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Thousands
of young professionals across America await indefinitely to start
their career as big companies postpone the joining dates, report
Kemba J Dunham and Rachel Emma Silverman
For
plenty of 2001 college graduates in the US, the waiting game persists.
Numerous financial-services concerns, management consultancies and
other employers delayed their starting dates for new graduates hired
last year. Then, some postponed the start dates again. And again.
Now, those delays are crimping the prospects for students finishing
college this spring.
Deloitte
Consulting, for instance, has twice pushed back start dates for
about 200 graduates who finished school in May 2001 and were hired
as systems analysts. Malva Rabinowitz, associate managing director
of the company’s Americas group in New York, blames the serial
delays on the sour economy. The big consulting firm gave $5,000
to each new grad whose fall start dates got deferred to January
2002, and $2,000 more for the second deferral to this July.
Graduates
who accepted the money were able to keep it even if they decided
to take other jobs afterward. Partly due to the multiple delays,
Deloitte Consulting plans to extend fewer job offers to this year’s
graduates: a little over 500, compared with the 1,500 offers it
extended last year. “We’re cognisant of what the economy
looks like,” says Rabinowitz. “So we have to make decisions
based on our business needs.”
The
graduates still waiting to start their careers “are definitely
starting to get frustrated,” says Anita Brick, director of
career and corporate alliances at the University of Chicago’s
Graduate School of Business. “We’re seeing those who don’t
want to put their lives on hold and others who are really committed
to the job and want to get to work.”
Matthew
Kirsch, 33-year-old, chose not to wait. He graduated last May from
the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University
of Virginia and was supposed to join management consultants Booz
Allen & Hamilton in August. When Booz Allen postponed his employment,
he took an interim job as Darden’s acting assistant director
of admissions and looked for other opportunities, just in case.
Booz
Allen imposed a second delay in November—indefinitely. Kirsch
rescinded his acceptance and took the severance paid those who chose
not to wait again. He declined to say how much it was, and Booz
Allen didn’t return calls for comment.
Kirsch
is hardly bitter about his experience. “I have friends who
were in similar situations at other companies who weren’t treated
nearly as well,” he says. “I’m not complaining about
anything.” He also got to keep the signing bonus that Booz
Allen gave him last spring, an amount he also declined to specify.
He will soon leave his Darden post to join Dell Computer Corporation
in Texas.
Darden
is among schools trying to help alumnus left waiting in the wings
by their employers. The school has hired a half-dozen 2001 graduates
with delayed starting dates for short-and long-term positions. “We
are trying in every way possible to take advantage of the intellectual
capital available,” says Anne Harris, Darden’s assistant
dean for career development.
The
delays have caused Darden to alter certain internal policies too.
Normally, when students renege after accepting a job offer, they
are forbidden by the school to participate in any further campus
interviews with recruiters. Now, students who renege can continue
on-campus interviews if that largely occurred due to an altered
start date.
Companies
with repeated delays may lose favour with prospective candidates.
Darden posts information on its internal website whenever an employer
delays or rescinds an offer. “Students are fully warned,”
Harris says.
At
Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, businesses known
to push back or rescind offers can experience a temporary negative
“brand impact” among potential recruits, says Erin Cochrane,
director of career services. “Students are a little more leery
of working for some of these firms,” she says.
But
that impact doesn’t last very long, she says, because there
are so few job opportunities. Tuck recently compiled alumni résumés
so that out-of-work grads can network with other Tuck alumni about
temporary or permanent posts. The timing couldn’t be better:
Recently, one consulting firm that had recruited on campus in the
last school year pushed back the start date for new hires a second
time—to this coming fall from early this year, says Cochrane.
Harvard
Business School also has taken strong steps against companies that
have imposed long delays on its graduates’ start dates. The
school says it has placed three such businesses on a two-year recruiting
probation, meaning they will be banned from campus for a certain
amount of time if they commit another recruiting infraction during
that period. Harvard has already banned one company from recruiting
on campus for two years because it rescinded a job offer. The school
posts the names of all companies that have been banned or placed
on probation on an internal website.
Fewer
students graduating this spring may experience the anxiety or postponed
start dates. Delays are “much more infrequent” compared
with a year ago, says Darden spokesman Phillip Giaramita. And even
though financial-services and consulting companies are making fewer
offers, Giaramita is seeing an increase in offers from consumer-products,
energy and health-care companies. So far, all plan for their new
hires to start on time.
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