Here are some key findings from the survey:

• 64% of the 210 employers who participated in the Corporate Recruiters Survey said they would likely hire MBAs in 2011. In 2010 that number was 60%.
• One in four employers plans on increasing starting salaries for 2011 MBA hires. (For all other candidates, starting salaries are expected to remain at 2010 levels.)
• 85% of employers plan to hire direct-from-industry applicants, up from last year’s 73%.

View the GMAC press release for more on the GMAC survey results.

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Maryellen Reilly Lamb, senior associate director of MBA career management of Wharton, explains, “Two years ago, I couldn’t get a bank to take our calls, last year they were taking them and this year, they’re calling us. That speaks a lot to the cautious optimism of Wall Street at the moment.”

In 2008, about 59% of companies in all industries hired MBAs. In 2009 that number dropped to 50%, and this year, that number is likely to bounce back up to 55%.

Also trending back up are signing deals and salaries, which increased 3.2% this year to $89,200.

More recent statistics:

• Wharton saw a 20% increase this year over last in the number of students offered summer banking internships.
• NYU Stern hosted 10% more recruiting events this fall for full-time and summer banking positions.
• Columbia Business School recorded a 45% increase in full-time job postings.
• Harvard Business School, which as of last week had not published their totals, expects “a flurry of offer letters for MBA candidates approaching graduation.”
• JPMorgan and Credit Suisse plan to visit more schools and increase their hiring this year. Credit Suisse has already hired about 10% more people than it did last year.

How have the hiring changes affected MBA students and graduates? For one, explains the Fins article, candidates are showing more devotion to their chosen industry; fewer students are undecided in their career paths by the time they graduate. They are also not taking for granted what few job opportunities come their way.

The class of 2010 also reported higher starting salaries than did the class of 2009. The median starting salary for this year’s graduates was $78,820, compared to last year’s $75,000.

“Companies are managing through an unprecedented economic environment,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC. “It is precisely because of these pressures that they place such a high value on newly minted MBAs to help them survive and thrive.”

Now let’s compare this to the less optimistic picture that Businessweek draws for us in the lead article to its 2010 MBA rankings. The article begins by focusing on the difficult job market as it affected students pre-graduation (in February), not as the GMAC release discusses, at the time of graduation. This past year, for example, only 64% of UVA Darden students had secured jobs by February, a drop from the previous year’s 69%, and considerably lower than the 81% who had landed jobs in 2008, pre-crash.

The article does, however, let some optimism seep in, especially when it comes to the role alumni played in generating job leads for the class of 2010. Alumni were encouraged to step up and generate job leads. By graduation, 77% of the class had received job offers; three months later, the job rate surged to 87%.

The article continues to explain that difficult economic times call for non-traditional job seek methods, such as the alumni call to action above. On-campus recruitment visits by major companies are on the decline; there are fewer jobs out there and more MBA grads to fill them. Regional companies are now “on the radar” for top MBAs, as well as jobs outside of a top choice industry and/or location. Networking is more important than ever. “I had to expand my job search to include potential jobs and industries I would otherwise have never considered,” says Tyler Fenelon, a 2010 UCLA Anderson graduate.

Another hint of optimism—the article concludes by stating that “[h]appily, there are signs that the job market for MBAs is picking up.” More second year students returned to campus this fall with firm job offers from internships than did second year students last year. Also, certain industries (such as health care and energy) are increasing their job recruiting activity. That should, at least, be good news for the class of 2012.

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• An Israeli news source (Globes.co.il) reports that top b-schools in the U.S. have begun recruiting seriously in Israel. This year, more than 150 Israeli students will attend MBA programs in the U.S., including the first ever Israeli-Ethiopian student will be studying at Brandeis as a Fulbright scholar. Duke Fugua recently established a scholarship especially for Israeli students, and decided that Tel Aviv will soon become an anchor city for holding admissions interviews, putting it in a class with Beijing, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Army experience (which in Israel is mandatory) is always an impressive point when adcoms are reviewing student profiles.
• Top business schools in the U.S. are adding social media courses to their curricula to keep up with the growing corporate demand for social media-savvy employees, reports a Businessweek article, “B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media.” Companies like Panasonic, AT&T, and Citigroup all hire social media directors to “develop and manage marketing strategies that address the nuances of the online world.” If b-school graduates want to be considered for competitive positions in marketing and development, they’ll need to make sure that their technological social media skills are current. (Only 84% of 2009 b-school graduates placed jobs straight out of school, compared to 2007′s 98%.) Columbia offers four internet marketing courses, including “Media and Technology” and “Social Media.” Harvard offers “Competing with Social Networks.” Other top international b-schools that offer courses in social media include London Business School, Insead, and HEC Paris.
• An AAMC study examines med student interest in practicing in underserved areas at the time of matriculation, and how that interest changes by the time they graduate. Student race and ethnicity are also factored into the data. Results show that intent to serve the underserved populations diminishes over the course of med students’ studies. Those who were undecided at the time of matriculation were more likely to change their intentions to “no.” However, among Latino and African American students, the switch to “yes” from “undecided” was more prevalent.

