The market for MBAs is hot again, especially at consulting companies such as Ernst & Young. Median pay for new Harvard and Stanford MBAs is $100K, with top graduates getting $30K signing bonuses, interest-free loans, options, cars, relocation, and $20K-$40K in tuition reimbursements. (Bonuses keep pay lower, easing resentment from older employees.) MBA prospects were gloomy last year, but now graduates are getting as many as nine offers from eager recruiters. "Every time you start a funeral, the corpse jumps up." It's a strong market even at the second- rank schools. The number of graduates is up 8% and applications are up 14%-38%. US applications are dominant -- perhaps as people again have the courage to quit their jobs -- but foreign applications are increasing. [Lori Bongiorno, BW, 10/24/94, p. 72.]

Graef Crystal has analyzed the return on investment by the 31 still-existing companies touted in Tom Peters' "Search for Excellence" (1980s). Annual return was 16.2%, vs. 18.1% for the S&P index. "Good management" and humane treatment of employees isn't necessarily profitable. [Jay Mathews, Washington Post. SJM, 11/9/94, 9C.]

Search consultant Marvin Walberg (Birmingham) recommends a business plan for your next job search. Potential employers need to know the return on their investment if they hire you. You should know what you do best, what you want to do, how your education and experience have prepared you for it, what you're worth on today's job market, what it will cost you to get started, who will buy what you produce, and how they will find out about it. Then sell yourself into the job -- don't wait for one to be advertised. ["About Getting Hired: the Job Search." SJM, 10/9/94, 1PC.] (What you're "worth" depends on what you're doing. Don't expect $300/day for entry-level tasks. A PhD makes little difference if you're the one interviewing programmers, typing the sales literature, and demoing software at trade shows.)

Nigel Ward has made some interesting observations about behavioral changes when one gets tenure. Instead of requesting colleagues' tech reports, you now request chapters for your book -- or you write mass-market books. Instead of attending seminars and conferences, you organize them -- and you lose the urge to make key discussion points yourself. Instead of struggling with inadequate tools, colleagues, and research environment, you struggle to acquire good tools, colleagues, and a suitable environment -- often for rehashing your previous research. And the search for fame through solving an important problem becomes the search for funding by hyping the difficulty of a problem you know you can solve. [nigel@sanpo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp, sci.research.careers, 10/13/94. David Joslin.] (So, what do _you_ want to do when you grow up?)