Unemployed US graduates go overseas

At Wharton, for example, approximately 25 percent of recent graduates are looking for jobs overseas, compared with only 16 percent a few years ago. Wharton’s MBA Career Management director Michelle Antonio told Newsweek, “It definitely feels like it’s not a temporary hiccup. The students feel like that’s where the action is.”

With China, India and other emerging markets growing rapidly, expanding one’s job search beyond the U.S. is a shrewd business move, and one that can bring recent graduates a chance to make a big impact. The downside, unless one is working for a multi-national company, can be a much lower salary than one would make domestically.

Some of the students going to work in emerging markets after completing a U.S. MBA program are nationals going back to influence business growth in their home country. One recent Tuck School of Business graduate from India told Newsweek that there is simply “a lot more opportunity” there.

While the average MBA has more mobility and contacts to land a good job overseas than many other domestic job hunters, the working abroad trend isn’t one that only affects b-school grads. A Fast Company article published last fall cited a Manpower survey saying that nearly one third of job candidates are willing to move overseas for work. Furthermore, the employment agency placed several hundred U.S. citizens in jobs abroad last year. The most in demand workers were laborers, engineers, technicians, IT staff and accountants.

And MBA grads, we can presume.

www.newsweek.com

www.fastcompany.com

About the author: Stacy Blackman

Stacy Blackman, has been consulting on the Master of Business Administration degree application process since 2001. She has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Stacy has worked with the admissions committees at both schools, conducting alumni interviews and evaluating applicants.

www.stacyblackman.com/blog/

• Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA
• Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
  Full-Time MBA