MBA Hiring Rises in Finance and Accounting

According to a Graduate Management Admissions Council survey, 71 percent of finance and accounting firms plan to hire MBA gradutes this year, as opposed to just 60 percent last year. And those firms planning to hire business school grads said they will take on an average of 19 new MBAs this year, compared to just 14 last year.

In addition, salaries for recent MBA grads seem to be up, if not stable. According to GMAC, the average starting salary this year for new MBA grads will be $91,433.

On Wall Street, top banks such as Goldman Sachs (which earlier today received a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney's office in connection with the firm's operations preceding the credit crisis) and Morgan Stanley are planning to hire just as many MBAs as they did last year, numbers that are promising but still lower than those the two banks were hiring prior to the financial crisis.

And, speaking of hiring on Wall Street, in findings that will surprise no one, a Northwestern professor discovered that if you want to work for an investment bank like a Goldman or Morgan Stanley, it's much more important to have pedigree than a 4.0, and much better to have a big stick than a great arm. That is, a degree from an Ivy League school and a varsity letter in lacrosse, squash, or crew are much more attractive to Wall Street recruiters (to say the least) than degrees from state schools and letters in football, soccer, basketball, ice hockey, badminton, track, field, volleyball, water polo, skiing, sailing, wrestling, diving, softball, table tennis, or, G.W.'s sport of choice while at Harvard and Yale, beer pong.

(WSJ: Jobs Market Picks Up for Graduates)

(CNNMoney: Ivy League is the Best Route to a Job on Wall Street)