Record 43% Of Haas MBAs Go Into Tech

With UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business firmly planted in the red hot, tech heavy Bay Area, it’s natural for the school’s MBAs to venture into the tech business. Typically, a third of the graduates from Haas land jobs at tech firms. But this year the technology industry reached a new record, nabbing 43% of the school’s graduating MBAs.

That’s a significant increase of ten full percentage points up from the 33% of a year earlier. In fact, nine of the top 19 hiring companies at Haas this year were in the tech field, ranging from Adobe Systems to video game maker Zynga. All the usual tech suspects in MBA recruiting also were among the major employers: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, according to the school’s recently released 2014 employment report.

Berkeley joins UCLA’s Anderson School and MIT’s Sloan School of Management in sending unprecedented numbers of MBAs into tech this year. At MIT, 26.1% went into tech, while at Anderson, 26.2% accepted jobs in the technology industry. But no school–not even Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in the heart of Silicon Valley–had a higher percentage of its MBA grads go into tech than Berkeley. At 43% of the Haas class, the total was nearly 20 percentage points higher than Stanford where 24% of this year’s MBAs took jobs in tech. Oddly, Stanford saw a significant decline in tech hires which fell eight percentage points from 32% a year ago.

MEDIAN SALARIES OF $120K REMAINED STABLE, WHILE AVERAGE BONUS MONEY INCREASED

Haas said the median base salary for the Class of 2014 was $120,000, exactly the same as a year earlier. But average signing bonuses and other year-end guaranteed compensation were up to $26,865 and $31,107, respectively from $23,540 and $26,294. What’s more, an impressive 71.2% of the class received sign-on bonuses with their job offers, while 47.3% reported other guaranteed comp. Haas also disclosed that 30.8% of its graduates received stock or stock options, the value of which was not reported.

Interestingly, despite the big boost in tech jobs, technology paid less than the median or average in all three compensation components. Median salaries in tech were $115,000, some $5K less than the overall median. Sign-on bonuses averaged $26,023, about $800 less than the class average, while other year-end comp in tech averaged $29,574, about $1,500 under the overall average.

The school’s job offer rate was somewhat less impressive. Only 79% of the class had job offers at graduation. Three months later, the rate improved to 92%, below many other top business schools. In 2013 and 2013, 96% of the class had job offers three months after commencement.

The growth in tech’s popularity as a career path came at the expense of finance, energy, healthcare, and real estate. MBAs who accepted jobs in finance fell to 11.5%, its lowest level in five years. In 2013, 15% of the class went into finance. Energy saw the biggest drop this year, attracting only 3.8% of the class, down from 11% a year earlier. Healthcare and pharma also fell to 3.8%, from 7% last year, while real estate firms hired only 0.5% of the Class of 2014, down from 3% in 2013.

CONSULTING BUCKED THE TECH TREND AT HAAS WITH A SLIGHT INCREASE IN MBA HIRES

The consulting industry bucked the tech trend, bringing aboard 26% of Haas graduates, up from 24% a year earlier. Consulting also paid the highest median starting salaries, the standard business school offer of $135,000, as well as the highest average sign-on bonuses of $31,639. Haas reported that Accenture, Bain & Co., Deloitte Consulting, McKinsey & Co., and The Boston Consulting Group were all among its top employers this year.

Finance still paid out the highest average other year-end compensation at $33,661, though median salaries in financial services were just $117,500, nearly $18K lower than consulting. The second highest paying jobs by median salary were in healthcare, biotech and pharma which paid Haas MBAs $121,500 to start.

A slightly higher percentage of Haas MBAs this year also accepted jobs in the non-profit and social sector, 3.8% versus 3.0% a year earlier. Roughly the same number of graduates went into the consumer packaged goods and retail industries, 3.8% versus 4.0% in 2013.

How Haas’ Class of 2014 Compares

With Other Top Business Schools

 

School	Median Base	Sign-on Bonus	Other Bonus	Jackpot	Graduation Offers	Offers 3 Months Later
Harvard	$125,000	$25,000	$34,700	$184,700	88%	93%
Stanford	$125,000	$25,000	$31,500	$181,500	80%	94%
Wharton	$125,000	$25,000	$27,000	$177,000	88%	98%
MIT Sloan	$124,400	$25,000	$20,000	$169,400	85.9%	94.6%
Kellogg	$120,000	$25,000	——	$145,000	85.0%	94.0%
Chicago	$120,000	$25,000	$26,000	$171,000	89.8%	98.0%
UC-Berkeley	$120,000	$26,865*	$31,107*	$177,972	79%	92%
Columbia	$119,400	$25,000	$22,390	$166,790	83%	97%
Dartmouth (Tuck)	$116,000	$25,000	$25,000	$166,000	91%	98%
Michigan (Ross)	$115,000	$25,000	$16,750	$156,750	89%	93%
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	$113,250	$25,000	$10,000	$148,250	79%	90%
Duke (Fuqua)	$111,000	$25,000	$15,000	$151,000	87%	94%
Yale	$110,000	NA	$35,000	$145,000	80%	93%
New York (Stern)	$110,000	$30,000	$20,000	$160,000	81%	94%
UCLA (Anderson)	$110,000	$25,000	$15,000	$150,000	75%	90%
Virginia (Darden)	$110,000	$25,000	$9,500	$144,500	89%	94%
Cornell (Johnson)	$106,000	$25,000	$12,500	$143,500	87%	92%
UNC (Kenan-Flagler)	$100,000	$25,000	$16,625	$141,625	81%	92%
Texas-Austin (McCombs)	$105,000	$25,000	$12,600	$142,600	80%	94%
Emory (Goizueta)	$100,000	$25,000	$12,500	$137,000	90.4%	98.0%
Vanderbilt (Owen)	$100,000	$15,000	$12,000	$127,000	83%	94%
Washington (Olin)	$100,000	$15,000	NA	$115,000	86%	97%

Source: Business school employment reports & P&Q reporting

Notes: Jackpot refers to graduates receiving the median of all three forms of compensation: salary, signing bonus, and other year-end guaranteed bonus. Not all graduates are given all three. At Stanford, for example, sign-on bonuses this year were collected by half the class, while 38% of the MBAs received other year-end guaranteed compensation. An asterisk indicates average numbers rather than medians. An asterisk indicates a mean, rather than median, number.

Differences in pay often reflect industry choices and geography. Stanford’s higher median base can largely be attributed to the fact that 12% of this year’s class went into private equity, which currently pays the most lucrative comp packages to MBAs. The median PE starting base salary this year was $170,000. At Tuck, for example, only 4% of this year’s class went into private equity and the base for those PE jobs was just $120,000.

DON’T MISS: BEST & WORST MBA JOB PLACEMENT AT TOP BUSINESS SCHOOLS or STANFORD MBAS SHIFT AWAY FROM TECH