Does an international MBA pique your interest? Find out more about the international MBA scene when you download Internationalizing the MBA, a new Accepted.com special report.

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According to a recent Businessweek blog post, J.J. Cutler, Wharton dean of admissions, has recently been promoted to oversee both Wharton’s admissions and financial aid department and the career management office.

“We said, ‘why not try this?’ This could be a win-win for both students and employers,” Cutler explains. “I already know the class and have overseen them on the admissions side, so maybe I can help manage them all the way through….Students, I think, will get a little bit more continuity. We can think about how to put together the right resources in career management for them earlier, so it will be less of a handoff or transition for them.”

Cutler expresses that the school plans to move forward with this plan cautiously. He expresses concern over admitting students simply for career reasons, but overall says that the benefits of such a synergy will greatly benefit students and their future employees.

Save 10% on all MBA services through July 31! If you are applying to b-school and could use some assistance, check out our early bird special to save. Insert coupon code EB10 at checkout.

Related Accepted.com Resources:

• B-School Zones: Wharton School of Business
• Do You Take Advantage of Your School’s Career Center?



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The following data was gathered from GMAC’s semi-annual Alumni Perspectives Survey:

• Of the 3,387 business graduates from the last decade who were surveyed, 96% were satisfied with their decision to pursue an MBA or other business degree.
• 94% of MBAs and other business degrees holders who graduated in the last decade are employed.
• 6% of those that are employed are self-employed. 53% of these business owners manage more than one employee, and 41% of those that are self-employed report at least $250,000 of total revenue per year.
• Of the remaining 6% who are currently unemployed, 48% plan on starting their own businesses.
• 94% of alumni felt that their business degrees provided them with a competitive edge over non-business graduates.
• 89% claim that the value of their degree is “outstanding to good.”
• More than half of 2000-2009 graduates report that they have “achieved, in part, their short-term and long-term career goals.”
• Some of the educational factors valued most by this cohort include classmates, committed faculty members, and a relevant curriculum.
• The median salary for the class of 2000 was $135,000. For the class of 2009, the median salary dropped to $82,000. The median salary for the 2000-2009 period is $94,829.

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• Many b-school students will be returning to class this fall without having had the rosy summer internship experience they had expected—that is, if they were lucky enough to land an internship at all. The main cause for disappointment: Fewer internships are turning into full-time job offers. “The number of offers at the end of the summer is shrinking, because companies don’t know their hiring needs, and so they’re very conservative,” says Kellogg assistant dean and director of career management, Roxanne Hori. The recent Businessweek article that covers this topic (“Salvaging an MBA Internship Gone Bad“) suggests that if you haven’t been offered a job by August, you shouldn’t despair—at least not yet. There are ways to persuade an internship employer to turn your summer stint into the real deal. Some tips from the article: Plan a mid-summer meeting with your employer. Discuss how you will contribute to the company long term. And if your employer still doesn’t bite, continue working hard until the end of the summer, and exit with dignity, making sure that you’re networking and job searching at the same time.

• Another recent Businessweek article compares private and public university spending per student for teaching, concluding that private universities spend twice as much as public ones. In the academic year 2007-2008, private colleges lay out teaching costs, on average, of $19,520 per student, while their public counterparts spent $9,732 per student. Both rates are up significantly in the last ten years—private costs by 22% and public by 10%.

• Yet another salary survey has been released by the Businessweek blog Getting In (“Salaries Strong for Recent Business Grads“). This one reports an increase in the number of jobs that corporate employers plan to offer undergraduate and graduate business grads, particularly to those coming out of summer internships. Looks like the author of our internship article (above) didn’t see this survey finding (conducted by Compensation Resources, Inc.): “This year, nearly 90 percent of corporate respondents plan to offer interns full-time jobs compared to only 60 percent in 2008.”

• Tuck alumni show appreciation to the Dartmouth business school by hitting a world record in its alumni giving participation rate. 66.7% of Tuck alumni participated in the recent Tuck Annual Giving campaign, surpassing other top b-schools by a landslide. The Tuck alumni giving rate has been above 60% consistently for the last 25 years. No other top b-school has ever even come close to that rate—this year, the next highest participation rate was at 42% and the average of the other nine schools on the top ten list was at a mere 20%. (Source: July 2010 Tuck Tip Sheet)

• Seeking more job optimism? The New York Times reports that hiring is on the rise, on Wall Street and elsewhere. A professor at Columbia calls the stock exchange “very resilient.” Everything has its ups and downs–look at hiring stats for companies like JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs, and you’ll see that the economy is about to experience an up. See the New York Times’ “Wall St. Hiring in Anticipation of an Economic Recovery” for more details.

