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Foreign M.B.A. Candidates Face Challenging Job Hunts

By Kembra J. Dunham
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Landing a job will be tough for many business-school students graduating next spring, but it will be particularly challenging for international M.B.A. candidates.

Between 30% and 40% of most classes at the top business schools are made up of international students, and many often want to stay in the U.S. But they are often being squeezed out -- and not just because of the economy. Employers are also growing more reluctant about such students because of stringent immigration rules.

Some technology, financial services and consumer-products companies have even told business schools they are not at all interested in international students this year. "We are really limited with what we can do for them [in the U.S.]," says Ilse Evans, executive director of career services and initiatives at University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Opportunities for international business students studying in the U.S. are limited elsewhere, too. Officials from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently went on a tour and found this was the case in such places as London and Mexico. Though the natural move is for students to go home because of the slow U.S. market, "in certain places, opportunities are drying up there as well," says Alysa Polkes, director of career and corporate initiatives at the school.

There are other issues for international students. One business-school career counselor says students from some countries face tremendous cultural pressure to find jobs. "I was told by a Chinese student that if he were to return to the mainland without having been hired to work in the U.S. that he would have been considered a disgrace," he says. "Shame is an important cultural factor that most of us who grew up in the U.S. cannot fully comprehend."

The situation is getting so tough that certain business schools are considering admitting fewer international students in subsequent years. Most schools, however, are simply struggling to come up with job-search initiatives that will help candidates in master's of business administration programs in both the U.S. and abroad.

Last month, Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in Hanover, N.H., ran focus groups to identify student concerns, focusing on each nationality. "We did this because the Argentines have a different situation than the Brazilians," says Steve Lubrano, assistant dean and director of the M.B.A. program. "One size doesn't fit all."

If a recruiter says he or she will interview only U.S. citizens and permanent residents, the online resume system at Emory University's Goizueta Business School in Atlanta won't allow international students to apply. But the school will nonetheless send out a package of resumes from the international students along with a cover letter to persuade the recruiter to consider these M.B.A. candidates anyway.

And Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management in Winston-Salem, N.C., is trying to educate resistant employers about how easy and cheap it is to sponsor a student visa. "We're putting out marketing brochures that attempt to educate employers about this, because about 50% of the time, that's the issue," says Ned Tobey, director of the school's career-management center.

But for the most part, it is the students themselves who are trying to improve their situation. Paola Arguella, a 23-year-old from Nicaragua who is an M.B.A. candidate at Goizueta, didn't let the reluctance of some recruiters to accept her resume hold her back from aggressively promoting her retail background at last month's career fair of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs in Phoenix.

She says she got a good reception, and ended up with some leads. "I just had to be clear and articulate as to how I could help their company," says Ms. Arguella.

Write to Kemba J. Dunham at kemba.dunham@wsj.com

Updated December 17, 2002

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