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Good news! More jobs for MBAs graduating this year

The Corporate Recruiters Survey 2013 reports an upward trend in MBA recruitment this year as compared to last year. Read on for details...

There's good news for MBAs graduating this year.

The 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey revealed that 75 per cent employers plan to hire MBAs and specialised business master's professionals this year, 4 per cent more than they did in 2012.

The survey is issued by the Graduate Management Admission Council and its survey partners, the European Foundation for Management Development and the MBA Career Services Council.

Meanwhile, an accompanying student survey titled the 2013 Global Management Education Graduate Survey revealed that just like last year, six in 10 business school graduates already had job offers in February or March.

This year, employers are keen on hiring graduates with specialisations in management, accounting and finance in particular besides those with executive MBA degrees.

The 2013 Global Management Education Graduate Survey taken by 5,331 graduating students attending 159 universities in 33 countries found that 60 per cent of those seeking jobs had at least one offer in February or March, as compared to to the 62 percent of class of 2012.

Please click NEXT to know more about the other interesting findings from this survey...

Increase in median salary

According to the survey, this year US employers expect to pay new MBAs a median salary of $95,000, up from $90,000 last year.

These salaries however vary substantially by region of work but MBA graduates will on an average earn $43,000 more per year as compared to their regular bachelor's degree counterparts in the US, the study revealed.

Sector-wise hiring

Sectors in which more employers plan to hire MBAs this year include:

Healthcare: 89 per cent (up from 77 percent in 2012)

Energy/Utilities: 86 percent (up from 69 per cent in 2012)

Consulting: 79 per cent (up from 69 percent in 2012).

Speaking about the survey, Eric Cornuel, director general and CEO of the European Foundation for Management Development said that most of these companies were looking to 'attract the best and the brightest', and the business school experience provided 'an exceptional opportunity to gain new knowledge, learn and share with a diverse group of students and faculty and most importantly develop at a personal level in many different ways'.

At the same time, the report pointed out that likelihood of landing a job offer varied substantially by many factors, including graduates' preferred work location and whether they studied in their home country or not.

Less number of early job offers this year

Although fewer full-time two-year MBA graduates had early job offers this year than last (61 per cent, compared with 64 per cent last year), the percentage of master of accounting graduates with job offers was 76 per cent, up from 65 per cent surveyed last year.

Fifty-four percent of graduates searching for jobs in the finance/accounting industry had offers, down from 61 percent last year.

One reason for this shift appears to be greater attractiveness of the finance/accounting sector among career switchers, with just about as many graduates entering the industry as leaving it, signalling a recovery from last year's findings and greater competition for jobs.

More graduates preferred to switch careers

The survey also revealed that more career-switching graduates are entering the consulting, healthcare, and energy/utilities fields than leaving it.

By contrast, more career-switching graduates are leaving the products and services, manufacturing, nonprofit/government, and technology sectors than entering them.

Both surveys show a healthier job market for business school graduates from five years ago, when just 50 per cent of corporate recruiters planned to hire MBAs and only 43 per cent of class of 2009 graduates surveyed had early job offers.