Where MBA Grads Want To Work
ApplicantLab |
August 3, 2025

Exploring where MBA graduates most want to work is always insightful, especially now as industry dynamics shift between finance and tech. On the “Business Casual” podcast, John Byrne, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards delve into the latest Universum survey findings. These findings show a notable tilt towards finance companies, with tech firms experiencing a downturn in popularity amidst recent layoffs.

Finance firms like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley dominate the top spots, reflecting a resurgence in interest among MBA students. This rise contrasts with the tech industry’s drop, likely due to decreased hiring and less promising career advancements caused by widespread layoffs. Caroline aptly notes that the trends indicate how students are aligning their career aspirations with the job market’s current realities, opting for stability and structured growth paths found in finance.

Surprisingly absent from the top 20 are renowned consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG, traditionally seen as coveted destinations for top MBA graduates. Maria suggests this might be due to these firms’ exclusivity and their recruitment focus on a select number of schools, making them seem out of reach for many survey respondents. Despite this, John highlights that McKinsey’s competitive salaries and bonuses continue to make it an attractive, albeit exclusive, choice for those who can access these opportunities. For MBA applicants, this conversation underscores the importance of aligning personal goals with industry trends and employer realities.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:06] – John

Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets & Quants. Welcome to business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Maria Wickvilla, and the returning, Caroline Diarte Edwards. Welcome back, Caroline.

[00:00:19] – Caroline

Thank you.

[00:00:20] – John

A big question when you go to business school is, where am I going to work? Can I get a job that I really I want with the right employer, not only the right industry that I’m targeting. Every year, there’s an organization called Universum, which surveys business school students, both MBAs and undergrads, and ask them, essentially, who are the most attractive employers in the world? The US top 10 companies for business majors and MBAs, tilted toward the finance world this year while tech faded. That may be no surprise because tech has been undergoing a few layoffs, and I’m going to even imagine that tech is going to be ahead in applying AI. But here’s the top 10. Let me read them off to you. Jpmorgan Chase, number one, Goldman Sachs, number two, Morgan Stanley, number three. So the top three all in the world of finance. Then we have a couple of tech companies, Apple and Google, Nike comes in at six. Deloitte and Consulting comes in at 7, Bank of America at 8, BlackRock, 9, and then 10, Microsoft. Obviously, a pretty great array of very elite and prestigious employers who have very fine filters in terms of who they hire.

[00:01:52] – John

Surprisingly, you may be amazed to hear that McKinsey Bain BCG, which probably is in the top five for every M7 graduate of an MBA program didn’t even finish in the top 20, which is a real surprise to me. Maria, why do you think that’s so?

[00:02:13] – Maria

Well, I think the methodology for this, they surveyed over 100,000 students across a variety of disciplines. I believe that when you are surveying a very, very large pool of students across a lot of universities, and also I believe this also has bachelor students as well. So I think it’s possible that the MBPs may not be in the top 10 because if they are viewed as being so elite as being out of reach, I shouldn’t even bother applying there. Then perhaps that has damaged their standing in the opinions of the overall candidate pool of bachelors and masters business students in the US. But like you said, I think if we were to ask the top, the M7, the top 15, top 25 MBA students, I’m sure that MBB would be, if not one, two, three, then definitely at the top 10.

[00:03:08] – John

Yeah. I mean, after all, McKinsey is now paying, apparently, a base salary of 192 $2,000 with about a $30,000 signing bonus and a performance bonus capped at 40 grand a year. Obviously, there’d be many, many, many students who would want that job. But you’re right, it’s exclusive because McKinsey may only really recruit at an active level at 12 to 15 schools. So for many of the students who fill these surveys out, McKinsey is a real reach, if it’s not out of reach. Caroline, what do you make of this list?

