The job market: Brighter prospects for landing a dream role

It's looking like 2012 could be a good year for graduating MBAs. Although the first signs of economic recovery are tentative at best, business school students are securing jobs in higher numbers than they have in the past two years.

According to the MBA Career Services Council, an association of business school career management offices and companies who hire MBA students, 70 per cent of business schools reported an increase in on-campus recruitment activity for full-time positions compared with the previous year. The positive results are consistent with an employer survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (Gmac) among 216 companies around the world, which found a "noticeable increase in companies planning to hire recently graduated management talent in 2012".

According to Gmac, nearly 75 per cent of those surveyed plan to hire MBAs in 2012, which is a 16 per cent increase over 2011. Nearly a third of those companies expect to pay higher base salaries to MBAs than they did in 2011.

The results underline a growing optimism among career services professionals about job placement in the year to come. Nicole Hall, president of the MBA Career Services Council, says: "The survey results indicate a positive trend we have observed in the past few years. We're seeing an increase in almost all industries and in most company types. Schools are continuing to find creative ways to assist students and companies with the job search process, and their efforts are paying off."

The London Business School is among those trying new initiatives to further the relationship with organisations not only in the UK, but around the world. "For the first time, we have created sector specific CV books, making it easier for recruiters in some of the major sectors to find the talent they need," explains Fiona Sandford, director of career services. "The school has also supported a growing number of career treks in markets such as Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore that have directly contributed to the increase of graduates finding roles in Asia."

MBA students on the year-long course at the Lancaster University Management School are encouraged to make the most of the programme's three consulting projects, with three different organisations, due to the post-MBA career opportunities they can generate. The last of these, the Corporate Challenge, involves a major consultancy project or internship with a global company in the UK or abroad, such as EDF Energy, BASF, Manchester Airports Group, PwC, and HSBC. In addition to experiencing real-world challenges and testing their managerial skills with clients, the project can provide excellent networking opportunities. "The value of such projects in enhancing your CV and helping you to make the next career move should not be underestimated," explains Cana Witt, career development manager for the Lancaster MBA. "They can prove an ideal stepping stone, especially if you are intending to move to a new job function or a new industry, and can sometimes lead directly to offers of employment."

Worldwide, the biggest hiring gains appear to be in technology and the new media sector, with consulting and consumer goods also posting strong increases. More than 60 per cent of respondents to the MBA Career Services Council survey reported an rise in recruiting for full-time technology positions in 2011, up from the 37 per cent bump in technology hires in 2010. At HEC Paris in France, trendy media companies such as Google, Amazon and most recently Facebook have surged in popularity for post-MBA employment, while consultancy firms and luxury brands such as Dior and Cartier are also bullish about hiring levels in the next year.

"Whether to help with growth in developing markets, or innovate with new products in a saturated market, companies are looking to hire MBA graduates who are extremely competent in the core business skills of finance, marketing and strategy, but have the aptitude and decision-making skills that go beyond mere analysis," explains Bernard Garrette, associate dean at HEC Paris. "They want individuals who are capable of managing teams, and will roll up their sleeves and set an example to others."

The big losers are likely to be the banks, whose MBA recruiting activity shows a decrease compared with an increase last year. Though business schools have traditionally been a major feeder into financial services, the estimated loss of 200,000 jobs in 2011 alone is forcing the latest generation of students to rethink their career plans.

But would fresh MBA graduates head for Wall Street or the City anyway? With the reputation of investment bank Goldman Sachs taking a beating in recent months, the company may struggle to repeat its fourth place ranking in a 2011 study of most desirable employers for MBAs, conducted by employer research firm, Universum. Jack Oakes, assistant dean for career development at the University of Virginia's Darden School in the US acknowledges that plenty of students will look for a job in financial services, particularly when the markets bounce back. But he reckons banks will face stiffer competition for top talent from industry, which is now much better at marketing itself. "It is great to see industrial companies raising their game and increasing their MBA hiring." The likes of Caterpillar, 3M and Dupont are stepping up their pursuit of MBA students at Darden, suggesting job prospects could be better with companies that actually make things, rather than trading debt.

The energy industry is currently among the most vibrant sectors, along with what Marie-Jose Beaudin, the director of careers services at McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal, describes as "dirty" industries, such as metals and mining. She believes students perceive these to be more stable than sectors such as finance. "MBA students also see them as more genuinely global at a time when most key jobs in many other areas are still concentrated in the US or Western Europe," she says.

But for those looking for real bargaining power in the MBA job market, China might be the place to head. In its latest Global Snapshot survey of employment prospects for professionals and managers, the recruitment firm Antal found China has one of the highest levels of demand in the world, with 72 per cent of companies currently hiring.

Given this fact, it is not surprising that graduates at Peking University this year reported a 201 per cent increase over their pre-MBA salary. The 50 graduates in the University's Beijing International MBA programme, run jointly with Belgium's Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, were offered positions by more than 250 companies across a wide range of industries, including JP Morgan, AIG, Apple, and LVMH.

