MBA Recruiting Competition Heats Up

sallyawp
Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:59:19 +0000

Here are some exerpts from an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about MBA recruiting this year. The article is called “Recruiting Competition Heats Up”.



The M.B.A. job market has continued to heat up this year, resulting in multiple offers and heftier salaries for many lucky full-time graduates. Jeffrey Rice, executive director of career services at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, may have the best perspective on the recruiting scene because of his additional role as president of the M.B.A. Career Services Council. . . . Mr. Rice closely monitors hiring trends.





Wall Street Journal: How intense has the competition for M.B.A. graduates become this year?

Mr. Rice: There’s fiercer competition mainly because more industries have ramped up their recruiting, specifically retail, insurance and other financial services, private equity, health care and technology. At the same time, activity is up in the M.B.A. bellwethers – consulting, investment banking and consumer products – with 15% to 20% more companies in those industries doing recruiting. For students, that means there are more diverse opportunities in what is clearly a seller’s market.





WSJ: How are schools helping companies deal with a potential scarcity of full-time M.B.A. students?

Mr. Rice: Many schools, including Fisher, are expanding the supply base by adding career-service resources to bring older part-time and executive M.B.A. students into the recruiting mix, along with some of our alumni.





WSJ: Is the recruiting process as heated as it was during the dot-com heyday in the late 1990s?

Mr. Rice: That was a really unusual time, an anomaly. I don’t think the recruiting opportunities are as prolific as they were then, but today the choices are less entrepreneurial, less risky in nature. The job offers are coming from more sustainable, stable industries today. And if there’s one thing that’s definitely true about the millennial generation of M.B.A.s, it’s that they’re looking for stable companies where the financial rewards are clear and they can see the trajectory for how they can advance.





WSJ: Of course, the bottom line in recruiting is compensation. How much are companies willing to pay M.B.A. graduates in this competitive market?

Mr. Rice: Starting salaries continue to rise. This year at Fisher with about 70% of our second-year students having accepted a job, we are up 10% from last year to a median base salary of $88,000. While starting salaries are always a factor, students are getting much more focused on compensation over the first five to eight years on the job. They aren’t necessarily taking the highest monetary offer if they believe the compensation trajectory is higher at a company with a slightly lower initial offer. For example, in consumer packaged goods, if a student starts as assistant brand manager or brand manager, he can expect $80,000 to $90,000. But in five years, he could become a senior marketing director with compensation of $150,000-plus. So he may recoup the costs of the M.B.A. degree quicker on that career path than on another where the compensation rises only $20,000 in five years.



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