[00:03:52] – Caroline

Yeah, I imagine that there is some correlation between this list and the employers that the students are actually targeting for their job search. And so I would imagine that some of the trends that we’re seeing here reflect the realities of the job market that they are looking at. And so, for example, as your article notes, tech has dropped here, and I would imagine that reflects the fact that tech has laid off a lot of people, and it is not hiring in such vast numbers as they were before, and probably not offering the same rapid career development that they would have offered in the years past. So I think that that’s probably why those firms have dropped. And yes, I agree, MBB are recruiting at a very, very short list of schools. And so given the breadth of this survey, it’s probably, they’re probably not firms that are necessarily on the radar screen of a lot of the respondents to the survey.

[00:04:54] – John

Yeah, totally. Right. And interestingly enough, a couple of years Amazon was literally gobbling up 1,000 MBA hires a year. I don’t know what the number is now, but you got to know it’s less than a thousand for sure. Amazon, incidentally, comes in at 11. Netflix, 12, Spotify, 13. Then we have a couple more finance houses, Fidelity Investments in Charles Schwab. Then EY, obviously, Ernst & Young, Walt Disney, KPMG, PwC, Wells Fargo, Blackstone, L’Oréal, American Express, Lockheed Martin, Berkshire Hathaway, Vanguard. Then we have McKinsey at number 27, Mercedes Benz, 28, Coca-Cola, 29, 30, Tesla. Of course, anyone who goes to work for Elon has to be prepared to show up at 2: 00 in the morning and work until 2: 00 in the morning. That is a hard job. Anything at SpaceX or Tesla, you are sacrificing your entire life, let me tell you. The other thing the survey measures is what people are really looking for. There was a slight shift here as well. We often say that this generation is much more interested in doing good in the world and pursuing purpose, and that has actually been true. In the past, the surveys have shown that students emphasize purpose, flexibility, and making an impact, obviously a positive impact.

[00:06:32] – John

Now, the two top attributes are career growth and competitive pay. Are we returning to a more, I don’t know what the word is, less idealistic stage in jobs and employment right now? What do you think, Maria?

[00:06:51] – Maria

It certainly seems that way, right? I mean, not that the banks were ever completely out of fashion. I mean, business students have never been that idealistic, but it certainly seems that… I think it’s probably a combination of not only the high salary, but also maybe a certain level of stability, right? These tech layoffs, as both of you have mentioned, have just been all over the news for the past couple of years. I’m sure that that has even subconsciously permeated the minds of students and made them view tech as being perhaps a little bit more risky than they used to. I suspect that the banks, the financial institutions moving up so much is not just because they pay very highly, but also because there’s probably a perception of stability, which is interesting because if we assume that part of the reason why the tech industry is doing so many layoffs is because they are now using AI for a number of more entry-level positions, finance is next. I can’t imagine that finance is not right behind tech in terms of automating as many tasks as possible. So we shall see what happens there. And Another thing that I thought was interesting was as a former entertainment industry person, noticing that both Netflix and Disney had fallen between last year and this year.

[00:08:09] – Maria

So Netflix from sixth to 12th, and then Disney from, I believe, ninth to 17th. Underneath, which I think might also be indicating some… There are some challenges right now in the entertainment industry, right? All of these companies have spent billions of dollars building out digital infrastructure and buying content and creating content. Now the ROI is not materializing as quickly as some hoped. I wonder if that’s also why the entertainment companies are perhaps falling a bit in these rankings as well.

[00:08:40] – John

Yeah, true enough. Also, what’s interesting is after career growth and competitive pay, which are the top two attributes that business students are looking for in an employer, the third most important attribute is something of a surprise to me. It’s something that we would all want I’m just surprised that it would be above purpose and flexibility and making an impact. And it’s a respectful workplace culture. Fascinating. Caroline, what do you make of that?

