In this in-depth analysis of the NYU Stern MBA Salary and Placements outcome for the 2025 graduating class by industry, we cover: Consulting, Investment Banking, Financial Services, Consumer Packaged Goods, Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech, Private Equity and Venture Capital, and Law.
1. Consulting Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Stabilization After a Post-Peak Correction
3. Financial Services Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Largest Industry Placements
5. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Small Share
7. Private Equity and Venture Capital Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Structurally Limited
8. Law Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: High Compensation, Fixed Capacity
Consulting Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Stabilization After a Post-Peak Correction
Consulting accounts for 32.8% of full-time hires for the NYU Stern MBA Class of 2025, with a median base salary of $175,000 and an average signing bonus of $29,231. On the surface, this keeps Consulting as one of Stern’s two dominant outcomes, but a deeper study shows the evolution of the consulting share and what was happening in the consulting market during the relevant recruitment window.
Correction from the post-pandemic Boom: Consulting Placements at NYU Stern MBA
In the previous year, Consulting hiring stood meaningfully higher at 41.9% in 2022-23 and 37% in 2023-24, reflecting the tail end of the post-pandemic consulting boom. That surge was driven by aggressive hiring by MBB and large strategy firms to service pent-up demand in digital transformation, cost restructuring, and growth strategy. By the time the Class of 2025 pursued full-time recruiting, that expansion phase had clearly ended.
Consulting firms were no longer in “capacity building” mode; instead, they were focused on utilization discipline, margin protection, and selective deployment of talent. The decline to 32.8% should therefore be read as a normalization, not a collapse.
Compensation Stagnant at $175,000: Median Base Salary at NYU Stern MBA
Compensation reinforces this interpretation. The median base salary remains flat at $175,000, down from the prior year’s peak, while signing bonuses have softened. This is consistent with industry-wide behaviour during Q3 2024 to Q2 2025, when consulting firms preserved headline salaries but used bonuses and start-date flexibility to manage costs.
Consulting Talent at NYU Stern MBA: Immediate Value in AI Integration
Firms were hiring, but they were hiring carefully, favouring profiles that could deliver immediate value in AI-enabled transformation, operating model redesign, and cost optimization while limiting generalist hiring that was essential during the post-pandemic digital transformation boom.
The timing mattered.
AI Disrupting Consulting Delivery Models: NYU Stern Also Not Spared
During Q3 and Q4 2024, consulting demand remained steady but shifted decisively away from exploratory digital and ESG strategy toward implementation-heavy, outcome-linked mandates. By Q1 2025, AI had become embedded in client work and in consulting delivery models themselves, reducing the staffing needs per project.
The self-limiting integration of AI has structurally affected large incremental MBA hiring even as project volumes have increased.
Stern’s Consulting numbers reflect this reality: strong absorption, but no longer inflated by cyclical over-hiring.
Geographically, Stern’s positioning in New York continues to matter, as Consulting engagements around PE deals found the right talent mix at NYU Stern and Columbia.
IMPACT of North America’s Regulatory Flexibility: On Consulting Recruitment at NYU Stern
North America remained the primary consulting demand engine globally during this period, while Europe and Asia lagged due to regulatory uncertainty and slower enterprise spending. Stern’s Consulting pipeline benefited from this regional concentration, but it did not escape the broader industry discipline around headcount growth.
Download F1GMAT's NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide
Short Answer: What are your short-term career goals?
Question 1: Change: _________ it (350 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
In today’s global business environment, the only constant is change. Using NYU Stern’s brand call to action, we want to know how you view change. Change: _____ it. Fill in the blank with a word of your choice. Why does this word resonate with you?
How will you embrace your own personal tagline while at Stern? Examples:
• Change: Dare it.
• Change: Dream it.
• Change: Drive it.
• Change: Empower it.
• Change: Manifest it.
• Change: [Any word of your choice] it.
Question 2: Personal Expression (a.k.a. "Pick Six")
Investment Banking Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Execution-Led Recovery Without Headcount Growth
Investment Banking accounts for 28.0% of full-time hires at NYU Stern for the Class of 2025, with a median base salary of $175,000 and an average signing bonus of $57,448, the highest among all major industries reported.
The trend places Investment Banking not only as a dominant outcome within Financial Services, but also as one of the most economically concentrated employment channels for NYU Stern MBA graduates.
