For those MBAs who are justing finishing up their studies now, there’s some good news from a recent report by GMAC, the company that produces the GMAT.
According to GMAC’s most recent corporate recruiters survey, more than half of the employers surveyed planned to increase their starting salaries for new MBAs. The median starting salary for recent MBA grads in the US is expected to be $100,000, which is a $5,000 increase over last year.
Of course, this is the median, and there’s a huge amount of salary variation depending on a grad’s alma mater, industry and function. 2014 Harvard Business School grads, for instance, made about $125,000, when they got out of the program, while MBAs from the same year graduating from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management made around $80,000.
Moreover, MBAs are increasingly in demand. Globally, some 84 percent of employers plan to hire MBA graduates this year. That represents an increase of 10 percent from last year.
"With few exceptions," according to the report,analysis of 2015 survey findings by industry sector reveals double-digit (or near double-digit) increases in the percentage of companies across industries expecting to hire MBA and business master’s candidates this year compared with 2014.
The report also contains some insights into international mobility. Companies in Europe are least likely to hire international candidates for jobs: some 49 percent of firms in Europe said that they would flat-out not hire international candidates (significantly, the report does not differentiate between Europe and the UK).
According to the report, the Asia-Pacific region is the best place for those looking to make an international transition, with some 43 percent of companies reporting that they had concrete plans to hire international candidates in 2015.
The reasons why companies said that they would not hire international candidates included high costs, the legal documentation process, and the fact that there might be limited numbers of visas available.
How to get a job: do an internship; nail an on-campus interview
The report also contains some useful information in terms of how companies recruit, which can be leveraged by current and future MBA students.
For instance, the majority of employers globally (80 percent) said that on-campus interviews were the most effective way to snap up new graduates. The other most effective methods included recruiting from the intern pool, employee referrals, information sessions or on-campus presentations, and through official partnerships with universities.
However, this varied by location: the majority of recruiters in Latin America rated employee referrals as the most important recruiting factor, for instance; while in Europe, recruiters said that recruiting from current and past interns was the most effective way.
Across the board, internships seem like a good way to land a job: 85 percent of companies who had MBA interns said that they offered full-time positions to these individuals.
For more information, please see GMAC’s 2015 Corporate Recruiters Survey.
Image: Mr. Blue MauMau / Flickr (cropped and rotated)
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