[00:09:11] – Caroline

Well, I think it reflects that students are looking to work in an environment where they have a strong relationship with their colleagues and a positive culture rather than perhaps more of an old fashioned hierarchical culture where new recruits are treated like slaves and perhaps not treated as respectful or welcoming a manner. So I think it’s perhaps also a reflection of we’re in the post-Me Too era, and students are looking to work in an environment where people of both sexes are treated equally, and that there’s a positive working culture, and people People from all different backgrounds are welcomed and respected.

[00:10:04] – John

The resurrection of this Epstein issue in the US, I wonder, may have played some role in this. I don’t know. But that is interesting. Here’s another really surprising fact out of the survey, which shocked me, given all the publicity related over remote work and the difficulty that many employers have had in trying to entice their employees back into the office. Only 4% of the students said they would refuse a job that didn’t offer remote options. The rest either preferred some flexibility or said they could simply adjust That surprises me. Maria, does it surprise you?

[00:10:48] – Maria

At first it did, but I think that what the younger generation is realizing is that there is so much to be gained in terms of political capital and informal mentoring If you go to an office and let’s say you have a question, you can just pop in the office or by the desk of someone more senior to you and just say, Hey, I’ve got this problem. How do you think I should handle it? Instead of having to, I don’t know, set up a meeting or message them on Slack and wait for them to get back to you. I do think that maybe people are realizing that there is, in fact, a value to being in person and being able to see people face to face. This almost, I think, dovetails with the previous point about the collegial, the respectful work environment. I feel like in this digital day and age where people can contact you all the time, and now social media, we have so much insight into our colleagues and lives that we’ve never had before. I was just thinking back to in my early career, If my boss wanted to contact me on a weekend, I mean, good luck.

[00:11:49] – Maria

I’m not even sure how they would have done that, right? Because I don’t even think I had internet in my house, in my apartment at that time. Now it’s like, I almost wonder, because you are so constantly connected to everyone else, whether you like it or not, liking the people you work with probably matters more now than it did back when I could just leave the office and not have to think about these people at all. Now, if I’m constantly tethered to them, whether through Slack or Teams or even informally through, I don’t know, LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, whatever the kids today are using, I don’t know. I wonder if that has helped push people towards valuing more liking their colleagues, respecting their colleagues, and getting along with them.

[00:12:34] – John

Maybe there’s just a begrudging acknowledgement that this is the way it’s going to be, and so I have to accept it because let’s face it, the economy is pretty uncertain. There’s a lot of anxiety in the air. I mean, this is not only United States, it’s worldwide. Caroline, you can reflect on what people are feeling like in Europe. I think there is general A general unease and discomfort in the world of work and getting a job. I think there’s been many young people who’ve been completely frustrated because they can’t seem to get their foot in the door. Wouldn’t you agree?

[00:13:13] – Caroline

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of insecurity, a lot of concern about what the future holds, and hence, something of a return here to the more traditional recruiters and the firms that have been recruiting business school graduates for many, many decades. And also willingness to be more flexible in a way that perhaps students might not have been three, four, five years ago when they might have felt that they were in a stronger position to negotiate the package and choose between cherry pick between employers. I think students are aware that they are not in the strongest position right now, and so they need to be the ones who are flexible.

[00:13:57] – John

So you better show up at work if that’s what your employer wants.

[00:14:00] – Caroline

Yeah, and I also agree with Maria that I think that there is a value for young people being in the office. And I think that’s also why employers have been pushing people to come back to work, because they see that, particularly for the younger generation, their learning curve is reduced and their ability to develop is slowed down if they are not working alongside senior colleagues and getting that day to day exposure being able to absorb things of what’s going on and having the opportunity to interact and observe that you just don’t get when you’re sitting by yourself at a laptop.

