来源： 华尔街日报

When Adrian Chan enrolled in an M.B.A. program at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology last year, he hoped to use the degree to jump industries, from information technology to investment banking.

Mr. Chan, who majored in finance in his M.B.A., pictured himself structuring derivatives or selling equities at a top-tier bank in his hometown of Hong Kong -- and earning a lot more than he did as a software developer in his past jobs at Amazon.com Inc., in Seattle, and Oanda Corp., in Toronto. Mr. Chan, who'll graduate in December into the worst financial-sector meltdown in recent history, is now perusing IT job ads.

'It's a much more competitive job market,' he says. 'The employers who are hiring want people with experience, and there's lots of experienced people who've lost their jobs and looking for work. For those of us switching careers, it's going to be much harder.'

The fallout from the financial crisis is already starting to echo through the halls of the world's business schools. Students who had hoped for a finance career are looking elsewhere -- or bracing themselves for short-term work at much lower pay.

Admissions officers are starting to see a big jump in applications for full-time M.B.A. programs, as professionals faced with a soft job market look for ways to ride out the storm and burnish their r嗷sum嗷s. Applications for executive M.B.A.s, which attract more senior executives whose employers typically pick up some or all of the tab, will likely drop: Companies are looking for ways to trim budgets as the global economy slows, and executive education is often seen as an extra that can go.

For most investment banks, new hires have been categorized as another 'extra' that has to go, too. Many big banks have put on a hiring freeze and vowed to trim existing staff. That's likely to prompt some M.B.A. students to switch from a finance concentration to other areas, like marketing -- or at least recast their r嗷sum嗷s to better target jobs in areas outside banking, M.B.A. professors say.

'It's early days, but even if we're not seeing that yet we will see more of it,' says Jake Cohen, dean of Insead's M.B.A. program. 'We had some students who had summer internships at places like Lehman, and those students are looking to switch to consulting or industry jobs.' The French business school has campuses in Fontainebleau, outside Paris, and in Singapore. Insead's M.B.A. is a general management program that doesn't offer different majors.

That's not the case at HKUST -- and many M.B.A. students do take a finance concentration. Typically half the class winds up in jobs in Hong Kong's finance sector.

'We don't expect that this year, and we are warning our students that there will be a real tightening, whether temporary or not, and headcounts are being reduced at a lot of the big Western banks,' says Steven DeKrey, HKUST's senior associate dean and M.B.A. program director. Mr. DeKrey, who's also the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, says Amcham's members indicate that the hiring situation will get even grimmer, and nobody has any idea when it might improve. 'Even the JP Morgans, the Morgan Stanleys, the real strong players who are on our board here, are not able to look too far out,' says Mr. DeKrey.

There is one likely positive impact, educators say: Smart people who are usually snapped up by banks will wind up elsewhere in the economy, bringing a boost to other sectors.

'It'll break the hold that investment banks have on talent. The world's best investment banks traditionally take the best graduates from programs like ours,' says Stephen Chambers, director of the M.B.A. and executive M.B.A. degrees at Oxford University's Saïd Business School. 'I think one optimistic outcome is that the really brilliant people who used to go straight from Oxford to Lehman or Goldman are going to do something else interesting -- that might well be a microfinance initiative or an entrepreneurial venture or something completely different.'

Others are likely to bring their new M.B.A. skills back to their old sector. Mr. Chan, who's doing the last few classes on a part-time basis, recently landed a six-week contract with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. It's a rolling contract that could continue, but Mr. Chan has no idea where that will lead. RBS is one of the largest recipients of the U.K. government's bailout package, and executives there are widely expected to start trimming the organization.

The few full-time entry-level investment-banking jobs available in Hong Kong pay about 50% less than Mr. Chan had expected when he started his M.B.A. 'Salary levels are coming down,' he says. 'If I do get a permanent job in banking, it'll be a pay drop for me.' He's now going to cast the net wider and look for IT jobs as well.

The financial meltdown may be bad news for M.B.A. students, but it's good news, in part, for M.B.A. schools. Applications tend to rise sharply when economies lose steam.

'Given the job market is not so good, people say 'let me invest in myself for the next year or two,' ' says Mr. Cohen, at Insead's Singapore campus. He expects applications for Insead's full-time M.B.A. program to go up by 25% this year.

One challenge facing M.B.A. students is funding: it's getting harder to get student loans in the U.S., where banks, hit by the credit squeeze, are lending less. Banks in other parts of the world are likely to follow suit as credit dries up world-wide.