Execution Talent: Investment Bank Hiring at NYU Stern MBA
Compared to the previous year, the hiring share in Investment Banking shows a measured rebound. This distinction is critical. The increase did not stem from banks rebuilding analyst and associate benches aggressively; instead, it reflects deal execution finally converting into staffing demand after a prolonged pipeline drought.
During 2022–2023, global M&A and capital markets activity collapsed, leading banks to pause or sharply reduce MBA hiring. By the time the Class of 2025 recruited, the environment had shifted—but unevenly.
Between Q3 2024 and Q2 2025, investment banking entered an execution-heavy phase. Deal flow improved materially, with global M&A volumes rising quarter by quarter and crossing pre-2023 levels by Q2 2025. However, this recovery was top-heavy and selective.
Large-cap strategic transactions, infrastructure assets, insurance brokerage, energy transition deals, and AI-linked acquisitions dominated fee pools, while middle-market activity and sponsor-led LBOs remained constrained by financing uncertainty and valuation gaps.
This matters for MBA hiring.
Banks were busy closing deals, but they were not confident enough to rebuild permanent headcount at scale. Instead, they relied on leaner teams, longer execution cycles, and selective lateral hiring.
Stern’s Investment Banking outcomes reflect this pattern: strong placement volume, but no overshoot, with compensation doing most of the signalling rather than hiring share.
NYU Stern MBA Career Outcome: Flat Base Salary in Investment Banking
Compensation dynamics further confirm this reading. The median base salary remained flat, consistent with industry-wide stability in associate pay, but signing bonuses expanded materially, crossing $57,000 on average. This is a classic late-cycle IB signal. Rather than raising fixed costs, banks used bonuses to attract talent for immediate execution needs while preserving flexibility should the deal momentum weaken. During Q1 and Q2 2025, advisory fees rebounded, but new pipeline formation lagged execution, reinforcing this cautious compensation structure.
Stern’s positioning in New York amplified this effect.
Stern MBA Proximity Effect: 60% Global Investment Banking Fee Pools in US
The U.S. accounted for over 60% of global IB fee pools during this period, and New York remained the centre of advisory, capital markets, and private credit activity. Stern graduates benefited from proximity to active deal teams, but this advantage translated into execution-linked hiring, not structural expansion. Banks hired where deal flow justified it, not in anticipation of future volume.
Essay Editing - Consult with Atul Jose (Essay Specialist, F1GMAT)
The skills that a writer/editor brings to the table are different from what a former admissions officer or a consultant who has limited writing skills brings
Review Skills # Writing Skills
Movie Critics # Movie Directors
For any questions about the service, email me, Atul Jose, at editor@f1gmat.com
As F1GMAT’s Lead Consultant and Essay Specialist, I will help you structure the essay by:
1) Incorporating your Personal Brand
I will help you find unique life experiences that would differentiate you from the highly competitive NYU Stern MBA Application pool.
2) Including Storytelling elements
I have developed a keen sense of storytelling from over a decade and a half of editing essays and writing essay examples for F1GMAT’s Essay Guides.
The skills that a writer/editor brings to the table are different from what a former admissions officer or a consultant who has limited writing skills brings
Review Skills # Writing Skills
Movie Critics # Movie Directors
It is easy to comment, but it is tough to structure the essay from the perspective of the applicant and turn the essay into a winning application essay.
3) Aligning with the Culture of the School
A big part of editing and guiding applicants is in educating them about the culture of the school
Some schools have very ‘specific’ traits that they are looking for in an applicant.
If you don’t highlight them and lean towards general leadership or cultural narratives, the essay won’t work.
I will guide you through the writing process.
I will also iteratively edit the essays without losing your original voice.
Financial Services Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Largest Industry Placements
Financial Services in aggregate accounts for 36.6% of full-time hires, with a median base salary of $175,000 and an average signing bonus of $56,657, making it the single largest employment category for the NYU Stern School of Business MBA Class of 2025.
Importantly, this share represents a rebound from the prior year’s softness, but not a return to pre-2021 exuberance.
Role of Investment Banking: Driving Financial Services Recruitment
The recovery must be read in the context of what happened across financial markets between Q3 2024 and Q2 2025. While Investment Banking drove the most visible rebound through deal execution, the broader Financial Services ecosystem stabilized through capital-light, fee-based, and balance-sheet-efficient activities.
Industry Moving Away from Underwriting-heavy Exposure.