[00:14:41] – John

So true. And, obviously, JPMorgan Chase, which has been very vocal about getting people back into the office, is number one in this survey, so there is that. Another interesting topic here is the artificial intelligence. It was a hot topic, apparently, in this survey survey. I just finished a webinar with four different business schools and how they’re approaching AI. Of course, the schools that we interviewed were all pioneers on the leading edge of deploying AI technologies to train their students in these tools. 75% of the students in the survey said they felt positive or curious about working for an employer that uses AI. But surprisingly, Interestingly, 57%, nearly 6 out of 10, said they had not developed AI-related skills. I think this is a function of the fact that many schools started implementing AI courses and AI use in core courses only very recently, and these graduates have not seen the impact of that yet. So there is a bit of a disconnect. Maria, did you notice that?

[00:15:57] – Maria

Yeah, I think developing a and formally launching a course in any large institution of higher learning always takes at least a little bit of time, so you can’t instantly create a new course on the fly. And so that’s why I think some of the curricula at many schools, they are indeed beginning to offer a lot more in terms of AI, but it may not be keeping pace with the demands of employers and prospective employees alike. But I suspect that that’ll probably start changing pretty quickly.

[00:16:29] – John

Yeah, I’ll tell you, after my conversation with these four different schools, many of them offering now degrees, full portfolios of electives, embedding AI elements in almost every core course, training their faculty in the use of AI, AI clubs, AI experiential projects. I have to think that in a year or two, this service is going to show quite a different picture on on student confidence in their AI abilities. There you have it. Check it out. 2025’s Most Attractive Employers for MBAs, Finance Surges, Tech Fades. You can read it at Poets & Quants. Meantime, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets & Quants.

P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Where MBA Grads Want To Work
ApplicantLab |
August 3, 2025

Video transcript, for you skimmers out there: 

I love the fact that they. Report on this metric, right? The salary percentage increase, I think is an incredibly valuable metric because there are so many business schools out there that are great for so many people. And at the end of the day, these programs are in fact able to do what a lot of business school applicants are hoping for.

They are in fact able to provide a real change in the trajectory of someone’s career. They are, in fact, able to help people leapfrog. Into a higher career stratum than they would’ve otherwise been able to be in. So from that perspective, I love the fact that the FT reports on the salary percentage increase.

So valuable. I think it helps, when sometimes I talk to people at the beginning of the business school journey, I will frequently hear something like, well, it’s M seven or bust, you know, it’s Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or bust.

And I’m often like, look, slow your roll, man. There are so many programs out there that are going to get you. They might not be the first ones that you think [00:01:00] of, but wow, does that even matter? I mean, whew. Look at some of these numbers. $170,000. That is nothing to sneeze at, especially if it’s one and a half times more than what you were making before business school.

I mean, wow. , That is life changing. , And these schools can really change people’s lives. And I think it’s important to have this metric available because I think it helps open people’s eyes. To, To be a little bit more open-minded. , And I think that’s wonderful.

Where my little quibble is. Is that I believe this is an important metric to report upon. However, I do not believe that it is a metric that should have significant amount of weight in the rankings because if we think about what is the purpose of a ranking, it is meant to be some sort of a representation of relative quality.

Now rankings. The entire concept of them is flawed the entire, for me, the entire concept of an ordinal ranking is ridiculous. Like school versus two versus four, versus seven versus six . You know, like, there, there’s sort of [00:02:00] these tiny miniature marginal differences. I think that school rankings should instead be in buckets.

Like, here is the top bucket, and then here is the also very good, but just underneath the top bucket, the next bucket. Um, but no one, no one listens to me. Uh, but so anyway, to the extent that a ranking. Is intended to be some sort of a measure of a program’s quality. I don’t think that this metric is one that should be included in the weighting.

Look, again, . Life-changing levels of improvements in salary. But when I look at, okay, so these were the top five programs by the salary percentage increase, but now when I look at it by the weighted salary, right, the top five US programs, by weighted salary, it’s not entirely accurate to say that.

