May 17--Brent Craig never had his sights set on Wall Street. In the MBA class of 2009, that makes him one of the lucky ones.

Craig, who picked up his degree Friday from Washington University's Olin School of Business, has known since November that he would work for Monsanto after graduation. Many of his classmates are not so lucky: Only 59 percent of them have jobs lined up, compared with a 68 percent placement rate on Graduation Day last year.

A master's degree in business administration has long been viewed as a ticket into the upper echelons of corporate America. It still is, but the gates are no longer open wide to ticketholders.

The class of '09, after all, is the first to graduate after the financial meltdown that killed Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and left other big financial companies dependent on government assistance.

The job market, therefore, barely resembles what these students expected when they entered graduate school. Firms in a variety of industries have scaled back or canceled their campus recruiting.

Last summer, for instance, Craig had an internship with 3M. He landed it through an on-campus interview. This year, 3M didn't come to Olin to recruit either interns or full-time workers.

"No doubt about it, the job market is troubling," says Mark Brostoff, director of the Olin School's career center. "The opportunities for MBAs have been significantly reduced since 24 months ago when these students decided to come."

The shift has been most difficult for finance majors, many of whom presumed they'd go to work

for a big Wall Street bank. They've had to look instead for jobs with small hedge funds or in the treasury departments of nonfinancial companies.

The number of companies making traditional recruiting visits was down about 14 percent this year, Brostoff said. He's encouraged, though, by the calls that employers were making to campus just days before commencement.

"The recruiting season has lengthened," Brostoff says. "It should have been over in March, and here in May we're still buzzing with students working to evaluate offers."

Best Buy, he said, canceled its formal recruiting program last fall but recently hired an Olin student.

Corporate St. Louis may yet rescue the remaining job-seekers. Brostoff says he's fielded several calls recently from local companies looking to hire an MBA. BJC Healthcare, Express Scripts and Solutia are among the new grads' employers.

From the students' point of view, these St. Louis companies might not be as glamorous as a big Wall Street bank or a national consulting firm. "You've got a strong regional base that, in other times, people had looked at as problematic," Brostoff said. "These opportunities existed, but our students might not have looked at them."

In a recession, one takes opportunity where one finds it. And, from the local employers' point of view, they get access to talent that, in better times, would have been snapped up by bigger firms from out of town.

Craig, 32, owned a custom closet company in St. Louis before deciding to pursue an MBA. He says he expected to go elsewhere after graduation, but isn't disappointed to be staying. He wanted a job in corporate strategy, and Monsanto was a good fit.

He actually had two offers last fall, from Monsanto and 3M, and didn't realize until later that other students might not be so fortunate.

"By December and January there were a lot of students who were really struggling with the job market," Craig said last week. "I feel very lucky."

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