Asset management, diversified financial services, insurance, and private credit-adjacent roles absorbed MBAs not because risk appetite expanded, but because institutions rebalanced away from underwriting-heavy exposure.
Roles Prioritized in Hiring NYU Stern MBA Graduates
Banks and financial institutions increasingly prioritized roles in risk management, capital strategy, treasury, regulatory advisory, and private credit structuring, areas that benefited from higher interest rates and tighter capital standards.
Unlike the zero-rate era, profitability during this cycle came from discipline rather than leverage, favouring MBAs with analytical depth and regulatory fluency over pure deal volume orientation.
NYU Stern MBA Finance Hires: Base Salary Flat Bonus Remained Elevated
Compensation dynamics reinforce this interpretation. Base salaries remained flat across Financial Services, indicating mature pay structures, while signing bonuses stayed elevated. This mirrors industry behaviour: firms were willing to pay to secure talent capable of navigating complexity, but avoided raising fixed costs amid macro and policy uncertainty. The bonus-heavy structure signals confidence in near-term workload, not long-term expansion.
Geographically, the dominance of North America in global fee pools worked in Stern’s favour, but again in a constrained way. Hiring concentrated where regulatory clarity, capital depth, and institutional clients were strongest, reinforcing New York-centric financial roles favoring NYU Stern MBA graduates.
Technology / Telecommunications Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Hiring Decline Driven by Structural Reprioritization
Technology and Telecommunications accounted for 14.2% of full-time hires for the NYU Stern School of Business MBA Class of 2025, with a median base salary of $152,500 and an average signing bonus of $34,352. While Tech remains a meaningful destination, this figure represents a continued multi-year decline rather than a one-off correction.
NYU Stern MBA Career Outcome for Technologists: Multi-Year Decline in Technology Hiring
Historically, Stern’s tech placement peaked during the 2021–2022 hiring boom, when cloud expansion, consumer internet growth, and post-pandemic digitisation drove aggressive MBA recruitment. That cycle decisively ended by 2023. By the time the Class of 2025 entered recruiting, the technology sector was no longer reducing headcount indiscriminately, but it was rebuilding itself around a far narrower definition of value creation.
AI Spending Spree and IMPACT on Generalists
From Q3 2024 through Q2 2025, the technology industry entered a phase of capital and talent concentration. Spending surged in AI infrastructure, cloud compute, cybersecurity, semiconductors, and energy systems supporting AI workloads, while demand for generalist product management, strategy, and operations roles compressed sharply. Large technology firms continued to invest tens of billions in AI-capex, but simultaneously reduced or froze MBA hiring for non-AI-aligned functions.
Prior Engineering Experience: Prioritized in NYU Stern MBA Graduates
Stern’s declining tech hiring share reflects this structural reprioritisation. The drop is not explained by weak tech demand: cloud, AI, and data infrastructure spending reached record levels during this period, but by a shift in the types of roles being hired. Tech firms increasingly favoured candidates with prior engineering exposure, data science fluency, or deep domain expertise over generalist MBAs. As a result, even as industry investment expanded, MBA absorption narrowed.
Bifurcation of Technology Talent: AI vs. Everything Else
Compensation trends reinforce this interpretation. The median base salary held at a solid but unexceptional level, while signing bonuses remained moderate relative to finance and consulting. This reflects the bifurcation within tech hiring: AI infrastructure and specialised technical roles commanded premiums, but many MBA-accessible roles sat outside the highest-growth cost centres. Firms protected pay for critical hires but showed little willingness to bid aggressively for broader MBA cohorts.
West Coast vs. New York Needs Affected NYU Stern MBA Hiring
Geography also played a role. Much of the capital expenditure growth during this period flowed into data centres, semiconductor fabs, and energy infrastructure, often outside traditional MBA hiring hubs. Meanwhile, tech hiring in New York remained skewed toward platform strategy, fintech-adjacent roles, and media-tech intersections, which are smaller in volume and slower to scale than West Coast engineering-heavy pipelines.
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Small Share
Consumer Packaged Goods accounts for 3.4% of hires, with a median base salary of $122,500 and a notably high average signing bonus of $37,857. While the hiring volume is modest, CPG stands out because it did not retrench further during a period when many consumer-facing industries were under pressure. Relative to Stern’s own historical data, this represents gradual structural improvement.
