to New York to meet with officials from Wall Street and build contacts or get internships. But this year, the major companies have not committed to a meeting with the students from the Smith school, one of the country’s top-ranked business schools.
The school is encouraging students to be more open to jobs in consulting and at smaller banks instead of having their heart set on the top: Wall Street companies.
“We’re encouraging students to really be open,” said Sharon Strange Lewis, managing director of the Smith school’s office of career and management. “We’re working with them one on one. We’re working with them just to position themselves to really be receptive to opportunities rather than a name brand.”
James Muench is one of Kiss’ students who interned this summer at Lehman Brothers, the firm recently bought by the British bank Barclays Plc. The 22-year-old business and economics major received a job offer in August, but after following the news each day about the meltdown of his potential employer, he has yet to decide whether to accept.
“There’s that level of uncertainty,” Muench said. “Even if I take the job, what’s going to happen in the future? So there’s that high level of risk.”
He added that more students were expanding their list of potential employers, looking to smaller, local companies and trying to be prepared for whatever opportunity may pop up.
“It makes me very nervous to think that when applying for a job, I could be up against someone who has already put in five years with one of the big companies, such as Lehman Brothers,” said Katelyn Wells, 20, a senior majoring in business administration at the University of Baltimore. “In all, it is very nerve-racking to see my future industry come apart like this.”
