When Construction, Education, Real Estate and Transportation are the only four industries to show positive growth in 2013 compared to 2012, 96% of the 2013 LBS MBA class having an offer in hand within 3-months of graduation is an impressive feat. If you want to test the brand value of an MBA program, compare the placement trends in a negative growth year.
Post-MBA Employment Sectors
London Business School has chosen to use the terminology “Corporate sector” for recruiters that do not come under Consulting and Finance. 43% of the 2013 MBA class chose corporate sector, even taking over Finance (28%) and consulting (29%). But if you dissect the Corporate sector, you will see that Amazon and Google were the largest recruiters, followed by Shell, American Express and Microsoft; not the traditional corporate sector that you expect. E-Commerce/IT and Telecommunication made a big comeback in 2013-14.
Finance has been losing ground in London Business School for the past five years. The financial downturn of 2008 had a permanent scar on the demand for Finance job openings with pre-crash (2008) showing 45% of the class opting for Finance jobs to the 2013 data showing the lowest percentage of the class (28%) accepting offers in the Finance industry.
Career Switchers
The percentage opting for an industry reveals little information about the sector that is in demand, especially since over 50% of the MBA class was career switchers. Even if it is not the same group of professionals, pre-MBA profile of the class shows that the class was comprised of candidates from Corporate Sectors (45%), Finance (30%) and Consulting (25%). Only consulting industry demonstrated an increase in demand from 25% to 28%.
If you ignore this trend and look at the percentage switch in each industry: 15.95% out of 29% of the MBA class choosing consulting were career switchers, compared to 19.78% out of 43% for Corporate, and 15.12% out of 28% for Finance. Finance is an overwhelming favorite for Career Switchers even if the total percentage of the class opting for Finance has gone down.
Career Service team’s Effectiveness
Career Service team’s effectiveness is one factor that MBA aspirants should evaluate before shortlisting an MBA program. London Business School career service team had improved the percentage job offers facilitated by their effort to 68% in 2013 from 59% in 2012. The effort was materialized through on-campus presentation, CV Book, fairs, job posting and other networking events.
Salary
The overall median base salary for LBS MBA graduates was at $112,000 with consulting fetching the maximum at $119,539, followed by corporate sector at $108,635 and finally Finance at $106,235. If you want to learn how to calculate return on investment considering future cash flow, read our chapter about Calculating MBA Return on investment where we compare MIT Sloan vs. Stanford MBA over a 5-year period. The LBS MBA Employment report uses an exchange rate of 1.514002 Dollar for 1 Pound.
If you look at Global Mobility and compensation, the Middle East fetched the best compensation for an LBS MBA candidate with a median salary of $130,001 followed Australasia at $121,347 and US/Canada at $120,000.
Major Recruiters
The major recruiters in consulting were McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, Booz & Company, A.T. Kearney and L.E.K. Consulting.
In Finance, the leading recruiters were Citibank, HSBC, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
In the corporate sector, the recruiters that offered the most job offers were Amazon, Google, Shell, American Express, and Microsoft.
Summary
1) For the 2013 MBA class, 96% found employment within three months of graduation
2) 43% of the class accepted offers in the Corporate Sector
3) Post-MBA Median Base Salary for the class of 2013 was $112,000 - $2000 more than 2012.
Download LBS MBA Employment Report 2013 for Details
