Employer Hiring Up 4% for Class of 2013 Business School Graduates

According to GMAC’s annual Corporate Recruiters Survey, more recruiters plan to hire, with early job offer rates similar to last year; pay also rises.

The job market continues to improve for graduate business school degree holders, as more employers plan to hire MBAs and specialized business master’s talent than did so last year, according to the 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey. The survey was issued today by the Graduate Management Admission Council and its survey partners, the European Foundation for Management Development and the MBA Career Services Council.

A companion student exit survey, the 2013 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, shows that similar to last year, six in 10 business school graduates already had job offers in February or March. The annual employer and graduate surveys, looking at the current employment outlook from both sides of the market, were released today by the Graduate Management Admission Council.

“Whether employers are aiming for more productivity or growth, the world’s graduate business schools are providing the talent for them. B-school graduates are finding that their education is providing a clear and valued competitive edge in the job market,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC, the worldwide association of business schools that administers the GMAT exam.

The 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey of 935 employers around the world finds 75 percent plan to hire MBAs, up from 71 percent that hired MBAs in 2012. The proportion of employers planning to hire other types of business school graduates is up from last year for master in management, master of accounting, master of finance, as well as other specialized business master’s. Other findings:

• US employers expect to pay new MBAs a median salary of $95,000, up from $90,000 last year, although salaries vary substantially by region of work. This represents a $43,000 premium compared with the earnings for bachelor’s degree-holders among US employers.
• Employers worldwide expect to hire an average of 14.6 new MBAs, up from the 11.4 they hired last year.
• Sectors in which more employers worldwide plan to hire MBAs this year than in 2012 include: energy/utilities (86 percent, up from 69 percent in 2012); healthcare (89 percent, up from 77 percent in 2012); and consulting (79 percent, up from 69 percent in 2012).

“Companies are looking to attract the best and the brightest, and the business school experience provides an exceptional opportunity to gain new knowledge, learn and share with a diverse group of students and faculty and most importantly develop at a personal level in many different ways,” said Eric Cornuel, director general and CEO of the European Foundation for Management Development.

“These results positively answer many of the primary questions MBA candidates ask about the opportunities an MBA degree may present to them, by not only confirming the value of the MBA degree in today’s dynamic job market, but also clearly illustrating the industries in which it might currently best be leveraged. The results also serve as a valuable tool to MBA career services professionals assisting MBAs with critical career decision making,” said Mark Peterson, president of the MBA Career Services Council.

The 2013 Global Management Education Graduate Survey of 5,331 graduating students attending 159 universities in 33 countries found that 60 percent of those seeking jobs had at least one offer in February or March, comparable to the 62 percent of class of 2012. Likelihood of landing a job offer varied substantially by many factors, including graduates’ preferred work location and whether they studied in their home country or not.  Job-related findings from that survey:

• Although fewer full-time two-year MBAs had early job offers this year than last (61 percent, compared with 64 percent last year), the percentage of master of accounting graduates with job offers was 76 percent, up from 65 percent surveyed last year.
• Fifty-four percent of graduates searching for jobs in the finance/accounting industry had offers, down from 61 percent last year. One reason for this shift appears to be greater attractiveness of the finance/accounting sector among career switchers, with just about as many graduates entering the industry as leaving it, signaling a recovery from last year’s findings and greater competition for jobs.
• More career-switching graduates are entering the consulting, healthcare, and energy/utilities fields than leaving. By contrast, more career-switching graduates are leaving the products and services, manufacturing, nonprofit/government, and technology sectors than entering them.

Both surveys show a healthier job market for business school graduates from five years ago, when just 50 percent of corporate recruiters planned to hire MBAs and 43 percent of class of 2009 graduates surveyed had early job offers.

“Job market success depends on a variety of factors, yet despite varying economic conditions, business school opens doors for its graduates to new job opportunities. Moreover, the b-school class experience is a microcosm for the challenges that graduates will face each day at work,” Wilson said.