According to Dr Zhuang Yang, the programme's dean, there are also more Chinese companies looking to hire the school's overseas students to act as consultants for their international expansion plans. "In China there is a limited managerial talent pool who understand global markets and mindsets, so our international students who can speak Chinese are in very high demand." Looks like 2012 could be the year of the MBA dragon.

Source: Matt Symonds, Independent.co.uk, Thursday 12th April 2012

Optimistic outlook for MBA graduates despite economic uncertainty

In contrast to concerning economic predictions, findings from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) reveal an optimistic job outlook for MBA and Masters graduates.

A study published this week outlines the boost graduate management education can offer individuals keen to obtain and retain top quality jobs in the current turbulent job market.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Europe is currently in recession with Britain poised to follow in early 2012.

The OECD also said unemployment, which currently stands at 8.3% - its highest since 1996 - will rise to 9.1 per cent in 2013, putting another 400,000 workers out of a job on top of the 2.6 million already unemployed.

But GMAC's survey finds 74% of employers plan to hire MBAs in 2012, up from 58% in 2011, 51% of employers plan to seek Master's in Management in 2012, up from 36% this year and 59% of companies plan to hire graduates with specialised business Master's in 2012, a substantial increase from 38% this year.

Nearly four times as many companies are planning to increase the number of MBAs they hire in 2012 (22%), compared to last year (6%) and more than 50% of employers expect to fill positions from Master's in Management and Specialised Master's in 2012, reflecting significant growth over the third of companies last year who were seeking these candidates and met or exceeded projections.

Just under a third (32%) of companies plan to increase salaries for MBA hires, 27% plan to increase salaries for Master's in management and 26% plan to increase salaries for specialised Masters courses.

GMAC researchers sent the invitation for this poll to 3,358 employers. As of November 16, 229 respondents from 216 companies had completed the survey-a 7% response rate.

Source: Hrmagazine.co.uk, Thursday 15th December 2011

Why the world is queueing up to sit the MBA

More people than ever want to study for an MBA, the course first offered by Harvard more than a 100 years ago. The London Business School has had 3,500 applications for this month’s 400 places. Demand for business courses in the UK is up by 8 per cent.

Jane Delbene, the director of marketing at the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which sets the entry tests used by many business schools, says: “There’s an inverse relationship to the economy. When the economy’s down, people decide they want to go to business school.”

But, after the financial crash of 2008, business schools are improving their teaching of ethics. Diane Morgan, the associate dean of the London Business School (LBS), says: “We went through an MBA programme review – which we do every five years – and we’ve just moved our ethics course from the first half of the first term, and we’ve enhanced it to be a business, society and government course in the third term.”

The change has been influenced by business failures dating back to the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 – the responsibility of Enron, run by Jeff Skilling a former Harvard graduate now jailed for fraud – to the financial collapse of 2008. Ethics has been on the LBS curriculum since the school opened in Regent’s Park in the 1970s, when students were largely British with a common style of doing business. Now the school tries never to have two people of the same nationality in each study group of six or seven students, and it accepts that diversity has revealed differences in acceptable business behaviour.

“Now we look at ethics from a micro level – what it means to you – and at the macro level of what it means to the greater economy,” says Morgan. “The big debate is how we talk about bribery.

“We were seeing that, with such diverse classes, that there are different perspectives. We could not look at ethics as a stand-alone but in terms of government and the world the students will encounter.”

Students spend a term learning about finance, another on managing themselves then, after an internship, a whole term on how to engage with the world ethically. “That’s brand new from this month,” says Morgan.

There have never been so many people wanting to become MBAs (masters of business administration), the title Harvard coined originally and which is now used internationally. Of the 59 students who enrolled for the course at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1908, only a quarter returned for the second year, but today the qualification is eagerly sought by a generation who know that an MBA will get them a job and better pay.

The Association of Business Schools has about 120 full members in Britain, and figures to be published soon will show an 8 per cent increase in students in the past year; the rise for 2009-10 was over 6 per cent. The country is covered, from Exeter to Edinburgh and Lancaster to London.

There are now 269,000 people studying business and administration in the UK plus 32,000 more reading economics. That 8 per cent increase outstrips the 5 per cent rise in the numbers in higher education generally and means that one student in every seven is on a business course. The increase in post-graduate business courses is 12 per cent.

But many places are being taken by overseas students impressed by British teaching. Morgan says: “When LBS started, we were mostly British, mostly men. Now about 90 per cent come from overseas.”

And although analysis of last month’s school exams will show girls taking commercial subjects are significantly outnumbered by boys, the split is even for all business degrees; on MBA courses, women fill 29 per cent of the places. Morgan hopes to raise that to 30 per cent for this month’s LBS intake to match the target for women in boardrooms set in February by Lord Davies’s committee inquiring into gender equality at the top of business.

Anna Abramovich, daughter of the Russian oligarch who owns Chelsea football club, is reported to be taking a business course in London, starting in September. And although she may not worry about the cost, the fees are not small.

