Difficulty finding a good role despite recent MBA

JMG wrote

Hi,

I'm a recently completed my MBA at a top ranked European programme. Prior to the MBA I worked primarily in real estate corporate finance, dealing daily with DCF's NPV, financial modelling, debt restructures, SME equity analysis all what assume to be a core part of project finance.

Now, upon graduation, I had a position with a top 4 in the CEE region, however my contract was rescinded due to the current crisis and now I'm 5 months out of school, sending out at least 10 apps a day, and I hear absolutely nothing back.

The thing is, I have friends from the MBA with no prior financial experience who have managed to secure position at lucrative institutions.

Simply put I don't know what I'm doing wrong? People have said that my CV is strong, yet I hear nothing. Please advise.

A senior consultant at WH Marks Sattin replied

Dear JMG,

I completely understand your frustration with the present job market – it’s not easy out there for job hunters currently.

Looking at the brief rundown of your background above, it sounds like you have something to offer corporate finance clients but you may have been finding that, due to the number of redundancies from the larger banks, those firms that are looking to hire are able to pick candidates that have recent experience of the role, rather than MBA graduates that may still need training.

My advice would be to utilise your MBA alumni network to target company’s that have specific MBA recruitment drives for 2008 as well as doing your homework on which firms are actually looking to hire. This is where a recruitment consult can add a lot of value as they are able to use their market knowledge to get your CV to firms that definitely are hiring and would be interested in your background, as well as being able to speak to the decision maker to highlight your suitability for their firm.

If you would like more advice feel free to give us a call and one of our consultants would be pleased to talk to you.

Best of luck

WH Marks Sattin


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