Harvard MBA Grads Enter a Tepid Job Market Hoping for the Best

Is an MBA from what is widely seen as the most prestigious business school in the US truly recession-proof? That claim—often implied, if not fully articulated—has been put to the test this spring at Harvard Business School. There’s “a lot of anxiety and trepidation about the job market,” says Albert Choi, a second-year student now planning his own business.

For the past several months, speculation has swirled around the class of 2023 that as much as half of the 984 graduating students haven’t landed work. While it’s too early to know how many graduating MBAs will find jobs, sources—students, faculty and career advisers at other schools—describe anecdotally a final semester suffused with worry and a higher share of the class leaving school unemployed, at Harvard and beyond.