In "What B-Schoolers Lust For Now," BusinessWeek highlights this year's dream career du jour.
Every decade, another faddish career opportunity dazzles the nation's business schools. In the 1980s, MBAs dreamed of Wall Street fortunes, swaggering their way into penthouses and private planes. During the dot-com bubble, it was about vesting swiftly and starting a foundation by age 30.
Today job lust among B-schoolers is fiercest for the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity. "Absolutely, it's become the hot job for MBAs," says Maury Hanigan, president of New York's MBA Scouting Report.
A cynic, of course, might view this mad rush to join those who've turned "cash" and "prudence" into dirty words as something less than spectacular.
Some see this as a leading indicator of yet another bubble. We know where the earlier stampedes to Wall Street and Silicon Valley ended. In five years, when these junior barons want to start their own funds, will the wash of money still be in private equity? Then again, what better school for a lesson in risk?
Sometimes you know how it will end as soon as it starts.
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