Who’s Hiring MBA Grads and Are the Employment Trends Looking Up?

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business Career Development Center (CDC) recently dissected two industry hiring reports on its Career Development Blog showcasing the strong employment trends for graduates of programs such as the Darden full-time MBA and Master of Science in business analytics (MSBA).

Among other highlights, the recently released reports — the 2018 MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance Fall Recruiter Benchmarking Report and Graduate Management Admission Council’s (GMAC) Corporate Recruiters Survey 2019 — show that:

• Salaries for recent MBA graduates are the highest on record
• Internships and on-campus interviews are favored recruiting methods for top employers
• Startups are increasingly likely to hire MBA graduates
• Data analytics graduates are in high demand globally

On the salary front, the CDC said:

After inflation adjustments, MBA graduates received the highest ever median annual base starting salary in 2019. At $115,000, MBAs’ median salaries are now more than double those of new bachelor’s degree hires ($55,000). The average base salary for Darden’s Class of 2018 was $127,767, and early data show the Class of 2019 is trending several percent higher. The 32 percent of graduates in Darden’s Class of 2018 who entered the consulting industry received a median salary of $147,000, a starting salary that is $12,000 higher than GMAC’s reported median starting salary of MBAs entering consulting nationwide.

And the CDC’s analysis of the reports also revealed good news for graduates of Darden’s MSBA:

Consistent across both MBA CSEA and GMAC findings was an increased interest in recruiting graduates of programs such as Darden’s MSBA degree. Approximately half of recruiters surveyed by both MBA CSEA and GMAC reported hiring from data analytics specialized master’s programs. Nearly two-thirds of corporate recruiters in the Asia-Pacific and European regions plan to hire from these data-intensive programs, and hiring demand of these graduates is strongest in technology, energy and consulting employers, GMAC found.

Similarly, GMAC’s survey demonstrated that companies ranging from small to large, startup to Fortune Global 100 and across every major industry project growth in hiring of master’s of data analytics graduates. Consulting firms and startups are both projecting 20 percent growth.

Read the full post on Darden’s Career Development blog.