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Result highlights:

• 77% of the full-time graduating class received job offers. This is compared to last year’s 74%.
• Students have accepted jobs at 80 companies in 13 countries.
• Median base salary for this year is the same as last year at $110,000.
• The most significant hiring industries for Haas MBA grads are the fields of technology (hired about 36%) and consulting (32%).
• The energy sector, including alternative energy and infrastructure, increased in popularity this year.
• A number of Haas graduates received job offers or summer internships at top companies including Apple, Google, and McKinsey.
• 95% of Haas Class of 2011 students received internship offers for this summer.
• Summer internships are spread out over 135 companies in 15 countries.

In an initiative to work with the not-so-great job market, Berkeley-Haas career services department worked this year to track global hiring trends on top recruiting companies, and worked closely with Haas@Work, the school’s experiential learning program. Students are also bumping up their job search initiatives by taking networking more seriously.

Related Accepted Blog Posts:

• Overcoming economic challenges: How four exceptional leaders work to improve top business schools
• B-School Class of 2010 More Confident, Job-Wise, than Class of 2009, Despite Fewer Jobs
• B-School Students See Light at the End of the Job Market Tunnel
• GMAC: MBA Employers Express Job Market Optimism

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According to a Bloomberg Businessweek article, “MBA Grads Tackle Social Problems,” a “new breed” of b-school graduate is emerging. These optimistic, ideal-driven MBAs are striving to make a profit—they are, after all businesspeople—but not by taking advantage of people on Wall Street or even by pursing traditional careers in consulting, but by participating in nonprofit organizations and healing environmental and social ills.

In the short-run these MBAs may not make as much as their more traditional peers, but they believe that in the long-run doing good will pay off—financially, as well as environmentally and socially.

For these new MBAs, job satisfaction is extremely important. They aren’t just looking to make a buck, but are looking for jobs “that allow them to earn a living and help a cause that is deeply personal to them.”

To encourage MBA graduates to pursue their humanitarian dreams, some programs, including Yale SOM and Stanford GSB now offer loan forgiveness programs for their public/nonprofit-pursuing graduates.

Health education, education for low-income students, restoring houses for low-income families, training autistic employees, and recycling initiative programs are examples of nonprofit projects that new MBAs have launched, as mentioned in the BBW article.

It looks like MBAs are tired of being the recent targets of moral critique and are ready and eager to “do well by doing good.”

Related Accepted Resources:

• The MBA Oath: Where Business and Ethics Meet…Maybe
• MBAs Search for Green Pastures
• MBA Applicants: 3 Ways to Back Up Your Social Enterprise Goals
• Sustainable Development and the MBA
• Beyond Grey Pinstripes: Ranking of MBA Programs
• Public Policy Enters MBA Field
• UCLA Students Green with Environmental Interest

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2. Here’s one way to attract prospective students to an international MBA program—fly them out for a weekend visit. Nyenrode Business Universiteit, a top b-school in the Netherlands, has just announced that it will offer free flights from anywhere in the world to ten prospective students for its “immersion weekend.” “We have invested heavily in shaping what we believe is now a world-class MBA programme and we are absolutely determined to attract the very best people to it,” says Desiree Van Gorp, the international MBA’s director. “The new programme is focused strongly on personal development and the enhancement of leadership skills and that’s exactly what participants can expect from the weekend of the 25th to 27th June, albeit in miniature.”

3. Bloomberg Businessweek has published yet another article about the b-school drive to expand their global footprints. This time, in “Top B-Schools Set Sights on India,” author Alison Damast discusses the moves American b-schools are taking to set up shop in India. These schools view the growing demand for high-quality management education in India as a clear invitation for them to make themselves at home, building new, state-of-the-art campuses in India. Such initiatives are contingent upon the passing by the Indian Parliament of a bill that will permit foreign schools to open their doors in India. If such a bill is passed, as is expected, then top U.S. business schools, including Duke Fuqua, will begin planning off-shore sites in India. The new Duke campus will offer EMBA degrees, one-year MAs in business, and other graduate programs.

4. While most people blame college grads’ inability to find a job on the economy, a recent NPR story blames it on the grads themselves. That’s why ill-prepared college seniors are getting a bit more attention these days in the areas of job readiness, communication skills, and life in the “real world.” David Polk, a York College professor who’s developing a new curriculum in “professionalism,” says, “There’s a sense of entitlement that we’ve picked up on, where people think they’re entitled to become, let’s say, president of the company within the next two years; they’re entitled to five weeks of vacation.”

Related Accepted Resources:

• Navigate the MBA Maze, a free nine-day email course.
• Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, an instantly downloadable ebook.
• “More Students Head to Mom and Pop For Jobs,” a blog post.

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