GMAC partnered with the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and the MBA Career Services Council (MBA CSC) to increase survey participation in the Corporate Recruiters Survey. The 2013 GMAC Global Management Education Graduate Survey and the Corporate Recruiters Survey are available at gmac.com/surveys

For more information about the survey, contact: Tracey Briggs, office: +1 (703) 668-9726; mobile: +1 (571) 243-1478; tbriggs@gmac.com.

About GMAC: The Graduate Management Admission Council (gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools and owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT exam), used by more than 5,800 graduate business and management programs worldwide. GMAC is based in Reston, Virginia, and has regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong. The GMAT exam — the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide — is continuously available at more than 570 test centers in 110 countries. More information about the GMAT exam is available at mba.com. Please visit gmac.com/newscenter.

It Takes Many Pots of Tea…MBA CSC Asian Expansion Initiative Update

by: Karen Dowd
Co-Chair, MBA CSC Asian Expansion Initiative

Recently, MBA CSC was represented in Hong Kong at the 2^nd Annual NAAMBA Global Career Forum. Karen Dowd (Daniels/Denver), Ann Nowak (Liberty Mutual), Mark Peterson (Iowa State) and Vinika Rao (INSEAD Singapore) co-led our Asian Expansion Initiative meeting the second day of the conference. Megan Hendricks, Executive Director of the MBA CSC was a huge help in making this second annual event happen.

One of our colleagues commented that in China it “takes many pots of tea” – 12-15 individual meetings with companies — before a foundation of trust is in place resulting in meaningful business leads or relationships. As anyone who has traveled or lived in this region knows, this is probably true in any endeavor we undertake as a College/University, whether it is school partnerships, company and executive contacts, agency meetings, alumni/Friend relationship building, student recruitment, and certainly finding job opportunities for our students.

All business is global. Graduate business school enrollments are projected to continue to skew heavily toward an international (non-U.S.) student population, and undergraduate programs will continue to see increased interest by international students and their parents. Fewer U.S. companies are capable of hiring non-sponsored students. More alumni will be based outside of the U.S. Advancement will be relying more on international contributions in the coming years. More recruiting companies will be seeking Western-trained talent with strong language skills to return to home countries in Asia to pursue their careers. Because of these and other trends, we are continuing our focus on better understanding the business landscape in Asia for the MBAC CSC, and on how this can inform our success as an association in providing assistance to all of our members globally.

Overview

• 90+ graduate business students from 30+ schools in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia were in attendance. Administrators from 20+graduatebusiness schools in these same regions attended.
• Recruiters from over a dozen companies and hiring agencies attended.
• The Career Expo occurred on Monday Jan. 7, followed by a networking reception – keynote was the CEO of Kimberly-Clark Asia. Interviews and other activities occurred on Tues. Jan. 8.
• MBA Focus and Evisors were MBA CSC Sponsors. We are grateful for their support.
• The Expo opened with a session facilitated by Mark Peterson (Iowa State), MBA CSC President; Jamie Belinne (Bauer/Houston),former MBA CSC Board Member;  Vinika Rao (INSEAD Singapore), Co-Chair, MBA CSC 2013 Asian Conference;  Ann Nowak (Liberty Mutual), Employer Lead, MBA CSC 2013 Asian Conference, and Karen Dowd (Daniels/Denver), Chair, MBA CSC Asian Expansion Initiative and Co-Chair, MBA CSC Asian Conference
• MBA CSC content was presented on Tuesday afternoon. Topics included:
  •  An overview of the MBA CSC by Mark Peterson
  • A presentation on the MBA CSC Standards, by Mark Peterson with assistance from other board members and members present
  • An employer roundtable led by Ann Nowak
  • An alumni panel led by Vinika Rao
  • An open conversation re: the future of the MBA CSC Asian Initaitve, facilitated by Mark Peterson and Karen Dowd

We look forward to a continued presence in the Asian Region and appreciate any thoughts or feedback you have about the initiative. Please contact Karen Dowd with your feedback.

