MBA Jobs & Pay Surge In GMAC’s Latest Survey

As with last year’s survey, internships are still the most successful method for landing a full-time offer after graduation.

 

4. Student satisfaction with career and student services improved.

Favorable perceptions of programs’ career services rose 10 percentage points from last year’s assessment – from 74% in 2021’s survey to 84% this year– while reviews of student services rose five points – from 80% to 85%. This improvement was consistent across degree types – full-time MBA, business master’s, and professional MBA programs – as well across regions – Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Middle East/ Africa, and North America.

“A possible factor affecting these trends could be the return to on-campus learning in 2022, rather than what for many schools was a forced virtual experience among 2021 respondents amid the pandemic,” the report reads. “Career and student services include traditionally high-touch interactions that may have begun benefiting students in a more direct, tangible way with the return to in-person experiences.”

However, the aspect of the GME experience that brings the most student satisfaction continues to be faculty: 92% of surveyed students rated faculty as good or outstanding, compared to 90% in 2021. Curriculum (90% favorable) was the second most important factor for student satisfaction, followed by quality of cohort (90%) and admissions (89%).

Rating of Components of the GME

Source: GMAC 2022’s Enrolled Student Survey

5. Job searchers turning more to social media, but internships still king.

As with last year’s survey, internships are still the most successful method for landing a full-time offer after graduation. That remains true across degree type.

Overall, 60% of students who found a job did so through their internship or similar work projects. This success rate was especially high for business master’s degrees (71%) and professional MBAs (68%). Regionally, success rates were higher for those who studied in Asia-Pacific (66%) and Europe (56%) than those who studied in North America (42%) or Latin America , Middle East and Africa (47%).

Notably, social media job searches increased sharply from 2021, from 27 to 37%, becoming more frequent than networking with classmates and alumni (28%) as well as friends and family (35%).

Two points to extrapolate from this: 1) Keep those Linked-In profiles up to date. 2) The networking opportunities of the full-time, in-person MBA are still unparalleled. In fact, the increase in social media job searching is most significant in professional MBA (24% in 2021 to 31% in 2022) and business master’s students (23% in 2021 to 40% in 2022) – programs that are more likely to have online or hybrid formats with fewer in-person networking opportunities.

Job Search Methods and Success in Yielding Job Offers

Source: GMAC 2022’s Enrolled Student Survey

6. Asia-Pacific students are more excited about their degree value.

Asked to compare the total cost of their program to the quality of education received, 85% of respondents rated the overall value as good to outstanding, up a smidge from 82% in 2021. Asia-Pacific students reported the largest jump in perceived value, rising 11 points from 75% to 86%. For Asia-Pacific students in full-time MBA programs, 84% rated their program value favorably, compared to just 66% last year.

In other survey findings:

  • In Europe and Latin America/Middle East/Africa, full-time MBA and business master’s students had higher rates of favorability (88% and 86%, respectively) compared with professional MBA students (78%).
  • In the U.S., students from professional MBA programs reported slightly higher favorability rates (91%) than their full-time MBA and business master’s counterparts (86% and 84%, respectively).

Rating of the Overall Value of Their Graduate Management Education Degree

Source: GMAC 2022’s Enrolled Student Survey

Read the full 2022 survey here.

 

DON’T MISS THE MBA’S REPUTATION IS UNTARNISHED IN GMAC’S ANNUAL SURVEY and GMAT AVERAGES REBOUNDED BIG-TIME AT THE TOP 50 MBA PROGRAMS

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.