GMAC report supports improving graduate employment consensus

A recently released graduate survey report, published by the Graduate Management Admission Council (owner and administrator of the GMAT exam used for business and management programme admissions), supports the general consensus that the graduate job market is improving.

According to the report, in which members of the 2014 graduating class were interviewed, students had more job offers and higher quality job offers than those who graduated five years ago. Nearly 60% of graduating students who were actively job hunting had received at least one employment offer at the time of the survey. This is nearly twice that of students in the class of 2010 (32%).

The percentage of graduating business school students who received a job offer prior to graduating did vary considerably depending on course, however. Whilst 91% of Postgraduate Programme students obtained at least one offer, only 30% of those studying for a Master of Finance also received an offer of employment. Other courses, such as Masters of Accounting/Taxation (76%), Full-time MBAs (53%) and Masters of Management (38%) sat within this range.

In addition to improving job prospects for MBA students, there is a growing demand for MBA students from technology firms (such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft), which now account for 15% of job offers, up from 9% in 2010. By the same measures, offers from the finance and accounting sector declined to 26%, from 30% 4 years ago. According to the London Business School (LBS), the number of LBS students who ended up in technology companies actually outstripped the number who joined investment banks in 2014 for the first time.

Analysis of the industry destination of those who received job offers revealed that:

• A quarter of graduates with job offers will work in the finance & accounting sector in 2014, a marginal increase than the class of 2013 (24%)
• About 1 in 5 will work in the consulting (21%) or products and services (18%) industries, on par with 2010 graduates (20% for each industry)
• 15% percent of 2014 graduates received job offers in the technology industry, which is nearly twice the frequency of graduates (9%) in 2010
• 1 in 5 students in 2014 are in the manufacturing (7%), health care (5%), government and non-profit (4%) and energy and utilities (4%) sectors - each at proportions similar to the classes of 2010

Image courtesy of Flickr, Creative Commons