当Adrian Chan去年被香港科技大学(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) MBA项目录取的时候，他本希望能借这一学位实现职业转型，从信息技术行业投身到投资银行领域中去。

主修金融MBA的Adrian Chan设想自己能够在家乡香港的一家顶级银行里从事金融衍生品设计或出售证券的工作──比从前在西雅图的亚马逊(Amazon.com)和多伦多的Oanda Corp.做软件开发时赚多得多的薪水。不过，今年12月份毕业的Adrian Chan却面临着近年来金融行业最不景气的时刻，现在，他只好认真研究IT业的招聘广告了。

他说，“如今的就业市场竞争更加激烈，仍在招聘人手的雇主希望有经验的员工加入，有许多经验丰富的人丢掉了工作，而且也正在找工作。对于像我这样想要转行的人来说，形势会变得更加严峻。”

全球各地的商学院已经开始感受到金融危机的影响。曾经希望在金融职场打拼的学生们开始另寻出路──或者抖擞精神找份薪水低得多的短期工作。

商学院的招生负责人们已经开始注意到申请全日制MBA项目的人数大大增加，这是因为面对不景气的就业市场，专业人士们希望既能安然度过这场危机，又能有机会给简历镀镀金。申请高管MBA (EMBA)的人数则有可能下降。高管MBA的目标学员是级别更高的管理人士，而且一般来讲雇主会承担部分或全部费用。随着世界经济增速减缓，各家公司正在设法削减预算，而高管培训通常被认为是可以削减的一项额外开支。

对于大多数投资银行来说，雇用新员工也被看作是应被削减的“额外开支”。很多大银行已经停止招聘，并且宣布裁员。MBA课程的教授们表示，这很可能促使一些MBA学生从金融转向其他领域，比如市场营销──或者至少重新打造简历，以便更好地针对银行业以外的工作职位。

“现在为时尚早，不过即便我们现在还没有发现这种情况，将来也会看到越来越多这样的事情，”欧洲工商管理学院(Insead) MBA项目负责人杰克·科恩(Jake Cohen)说,“我们有些学生今年夏季在雷曼兄弟(Lehman)这样的公司实习，这些学生现在打算转而从事咨询业或实业。”这家法国商学院在巴黎郊区的枫丹白露(Fontainebleau)和新加坡设有校区。Instead的MBA是一门综合管理课程，不设主修专业。

香港科技大学的情况并非如此──该校许多MBA学生主攻金融，通常全班一半的学生最终会在香港的金融行业找到工作。

“今年我们不会有这样的预期，我们提醒学生就业市场将会出现实实在在的收缩，而无论这种收缩是否是暂时的。而且很多西方大银行都在裁员”，香港科技大学商学院资深副院长兼MBA项目主任戴启思(Steven DeKrey)说道。戴启思还是香港美国商会(American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong)的主席。他说，美国商会的会员们认为招聘形势将变得更加不容乐观，没人知道什么时候情况会有好转。“即使是摩根大通(JP Morgans)和摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)这些商会中真正的大公司也难以看清局面，”戴启思说。

教育界人士表示，金融危机可能有一个积极的影响：那就是那些通常被银行抢先瓜分的人才最终会从事其他行业，从而推动其他行业的发展。

“这将打破投资银行对人才的垄断。全球最好的投资银行通常会招走我们最好的毕业生，”牛津大学赛德商学院(Oxford University Saïd Business School) MBA和EMBA项目负责人斯蒂芬·钱伯斯(Stephen Chambers)说，“我认为有一个好的结果就是，那些以往从牛津毕业后直接加入雷曼或者高盛(Goldman)的杰出人才现在会去做一些其他有意思的事情──可能是加入小额信贷项目、初创企业，或者是做些其他完全不同的事情。”

其他学生则可能把他们新的MBA技能带到原来从事的行业。Adrian Chan正以在职的方式上最后几次课。最近，他和苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS)的香港公司签订了为期六周的合同。这是一份可能延期的滚动合约，但Adrian Chan并不清楚最终结果究竟会怎样。RBS是英国政府救助计划最大笔资金的接收者之一，人们普遍认为香港RBS的高管们将开始裁员了。

香港投资银行仅剩的全职入门级别岗位薪资比Adrian Chan开始读MBA时所预期的少了50%。“工资水平在下降，”他说，“如果我真的在银行业找到一份长期的工作，对我来说那也是一次降薪。”他现在准备广泛撒网，包括寻找IT业的工作。

金融危机对MBA学生来说可能是坏消息，但是从某种意义上讲对MBA商学院却是好消息。因为申请人数在经济不景气时会大幅增加。

Instead商学院的科恩表示，“当就业市场不景气的时候，人们会说‘这一两年内我应该充充电。’”他预计今年申请Instead商学院全职MBA的人数将会增加25%。

MBA学生面临的一个挑战是资金来源：在美国，申请学生贷款越来越难，这是因为那里的银行受信贷紧缩冲击而缩减了贷款规模。随着信用危机在世界范围内蔓延，其他地区的银行也有可能步美国的后尘。