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Duke MBA Employment Statistics: 2010-11 Preliminary Report

July 18, 2011

by Sheryle Dirks, Associate Dean for Career Management

I am pleased to share the Duke MBA 2010-2011 preliminary employment report about Daytime MBA students in the Class of 2011 (graduates) and the Class of 2012 (interns) reporting job offers by Fuqua's May 14 graduation date. MMS employment statistics are reported on a different cycle and will be shared later this summer.

I encourage you to review the full report at the above hyperlink but have highlighted some notable changes and trends below. We will update these statistics at three months post-graduation (August 14) and again at the end of the data gathering period, which is September 30.

About our employers

  • Fuqua has a new top employer this year. After Johnson & Johnson's many years at number one, Deloitte hired 31 graduates and 28 interns for a total of 54 hires. They literally doubled their hiring in only one year, bringing aboard 27 Duke MBAs in 2009-2010.
  • This year's top ten also includes McKinsey (32 hires), Boston Consulting Group (25), Johnson & Johnson (19), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (17), Apple (16), Bain & Company (14) , Samsung (13), Citi (12), and Goldman Sachs (12). Like Deloitte, many of these firms increased their hiring over the prior year, in some cases substantially. For example, McKinsey went from 16 to 32, BCG 10 to 25, Bain 6 to 14, Citi 5 to 12, and Goldman Sachs 7 to 12.
  • Reversing a two-year trend of decreased MBA hiring, there was a 26% increase in the number of graduates and interns hired by this year's top employers. In 2009-10, the top 10 employers hired a total of 170 Duke MBAs while this year's top 10 have already hired 214.

About our MBA students

  • Students reporting offers by graduation increased dramatically. At graduation last year, 69% of Class of 2010 graduates had received at least one offer while that number is 84% in the Class of 2011. That absolute increase of 15 percentage points represents a relative improvement of 22% over the prior year. 
    • Graduating international students with offers at graduation saw the largest one-year gain. With 77% of international students in the Class of 2011 employed at graduation, that number is 17 percentage points higher over this same dimension last year, with 60% of international students having received full-time offers at graduation in 2010.  
  • Compensation is also on the rise this year. The mean 2011 full-time annual salary is $108,903 (up 6.7%) with mean signing bonus at $26,905 (up 20.1%). The percentage of graduates reporting signing bonuses increased this year, too, up to 82% from 71%. 
    • Monthly intern salaries have risen 18.5% to $7,224 with 19% of the intern-accepting Class of 2012 reporting a mean signing bonus of $3,424. In last year's intern class, 8% of the class reported received a signing bonus as part of an internship so that one-year increase is also substantial.
  • As you can see from our top employers' list, consulting has increased its Fuqua footprint this year. In the graduating class, 31% of the Class of 2011 accepted positions in the consulting industry, up 11 percentage points from the prior year. The consulting industry captured 23% of the intern Class of 2012 representing a jump of ten percentage points over the 13% of consulting interns in 2009 - 2010.
    • The mean and median salaries for both classes benefit from this trend, as consulting salaries tend to be the highest among those industries hiring massive numbers of MBAs. 
  • Full-time acceptances across the finance functions held steady, representing 23% of both the graduating classes of 2010 and 2011, with the marketing function down 10 percentage points (from 29% last year to 19% this year) and general management up 5 points to 18% from 13%.
    • In the Class of 2012 intern class, the functional mix is slightly different so it remains to be seen whether these shifts are part of a larger trend. Internships in marketing functions only decreased by 2 percentage points from last year (29%) to this year (27%), while general management held steady at 11%, and finance increased to 26% in this year's intern class.  
  • At graduation, 14% of each class had accepted positions outside the United States with the largest  percentage (9%) taking positions in Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.
    • Latin America experienced a substantial one-year increase among graduates, at 1% for the Class of 2010 up to 4% of graduates this year working in Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, and Peru.   

A notable postscript

It is admittedly a pleasure to be the messenger when the news is as good as what you have read in this note, especially after the past two years when times were so difficult for both our students and employers. I would be remiss, however, if I did not point out these important realities amid what is otherwise very positive news.

Two of our Class of 2011 graduates have experienced the continuing volatility of today's economy in a very personal way. Their full-time accepted offers were unexpectedly rescinded, one in the late spring and the second shortly after graduation, because of changing business conditions at the companies where each had accepted employment. Our primary focus at this time is working with these graduates to resurrect their respective job searches but we are also communicating with the employers to better understand what transpired and if/how the situation affects Fuqua's future relationship with them.

Finally, the job search continues for many of our students. Some who are actively seeking jobs at this time find encouragement in Fuqua's statistics and are confident that they will land in a good place, while others will not be buoyed until they can count themselves among the employed. Our counselors continue to reach out to and consult with job seekers during the summer, and company job posting activity is robust across populations. The school's commitment to our job-seeking graduates and interns remains steadfast through the coming weeks and months until each lands a position, not just any job but one that is right for them.