CPG Hiring at NYU Stern MBA: Profitability Prioritized Over Brand Building
Between Q3 2024 and Q2 2025, CPG firms globally operated under persistent margin stress driven by input-cost volatility, private-label competition, and uneven consumer demand. In such an environment, MBA hiring typically contracts sharply. Instead, firms redefined the roles they hired for.
Demand shifted toward pricing strategy, revenue growth management, supply-chain optizisation, and digital marketing analytics, areas where MBA skill sets directly influence profitability rather than brand storytelling.
This explains the compensation structure. Base salaries remain well below consulting and finance, but signing bonuses are comparatively strong, signalling selective competition for candidates who can deliver immediate commercial impact. CPG firms were not expanding MBA intake, but when they hired, they paid to secure profiles with analytical and operational depth.
For applicants, CPG at Stern is best interpreted as a precision pathway, viable for candidates with prior consumer, operations, or analytics exposure, not ideal for career switchers entering the industry.
Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Selective Comeback Under Capital Discipline
Healthcare, Pharma, and Biotech together represent 3.4% of hires, with a median base salary of $138,500 and an average signing bonus of $31,250. While this remains a relatively small outcome at NYU Stern School of Business, it marks a measured re-engagement compared to the sharp pullback seen during the venture and biotech funding downturn of 2022–2023.
Strategy and Corporate Development Hires
During Q3 2024–Q2 2025, healthcare hiring was shaped by capital selectivity rather than growth optimism. Large pharmaceutical firms focused on portfolio optimisation, market access strategy, and late-stage asset commercialisation, while biotech firms operated under constrained funding and longer timelines to liquidity. As a result, MBA hiring skewed toward strategy, operations, pricing, and corporate development roles, not innovation or early-stage growth.
Compensation reflects this bifurcation. Pay levels are competitive but not aggressive, signalling stable but risk-aware hiring.
For applicants, healthcare outcomes from Stern are viable primarily for those with prior healthcare, life sciences, or policy-adjacent experience.
Private Equity and Venture Capital Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: Structurally Limited
Private Equity (1.3%) and Venture Capital (1.7%) remain structurally constrained MBA outcomes, despite improved deal execution in 2025.
Finance Schools: Failure to Transition from Investment Banking to PE
One trend that surprises us while analyzing schools with strong Investment Banking placements is the inability to grow their PE share in recruitment.
Across Q3 2024–Q2 2025, PE and VC firms focused on lean teams, partner leverage, and operating partner models, even as exits and deal activity improved.
Higher interest rates, tighter LP scrutiny, and greater reliance on private credit reduced the need for junior MBA-level hires. But given the high percentage of Finance professionals entering NYU Stern (above 20%), it is surprising that PE conversion is low.
One reason is that hiring occurred through pre-MBA analyst pipelines or lateral, experience-specific recruitment, as the turnaround in the PE industry was driven by structural shocks from Tariff wars and the leverage of private credit and IPOs in funds.
The expertise required to navigate such complex emerging dynamics was not offered through the graduating MBA pool in most Finance schools.
Related: A greater scrutiny through F1GMAT Premium’s Curriculum Analysis will demonstrate how these Finance schools couldn’t facilitate PE offers despite a measurable recovery in deals during the late 2024-25 cycle.
Law Salary and Placements at NYU Stern MBA: High Compensation, Fixed Capacity
Law represents 3.4% of hires, with a median base salary of $235,000, the highest across all industries. However, this outcome is structurally capped. Hiring volume is stable year-over-year and tied almost entirely to JD–MBA profiles or candidates with prior legal training entering corporate law, compliance, or M&A advisory roles.
The high compensation reflects scarcity and credential requirements, not demand expansion. From an MBA show perspective, Law should be viewed as a credential-contingent niche, not a function of Stern’s broader employment market dynamics.
Industry | Percent of Hires | Median Base Salary | Average Signing Bonus |
| Consulting | 32.8% | $175,000 | $29,231 |
| Consumer Packaged Goods | 3.4% | $122,500 | $37,857 |
| Entertainment/Media/Sports | 2.2% | $200,000 | NA |
| Financial Services | 36.6% | $175,000 | $56,657 |
| Investment Banking | 28% | $175,000 | $57,448 |
| Private Equity | 1.3% | NA | NA |
| Venture Capital | 1.7% | NA | NA |
| Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals/Biotech | 3.4% | $138,500 | $31,250 |
| Technology/Telecommunications | 14.2% | $152,500 | $34,352 |
| Law | 3.4% | $235,000 | NA |
Reference