The Mayor's Office had recruited trained MBA talent to reach the client’s target of 5% sales growth – but Manu was to be called up to the big leagues. He was recruited by Pacific Millennium to consult on the Chinese firm’s marketing strategy.
While he was becoming part of a big corporate family, Manu had not forgotten what got him there – an expensive post-graduate program. He had not even finished his MBA degree before he was being whisked off to Shanghai. A few months from the graduation ceremony at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, Manu was moving at great speed.
His ultimate ambition, though, is to land a strategy role within a services firm. “I feel very confident that I will get my dream job,” he says. “Our career centre has been training us and they have good relations with some of the biggest companies who come to campus for recruitment.”
It is neither the first time nor the last time that an MBA student has begun a promising advisory career. Jobs in consulting and wider business services are booming.
The trend emerged last month, when a bevy of European schools reported a huge increase in recruiting activity among the top consulting and audit firms. The hiring spree is persistent on both sides of the Atlantic, and is another addition to the growing roster of booming business sectors hungry for the MBA degree holder.
Business services are motoring back to growth. The US economy has roared back into rude health, and as profit margins expand job prospects are tantalizingly high in some sectors.
Behind the headlines of potential rate rises and falling unemployment, senior positions are being posted in traditionally lucrative sectors of MBA recruitment.
Almost all of the US' jobs growth came from the private services sector. Business services added 47,000 new positions in July. The robust jobs market figures reflect the sixth consecutive month of growth above 200,000.
Erica L. Groshen, commissioner at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, says: “In the 12 months prior to July, employment growth averaged 209,000 per month. Professional and business services employment rose by 47,000 in July.”
Meanwhile, America’s economy enjoyed annualised growth of 4% in the second quarter. The recovery may be back on track but the boom has continued for MBA students seeking consulting, wider advisory, and audit work.
“Our records show about 30% of the most recent graduates accepting consulting jobs, as compared to 23% last year,” says Doreen Amorosa, managing director of the MBA Career Centre at Georgetown. Figures are still being finalized, but many US schools expect to reveal massive gains in services sector hiring.
A US services recruitment manager says: “Advisory is an extremely fast growing practice, and a very strong piece of the firm… We also are unique in that we can offer a variety of services to our clients; we don’t have to go outside of the firm.”
Wharton kicked off the reporting season earlier this year with strong gains in consulting internships, on the back of nearly 30% of 2013’s full-time MBA class landing advisory jobs – netting an average pay package of $135,000.
Maryellen Lamb, deputy vice dean of Wharton MBA Career Management, pointed out that there was an increase in the number of students accepting employment in consulting and private equity firms. On the list of the biggest recruiters were McKinsey & Company, PwC and Bain & Company.
Dartmouth Tuck’s figures, yet to be published, are even more encouraging. Global services firms McKinsey, Bain & BCG hired 20% of the class of 2014, we can reveal. “Tuck has seen a significant increase led by strategy consulting firms,” says Jon Masland, director of the Career Development Office.
More importantly, the leading US school expects to see an increase in management consulting recruitment in particular compared to last year’s graduates – 27% of whom were employed in the industry with massive mean base salaries of $128,000.
This is the clearest sign yet that the uptick in US services hiring and a growing economy is trickling up to the senior positions which MBAs covet.
Jon says: “We have seen this manifest itself in three specific ways: more opportunities for students, greater willingness of students to take their time with their job searches to make sure they take the right job when they launch their post-MBA career, and strong compensation packages for MBAs from top schools.”
Georgetown, which expects similar employment gains, puts this success down to tailoring MBA learning with employer expectations. “Students understand the nuances of their industry in a global context, have studied both leadership and ethics, and have strong analytical skills,” says Doreen.
Professional services firms have a natural connection to business schools – students have strong leadership, analytical and personable skills. Jon says: “Simply put, firms get a large percentage of their talent from top schools because it makes sense to ‘fish where the fish are’.”
This year’s expected hiring surge is also being driven by the success of previous cohorts. Alumni play a huge role in the recruiting process. Firms are more likely to hire a candidate from a school which they have secured talent from before.
“Add this to the fact that you will want your new hire to very quickly slot into your team-based culture, and it becomes even more important that you hire people with the right skills and ability to fit in,” adds Jon.
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