Jobs are back in 2011, reveals survey

A recently announced Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) survey revealed that placement figures for 2011 graduates have increased considerably since last year and that graduates who did an internship stood a better chance of being employed. Read on.

Recently, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) revealed the findings of its annual Global Management Education Graduate survey which not only revealed that jobs have rebound by a considerable number in 2011 (54 percent) from last year (32 percent) but it also pointed out that internships are important in securing a full-time job after graduation.

The survey that explores the responses of 4,794 recent or soon-to-be graduates at 156 business schools worldwide allows students to express their opinions about their education, the value of their degrees, and what they intend to do with their degrees after graduation, among other topics.

In the survey, GMAC also captures some post-graduation employment information from respondents, although a complete jobs picture is not possible due to many respondents who reported that they were continuing with a current employer, starting up their own businesses, or not yet searching for a job.

Click NEXT to read about the findings of the GMAC report.

• More than half (54 percent) of all graduate business students seeking employment had received at least one job offer by the time of the survey. Last year, only 32 percent had job offers.
• Those with job offers received 2.0, on average, which was a slight increase compared with 2010 (1.8).
• New analysis of students receiving job offers revealed additional details about their job search efforts; for example, we learned they submitted nearly 16 resumes/applications and landed six job interviews, on average.
• Meanwhile, students attending schools in the Asia-Pacific region were the most likely to have received a job offer (67 percent), followed by students at schools in the United States (54 percent).

• An improved job market was especially noticeable for graduates surveyed from part-time MBA programs, for which 2011 set a record for the highest percentage of graduates (55 percent) with job offers in the past five years. This improvement for part-time MBA students is tempered by a lagging percentage increase in salary compared with graduates of other programs, however.
• Graduates from two-year and one-year full-time MBA programs with job offers in hand expected to receive higher salaries than their counterparts from recent years. Salary increases for graduates of non-MBA master's programs also surpassed those seen in 2010.
• A majority (74 percent) of executive MBA program graduates intended to continue working for their current employers and only 10 percent were involved in the job search.

• On average, those who plan to remain with their current employer after graduation expect a 39 percent increase in salary.
• By industry, those with jobs in the products/services sector expect to increase their average salary by 59 percent.
• Besides a salary boost, class of 2011 graduates expect other enhancements in their employment situation such as an increase in responsibilities (44 percent), a promotion (35 percent), and a change in job title (30 percent).