Well, these programs, you start with people who have lower incoming salaries and they end up in the same place as the other programs. The numbers do not [00:03:00] really, , the numbers would tell a slightly different story. So if you look at the weighted salary a few years out for the top five programs by salary,

we’re talking about a $70,000 a year difference, roughly 240 a year versus 170 a year. That’s about a 40% difference, which I don’t think is a small, you know, if we were talking 5%, even 10%, I’d be like, yeah, 10%, that’s nothing. It’s, you know, nothing but 40% I do think is a pretty, I think it’s a pretty significant difference, uh, that is worth noting.

And so. Your point about like, well, they were letting in the people who were already on a, you know, if you were making, let’s see if we can, if we figure out, okay, so if we take this, these numbers, then we can sort of back into what’s an implied pre MBA salary, you know, that would indicate maybe something in the mid sixties before MBA versus, you know, one 10 something, [00:04:00] 1, 1 10, 1 15, for these other programs.

I get your argument. Your argument is like, look, these people were already clearly high achievers prior to business school, and so, mm-hmm. Is it not true then that the business school, like they would’ve continued to be high achievers And in fact, this is true, some of the most successful, financially successful people I know skipped business school altogether and they didn’t need it.

, However, I think GMAC often does, polls or surveys of MBA graduates, and I think the vast majority of them, at a minimum say that they’re glad that they went to business school, that they do feel that it was worth, their time. So. How much of this is,, nature versus nurture.

We, we will never know. , But I would gently push back on the fact that I, because these numbers essentially to the extent that they’re lower than say these numbers, it effectively penalizes thes e schools in this ranking. And for that reason, I don’t think that it should be part of the ranking because you’re penalizing a school for letting in more successful people.

But there’s a benefit. [00:05:00] To attending. Like, first of all, if you are a more successful person, think of the opportunity cost that you’re giving up. So the fact that these schools are able to lure away people to give up two years of their salary, in order to go to business school in the first place, I think is a pretty good indicator of the desirability or the perceived desirability of those programs.

Also, I do think that there is merit to thinking about like, who are my peers going to be in a business school? and. If a school is attracting people who were more successful prior to business school, I actually think that that is an indicator of the quality of the school, not only because it shows the people that are willing to give up those two years of salary, but also think about who the peer group is once someone is in the school.

Right? That means that if you are attending one of these schools. This percentage isn’t as high, but you’re surrounded by people who, prior to business school, were already achieving on a different level. And also after they graduate, they continue to achieve on a different level. True. The slope is not as sharp.

Right. But the.

[00:06:00] Result is a larger number. So I think that this implies that perhaps at the school itself, you might be surrounded by people who are driven. some people might say more competitive, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but people who are more driven and also after they graduate, they continue to be driven.

And so I think that also implies something pretty powerful about the ultimate benefit of the network because business school isn’t just the two years you go there and it’s not just that first job you get out of school or that third job you have five years out of school.

it’s also who’s your network gonna be and, and who are you gonna call 10, 15, 20 years after graduation? To invest in your company or to partner with your company or to start a company with. so I do think that there is value to attending a school and to have your peers during school and after school be people who were, for lack of a better term, high performers.

[00:07:00] I don’t think that this should be punished because I do think that this does yield a better business school. Experience and a better result in the long term. And so my quibble, again, I love this metric. I think this is an amazing metric to provide, but my quibble is that this should not be given honestly, any weight at all, and certainly not the high level of weight that it’s given, because again, you’re punishing the schools that, you know, you’re basically indicating that I, what I would say is an indication of quality.

An indirect indication of quality, but an indication of quality all the same. You’re basically punishing the schools that have sort of higher quality, quote unquote, coming in. And, and that to me is. Counterintuitive and kind of wrong. And so that’s why I continue to think that this should not be, uh, reported upon.

Absolutely. Tell us. It’s important. I think it’s great to know. I love using this information, but I don’t think it should be used in terms of like, let’s figure out which programs are the , [00:08:00] quote unquote highest quality programs. But what do you think? What did I miss? let me know. Thanks.

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