They will be £53,900 this year at LBS, which tops one respected league table of UK schools (see box) – ahead, internationally, of US institutions such as Wharton, Harvard and Stanford. However, other British top-10s include schools at Ashridge, in Hertfordshire, and Bradford.

While not all fees are that high, Joe Clark, the head of policy at the Association of Business Schools, admits: “The top-level MBAs are eye-wateringly expensive.” A small number of people are sponsored by companies or foreign governments, but Mr Clark says: “The majority of them are paying themselves.” And people taking a postgraduate MBA have often had to give up a well-paid job to attend the course. LBS takes only people who have at least 10 years’ in work for its executive MBA, for instance.

When you consider that a three-year first degree at a large number of universities costs £27,000 in tuition fees alone, the cost of an MBA starts to look less expensive. On the other hand, managers who are still paying off their original undergraduate student loans may be reluctant to take on a further education cost, especially if their own children are approaching university age.

“I can see both possibilities,” says Ms Morgan. “We’re interested to see what impact it will have. It could change the mindset of how people view paid education.”

Mr Clark is also interested in how the Government’s policy on student fees will affect courses. “There’s a question in future of whether students will be prepared to pay to take on a postgraduate course when the are still in debt and repaying their first course.

“There seems to be growth in part-time study, and distance-learning is being offered more. It’s an easier way to fit it round earning, and the costs are lower.”

But people contemplating a business course ought to be capable of doing the sums. A survey of business schools found that 19 of the top 20 graduates claimed to have more than doubled their salaries after leaving – and the increase was 86 per cent even at the bottom end. LBS graduates claimed an average 124 per cent jump to the equivalent of $142,000 (£87,000) a year; the Stanford increase was 110 per cent to $165,000.

“You do your first degree in something you like, but you do your postgraduate in something to make money,” says Mr Clark, but he points out that different people gain different benefits. “People who go to Harvard are well driven anyway. The higher pay may well not come from anything they were taught; it may be from who they meet there.”

Most business schools squeeze the teaching into one year, although Manchester takes 18 months, LBS’s courses last 15 to 21 months and Edinburgh’s two years is more akin to the American model. Mr Clark suggests higher fees may make applicants seek better value, but there is no shortage of people wanting to attend business schools.

“It’s a pretty high selection test,” says Ms Morgan. “They have to do a GMAT (graduate management admissions test) to see how well they’ll do and write five essays on why they want to come to business school and what they will contribute.

“They need very strong references, and everyone that makes it through the first test is then interviewed and has to do an on-the-spot presentation on a topic they’re given during the interview. It’s a very extensive and rigorous process, and it’s very competitive throughout.”

The suspicion is that, with so many courses on offer from so many institutions, standards of entry and graduation are falling and that a qualification that was once rare is now common, diluting the value of an MBA.

Ms Delbene, who sets the entry tests, says: “Where once the MBA was wholly American, now more schools around the world are offering it so a lot more students are staying in Europe to attend graduate schools.”

She denies the entry test has become easier, but admits it has changed. The maximum score is 800 marks: a few business schools demand 700-plus; most of the top schools take people with scores above 600, but others are prepared to accept lower scores. However, she points out: “It’s only one element of the process.”

Ms Morgan admits: “We have quality indicators that we think are important to students coming in – maturity, a number of years of being in business, and being at the point where you’re starting to lead people.

“The proliferation is creating a bigger gap between the schools at the top and the others. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say they don’t have value but we have an ambitious vision, and I’m not sure if every other school does.”

It shows, she says, how graduates identify themselves. “Alumni will often identify themselves by their school rather than their degree,” she claims. “At other schools, they say they’ve got an MBA.”

Source: Richard Northedge, Independent.co.uk, Sunday 7th August 2011

Job market for MBA graduates greatly improved

MBA students have reason to celebrate this year as the job market continues to improve and recruiters predict a substantial increase in hiring of business school graduates.

Though the news was widely expected, confirmation from the latest recruiter survey by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, will allay many of the concerns experienced by MBA programme directors in recent years.

GMAC’s corporate recruiter survey shows that MBA hiring is up 5 per cent over 2010, to 67 per cent. Recruitment is particularly strong in the finance, accounting, manufacturing and energy sectors, according to the report.

The other good news is that salaries are up, especially in Europe. The salaries offered by European recruiters to new MBA recruits is $91,693, marginally higher than the $91,433 offered by US recruiters.

Participants on MBA programmes echo the optimism. More than half (54 per cent) had at least one job offer at the time the GMAC research was conducted in March, several weeks before graduation. This compares to 32 per cent of respondents to the 2010 survey. But there are regional variations. Students in the Asia-Pacific region were the most likely to have received job offers (67 per cent) compared to 54 per cent in the US.

The corporate recruiter report surveyed 1,509 participants in 905 companies in 51 countries. The graduate survey was compiled from nearly 5,000 (4,794) graduating masters level business students (88 per cent of whom were MBAs) at 156 business schools. Some 80 per cent of the business schools were in the US, as were 65 per cent of the respondents.

Source: Della Bradshaw, FT.com, Tuesday 10th May 2011