Best MBA Programs – Top 5 Employers (2021)

The Technology, Finance, and Consulting trio emerged as dominant industries at top US MBA programs. Based on the employer trends in the top 15 MBA programs (by post-MBA salary and brand reach), we noted that Consulting dominated 62% of all hiring at these schools, followed by technology (28%) and finance (6%).

Ross School of Management and Columbia Business School emerged winners in Consulting placements, taking 4 of the top 5 employer list.

NYU Stern was the only school with a balanced representation across the three industries.

The decline in Finance placements continued across top schools

Top 5 Employers – Best MBA Programs

Consulting

Out of the three industries, consulting firms dominated hiring with McKinsey firmly in the lead at – MIT Sloan, Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Chicago Booth, and NYU Stern. BCG was the top employer at Wharton and ranked second at most of the schools – Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, and Kellogg. Overall, Bain ranked in third place, followed by Deloitte and PwC/EY/Accenture.

Technology

Harvard, MIT Sloan, Stanford, and Wharton had a 60% consulting and 40% technology split in terms of the top recruiting firms. Amazon was the largest technology employer across all the top 10 ranked schools. It ranked first at Ross and Duke’s Fuqua while being third at Stanford. Google ranked fourth at Harvard, behind the MBB consulting firms, and was followed by Amazon.

Google ranked fifth at Wharton and MIT Sloan.

Finance

Credit Suisse and Bank of America were the largest financial services firms present at the top US MBA programs.

Credit Suisse was the third-largest employer at NYU Stern but ranked fifth at Chicago Booth.

Bank of America shared the fifth position of being the largest employer with Microsoft and Bain Duke’s Fuqua.

Distribution – Schools without Top 5 Employer Ranking

Johnson at Cornell, Darden, and Haas only disclosed their top 15 employers in alphabetical order. Consulting dominated at these three schools in terms of the number of companies featured within each industry.

Darden had the most diverse distribution of companies across different industries.

Haas’ employers were concentrated in Consulting and Technology, whereas Johnson’s employers were concentrated in Consulting and Finance.

Yale and Tuck did not highlight any employers hiring more than two or three candidates. The distribution of employers at both these schools significantly pivoted towards financial services.

McKinsey, Amazon and Credit Suisse – Clear Winners

McKinsey & Co. dominated the hiring in consulting, not just by presence but by the volume of recruiting at the schools it was present. Amazon was present at all top 16 US B-schools, compared to Google, which made it to the top 5 rankings at only 5 schools.

In the finance sector, Credit Suisse made more hires than Bank of America.

Best MBA Programs – Strengths (Placements)

Schools have pivoted away from specialist tags in one industry or function as the ‘Best MBA for Finance’ ‘Best MBA for Consulting,’ or ‘Best MBA for Technology’ tags are both a risk and a strength.

During downturns or hiring freezes in their specialist industry, such schools pivot aggressively to Consulting recruiters. Fortunately, MBAs have become the #1 source for consulting recruitment.

Instead of an industry/function tag, let us look at schools’ top two industry hires.

*Yale and Tuck didn’t offer a split-up of top 5 Employers.

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