Global Career Forum/MBA CSC Meeting Participants

Companies/Organizations Attending (not a complete list)

• Abbott
• Assoc. of MBAs
• Dun & Bradstreet
• Deloitte
• E&Y
• Evisors
• GMAC
• HCCR Ltd.
• Lilly
• GE
• IBM
• Kimberly Clark
• Liberty Mutual
• MBA Focus
• McKinsey
• Pacific Coffee
• South China Morning Press
  • NOTE: other companies such as Microsoft, Gallup and HSBC have openings but were unable to attend the conference and postings will be shared with the schools attending

Schools Attending [students and/or administrators] (not a complete list)

• AIM
• Bocconi
• Brandeis
• Case Western
• Chicago Booth Singapore
• City University of Hong Kong City
• Clark
• Daniels/Denver
• Fuqua/Duke
• George Washington
• HEC Paris
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Houston
• IE
• Iowa State
• Illinois
• INSEAD Singapore
• Johns Hopkins
• Johnson/Cornell
• Kelley/Indiana
• Krannert/Purdue
• Macquarie Univ. Australia
• Manchester
• Notre Dame
• NUS
• Ohio State
• Olin/Washington Univ.
• Oregon
• Pepperdine
• Ross/Michigan
• Rotman/Toronto
• Simon/Rochester
• Smith/Maryland
• Univ. of California/San Diego
• Univ. of Glasgow
• Univ. of Queensland

Job Market Strong for Those Earning Graduate Business Degrees in 2012

Those earning graduate degrees in business and management last year faced a receptive job market, as 92 percent of 2012 graduates surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Council were employed three months after graduation. That’s six percentage points higher than class of 2011 graduates surveyed at the same time the year before in GMAC’s Alumni Perspectives Survey.

In addition, some 77 percent of the class of 2012 graduates surveyed said their starting salary met or exceeded their expectations, and 76 percent said they could not have gotten their job without their graduate management education. The 13th annual survey of 4,444 MBA and other graduate-level alumni was conducted by GMAC, which administers the GMAT entrance exam for graduate business and management programs worldwide.

“As the economy improves in many parts of the world, employers who are hiring look for skilled managers to lead the way,” says Dave Wilson, GMAC president and CEO. “MBAs and other graduate degrees provide the skills people need to manage tough problems in today’s complex marketplace.”

A variety of factors affect compensation, such as pre-degree salary and experience, industry and job function, and median salaries of the class of 2012 showed significant differences by program type. For example, those graduating from full-time two-year MBA programs had a median salary of $85,000, with additional compensation of $10,000, whereas those graduating from full-time one-year MBA programs had a median salary of $59,000 with additional compensation of $5,500 (age, program location, and work location are confounding factors). Median starting salaries of 2012 graduates varied most widely by work location (shown in US dollars):

• Europe: $105,120
• US: $83,000
• Canada: $81,443
• Asia Pacific Islands: $52,329
• Latin America: $48,557
• Central Asia: $27,818

The 834 members of the class of 2012 were among the 4,444 graduate business school alumni from the classes of 2000-2012 surveyed about their work life and career trajectories in the global longitudinal survey. For all alumni from the classes of 2000-2012:

• 96 percent were employed, up two percentage points from last year. Some 89 percent were working for an employer and 7 percent were self-employed.
• Self-employment rates varied greatly depending on where alumni operated their business, ranging from 5 percent of those with businesses in the US to 20 percent of those working in the Middle East and Africa.  Self-employment rates were 6 percent in Asia/Pacific Islands, 11 percent in Europe, and 13 percent in Latin America.
• Overall, 60 percent of alumni took out loans to pay for their education, but the proportions varied by program type, with 67 percent of full-time MBA alumni, 50 percent of executive MBA alumni, 48 percent of non-MBA specialized master’s alumni, and 47 percent of part-time MBA alumni taking out loans. Although more full-time MBA alumni have taken out loans compared with all other business school alumni, they also report the highest percentage of loan repayment and were least likely to express concern about their ability to repay their loans based on their current financial situation.
• Alumni continue to value their degrees highly, with 95 percent rating the value of their education good to outstanding. Top career outcomes driving the value of their education were: increasingly challenging and interesting work, developing managerial and technical expertise, being able to start their own business, and increased professional network.
• Using their leadership skills, thinking analytically, planning strategically, and solving problems are the key drivers of alumni job satisfaction.

