More MBA Jobs in Finance and Consulting

MBA graduates can look forward to a significant increase in job opportunities within the financial and consulting sectors this year, independent research and business schools agree.

“The finance sector suffered a recruiting downturn in 2008 and 2009, but last year saw a rebound and this year hiring is expected to return to pre-crisis levels,” explains Bernard Garrette, associate dean for the MBA program at HEC Paris.

“Consulting slowed to some degree over the same period, but suffered nothing like the implosion in the sector following the dot-com crash, and the major strategy and management consulting firms are looking to hire more MBAs this year.”

The QS Top MBA Jobs and Salary Trends Report 2010/11, which surveyed over 5,000 companies around the world on their MBA recruitment plans, notes the finance sector were hiring 22% more MBAs in 2010, and predicts a further increase of 11% in the coming year.

Meanwhile, MBA graduate hiring in the consulting sector increased by 19% during 2010, and is set to increase by a further 37% during 2011.

“After experiencing a significant decline in opportunities for our students between fall 2008 through to fall 2009, we saw a return to normal recruitment levels this past fall, and that has been maintained throughout the year,” says Jacqueline Wilbur, senior director of the MBA Career Development Office at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusett Institute of Technology. “Management consultancies and investment banks are again in a war for talent in most markets.”

Finance employers changing their MBA hiring patterns

The first decade of the 21st century was something of a headache for MBA graduates focussing on the financial sector.

Demand for MBAs collapsed during 2001-2003, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other global financial firms cutting MBA hiring by up to 80% in some offices. However, 2009 was very different with many banks actively hiring MBA graduates.

Diane Morgan, director of London Business School’s Career Service believes that banks are changing their hiring patterns, and are now “taking a longer-term view of their MBA hiring.

Several of them made the mistake of cutting back in 2002 and were left with a big gap in talent when the markets picked up.”

MBA recruitment in consulting on the other hand has been strong for much of the past two decades, and is expected to continue its growth into the foreseeable future.

“There is definitely more activity on the consulting front this year, which creates attractive opportunities for MBAs looking for consultant jobs in top strategy firms,” Garrette notes.

One consultancy firm expecting to continue hiring MBAs in the future is the Boston Consulting Group in London. James Platt, partner in charge of MBA hiring at the company says:

“We expect companies to continue to require organizational change as a result of the recession, and then strategic support as they enter the recovery phase.

“The constraint on our growth will be our ability to hire good people of the right quality. MBAs will continue to be crucial to our growth.”

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