About 150 MIT Sloan School of Management MBA students are in town this week as part of an annual trip visiting local companies.

The goal is to find some jobs but the pickings look slim. Kavitha Sivasailam, one of the organizers, reports, "While jobs are out there, I hear from second-year MBAs that it has become more difficult to get them."

The MIT Sloan "Tech Treks" combine visits to companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Cisco, with networking events with MIT Sloan alumni, who help out with their local knowledge and insider job leads. There are more than 25,000 MBA alumni and over 100,000 MIT alumni in 75 clubs around the world. That's what a good school provides - It's not what you know it's who you know.

The Silicon Valley economy isn't that great. Although M&A has increased, there are few new jobs being created. Also, startups are in need of engineers and top sales and marketing people rather than MBAs.

If you'd like to meet some of the students you can contact Paul Denning (denning at mit.edu).