The GMAC 2013 Alumni Perspectives Summary Report is available at gmac.com/alumniperspectives.

Employers Express Early Optimism for 2013 Hiring

Provided by: Graduate Management Admissions Council

Uncertainty hangs above many of the world’s economies, but the job market for 2013 graduates, particularly those with graduate-level degrees, may be looking up, according to a survey of 201 employers conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council.

The 2012 Year-End Poll of Employers finds 76 percent of employers expect to hire new MBA graduates in 2013. Just 69 percent of them hired class of 2012 graduates. Of the employers planning to hire MBAs in 2013, 56 percent plan to offer starting base salaries that keep pace with inflation (43 percent) or exceed it (13 percent).

“Employers recognize that employees with graduate business degrees are a wise investment when times are uncertain and they need talent that not only bring skills but agility to meet the changing demands of these times,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC, which administers the GMAT exam for graduate management programs worldwide.

Hiring projections for experienced direct-from-industry hires (86 percent, up from 83 percent hired last year) and new bachelor’s recipients (78 percent, down from 80 percent last year) remained relatively stable. The poll also found that demand for new graduates with graduate degrees in other business fields is smaller but growing:

• 43 percent plan to hire master in management graduates (up from 33 percent)

• 40 percent intend to hire master of accounting graduates (up from 32 percent)

• 39 percent expect to hire master of finance graduates (up from 32 percent)

• 46 percent plans to hire other specialized master’s degrees in business (up from 34 percent)

The outlook for internships looks strong in 2013, as well. Some 85 percent of the employers polled plan to offer student internships in 2013, with 70 percent planning to use undergraduate interns and 65 percent planning to use MBA interns. Although fewer companies offer internships to other masters-level students, those that do are likely to offer as many or more internships in 2013 than they did in 2012.

The 2013 outlook follows a hiring year that went as well as or better than expected for most companies. Between 85 and 97 percent of companies that planned to hire across each candidate type in 2012 actually made the hires, and most companies hired as many or more employees than they planned for each candidate type.

The 13th annual Year-End Poll of Employers includes responses from 201 employers at 182 companies worldwide, including 45 Fortune 500 companies. The poll prefaces GMAC’s annual Corporate Recruiters Survey, a more comprehensive survey of employers worldwide released in conjunction with the Global Management Education Graduate Survey, a student exit survey, each May.

The summary report is available at http://gmac.com/employerspoll

This poll is a snapshot in advance of the Annual Corporate Recruiters Survey conducted by GMAC in partership with MBA CSC, which provides a comprehensive view of the MBA job market. MBA CSC members can sign up to participate in this poll here.

Media contacts: please reach out to MBA CSC for comment on the poll results.

Spotlight on Asia-Pacific: Demand for MBAs

As we prepare for the 2nd Annual NAAMBA Global Career Forum, we reached out to researchers at GMAC to gather information from their research about the hiring market in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some of the world’s fastest growing economies are in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Accordingly, an increased demand for MBA new hires among firms in APAC, combined with employers’ desires to place talent in jobs located outside the region, signal potential opportunities for career services professionals worldwide.

Globally, 79% of companies surveyed earlier this year planned to hire recent MBA graduates, and 80% of companies located in the Asia-Pacific region sought new MBA talent in 2012. Demand from companies in India and China for new MBA hires in 2012 exceeded these averages, as 88% of Indian employers and 86% of Chinese employers expected to hire recent MBA graduates. The share of companies in these markets seeking MBA talent is well ahead of demand from US firms (79% of companies) and European firms (67% of companies) that planned to hire recent MBA graduates in 2012.

Moreover, a large percentage of companies in the Asia-Pacific region are looking to place their new hires in job posts all around the world. A focus on North America is seen in the data, as 35% of APAC companies hoped to place business grads in Canada and 27% of APAC companies sought to place hires in the United States. Europe was a job placement destination for 18% of APAC companies, and 13% of APAC companies hoped to place business grads in jobs located in the Middle East/Africa region. Though nearly all students graduating from schools in Asia-Pacific are conducting their employment search within the APAC region, only 72% of companies planned to place their recent business hires within the region. Accordingly, desires for MBA and business talent hires by companies in Asia-Pacific are likely to have ripple effects worldwide.

Given the approaching January conference in partnership with the National Association of Asian MBAs (NAAMBA), and GMAC’s recently released summary of jobs trends for China and Hong Kong, a few additional details for China seemed appropriate to share.

An exit survey of graduating students from Chinese business schools in the class of 2012 echoed the demand from companies located in the world’s second-largest economy:

• Some 85% of all Chinese students attending domestic business schools had job offers in hand when surveyed a month or two before graduation.
• The top three industries where students graduating from Chinese business schools searched for jobs in 2012 were: products & services (25%), manufacturing (22%), and high technology (18%).
• Graduating students from full-time two-year MBA programs in China who had job offers reported salary increases of more than 71% from their pre-degree earnings.

It is not surprising that increased job opportunities were a top reason cited by the region’s prospective students for entering the pipeline to a business school. GMAT test taker data reveals the strength of this interest, as Chinese residents accounted for 52% of the total 89,782 GMAT exams taken by all Asia-Pacific residents in testing year 2012 (July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012). “Today, young, ambitious Chinese are studying at business schools all over the world – but with increasing demand for MBA graduates among Chinese companies, it’s not surprising that more and more are choosing domestic programs,” noted Julia Herries, GMAC’s Asia-Pacific Regional Director. Career services professionals at business schools may be surprised to grasp the numbers of Chinese in the pipeline for business schools, and interest in study and work in the country from outside the country. After the US, Chinese residents represented the second-largest group in the GMAT pipeline globally, with a reported 44,464 living in mainland China and 2,272 in Hong Kong.

“We are also seeing increasing numbers of foreign students wanting to capitalize on the opportunities provided by China’s growing economy, by studying at Chinese business schools. In the past year, Indian, South Korean and North American students were the top three foreign groups sending GMAT scores to graduate management programs in China – a trend we expect will continue to grow in the coming years,” said Herries.

GMAC representatives look forward to attending the conference in January to discuss these trends. As a final note, this country specific data is captured with the help of many graduate business schools and career services professionals around the world. In preparing for the 2013 survey season, we hope to produce additional reports that are valuable for strategic and day-to-day operations. With your help, we can! Please sign up to participate by visiting gmac.com/surveysignup.

Thanks to the GMAC Research team for their contribution of this article:
Rebecca Estrada, Laura Leach, Michelle Sparkman-Renz, Gregg Schoenfeld, and Danielle Jervis in Hong Kong.

Follow GMAC researchers on twitter or email.

How the Nature of your Network Can Affect your Career Path

by: Sharon Belden Castonguay, EdD
Director, Graduate Career Management Center
Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business
New York, NY

Recently I was asked to be the keynote speaker for an event hosted by my campus’s women in business organization. Since the research I undertook has informed how I work with students on the topic of networking I wanted to share here what I learned.

Most of us think of networking as something that is part of a job search. I would like to speak today about three different types of networking, and how each is necessary for effective career management. I am drawing from the research of Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter, professors at INSEAD in France, who look at how effective leaders build and use their networks. They describe this process as “simultaneously one of most self-evident and one of the most dreaded developmental challenges that aspiring leaders must address.”

At the heart of their work is the idea that different types of networking lead to different career results, and that understanding the differences and cultivating the right networks at the right times are important to reach specific career goals. Operational networking refers to building relationships with the people with whom you work on a day-to-day basis, those you count on to get your job done. Your boss, your peers, and close outsiders like clients would all fall under operational networking. These types of people are easy to access and most people are able to build these relationships holistically without much thought; not because it’s always easy, necessarily, but because it’s clear why it’s important and the target individuals clear: who is part of your routine? The pitfalls of not doing this well are also readily apparent: your performance suffers if you don’t have the rapport and trust of your proximal network on the job.

Building these relationships is important for anyone, and can help make you an effective manager. But to move into a leadership role—or to leave your firm entirely—different forms of networking must come into play. In order to prepare for the almost inevitable shift to a new employer, or even more dramatic move into a new career, you must engage in personal networking. These relationships are those you develop via trade associations, your alma mater, volunteer work, or other outside interests. Some of these, like professional organization contacts, may be part of your larger work world, while others—say, fellow parents at your child’s school—may seem to have no immediate tie or relevance to your career. The power of these ties lies in their potential to connect you with a wider circle outside your usual sphere and refer you to people who may be useful when you’re trying to make a transition.

According to a research study of top equity analysts undertaken by Harvard Business School professors Boris Groysberg, Ashish Nanda and Nitin Nohria, women tend to be very good at this type of networking. In their study they found that when top performing men moved to new companies their performance tended to suffer, often dramatically, while women continued to do well. The authors attribute this difference in part to the fact that men tended to focus on building their internal networks—something that was perhaps easier for them to do in a male-dominated profession—while women felt compelled to build outside alliances resulting in “portable, external relationships with the companies they covered.” Men were more reliant on their institution and how they navigated a specific company culture for their success, but also rarely recognized this interaction until it was too late. They were also more likely to jump ship for more money. Women, likely more concerned about finding a culture that was going to be a good fit for them personally, took more care with their decision to make a move.

This all sounds great on the surface, but it raises some real issues for women who want to develop within one firm. To do this businesspeople must rely on what Ibarra and Hunter term strategic networking. Leaders within a firm must not only understand how all the pieces of their organizational puzzle fit together, but also plan for the need to know people in many different disparate parts of the company. While more difficult to cultivate it is this distal network that make successful upward movement within an organization possible, both by allowing you to understand the work of others and how it fits into the big picture and expanding your sphere of influence internally. While many dismiss this type of networking as unsavory, as “political” rather than naturally occurring based on day-to-day interaction, the authors argue that it is better seen as a necessary skill for success. They suggest that finding a good role model who personifies the positive aspects of this behavior and undertakes strategic networking in an ethical way can help you see the benefits and give you a road map for getting started.

I hope that you find the differentiation of these three types of networking helpful in terms of how you think about your network’s effect on your career path. All of you are here today as part of another important aspect of networking—give and take. Students, I hope that you remember that giving time and advice to others is as part of this process as reaching out to professionals in your areas of interest. For the industry professionals that are will us today, I thank you for your time and service, and but also like to think that you realize that every student in this room is a future contact for you, and a potentially valuable one. I hope that this morning proves fruitful for all of you here today.

Want efficiency? Type slower

by: Steve Dalton
Senior Associate Director, Career Management Center
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business

I injured my thumb over the weekend.  While it didn’t make e-mail impossible, it made typing more painful and much slower, reducing my typing speed by about 75%.

Oddly, this hasn’t devastated my productivity at work.  Now that each additional word “costs” me something (a few seconds, and a little bit of pain), I’m trying harder to make points concisely so I can minimize keystrokes.

It’s neither fun nor an efficiency win, but I love its poetic justice.  While _I_ may prefer a painless 70 lightly-edited words per minute to a painful-but-more-thoughtful 20, I’m fairly certain my readers don’t.  In that light, throttling my typing speed would be rational, even after my thumb heals (a Dvorak would be a witty-but-temporary solution).

It got me thinking — as a career coach, what if offering one additional piece of job search advice (verbally, in writing, etc) cost me something as well?  Not a lot, but something: ten cents each time, or twenty seconds of leisure time — maybe even a pinch on the arm.

Suddenly, more advice isn’t automatically better.  All advice is not equally valuable, and having to “settle up” an advice bill at the end of each day would incentivize me to both prioritize and curate my advice better.  In this scenario, what advice would I cut?  Not because it’s not good advice, but because it’s not sufficiently good?

For years I’ve struggled to pare my job search advice to its bare essentials, but I clearly have room for improvement on my word counts.  Just because I’ll soon be able to type 70 WPM again doesn’t mean I necessarily should.

(Cross-posted at http://2hourjobsearch.com/want-efficiency-type-slower/)