BCG Expanded MBA Hiring This Year

McKinsey & Co., one of the largest and most sophisticated of MBA recruiters, had a field day at Wharton this year. The elite consulting firm hired 44 MBAs from Wharton’s Class of 2010. Yet as large as that number seems, it was lower than the recruiting haul a year earlier when McKinsey snapped up 50 Wharton MBAs. No matter. Rival Boston Consulting Group more than made up the difference at Wharton. BCG hired 43 MBAs from the school this year, a dozen more than the 31 hires it took from Wharton in 2009.

These fascinating facts and more are buried in the just released 2010 employment reports of the top business schools. Not all the schools have published this data yet, and many schools fail to disclose the top employers for their MBAs as well as the specific number of recruits by each company. Nonetheless, there’s a wealth of interesting data in the few publicly released reports from such top schools as Chicago, Columbia, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT, Berkeley, Duke and Michigan.

This year, for example, McKinsey was the number one MBA recruiter at Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, and MIT Sloan. Besides the decline at Wharton, though, McKinsey recruited 12 fewer grads at Columbia (38 this year vs. 46 in 2009) and seven fewer MBAs from MIT (15 this year vs. 24 in 2009). Yet, at the same time, McKinsey increased its hiring at both Kellogg (hiring 32 this year vs. 26 in 2009) and Chicago (hiring 24 vs. 23 in 2009).

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP APPEARS MOST AGGRESSIVE MBA RECRUITER IN 2010.

Of the major consulting firms, BCG seemed to be the most aggressively expanding MBA hirer. The firm increased its hiring at Kellogg (hiring 35 in 2010 vs. 23 in 2009), Chicago (hiring 19 in 2010 vs. 9 in 2009), Wharton (43 in 2010 vs. 31 in 2009), Columbia (25 in 2010 vs. 21 in 2009), and MIT (14 in 2010 vs. 8 in 2009). James Platt, a BCG partner with responsibility for MBA hiring, confirmed in an earlier news report that the consulting firm  has been growing at double digit rate rates since 2003. “BCG is continuing with our successful MBA recruiting in 2010,” he said. “We recognise the MBA as an outstanding achievement and will continue to focus on the top European, UK and US business schools.”

No other major MBA recruiter posted larger across-the-board increases with the exception of some of the financial services firms, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, whose hiring was fueled by a recovery from the severe economic recession in 2008-09. Goldman Sachs more than doubled its hires of Columbia Business School grads this year, employing 17 vs. eight in 2009. It also hired 13 Wharton MBAs, vs. nine a year earlier, and six from MIT, up from five in 2009. Morgan Stanley, meantime, doubled its hires from both Columbia and Chicago. Ten Columbia MBAs went to Goldman this year, up from five in 2009, while 11 went to the firm from Chicago, up from five a year earlier.

BCG was the single biggest hirer of MBAs at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, employing 35 grads from the Class of 2010.  Johnson & Johnson was the number one company hiring Duke MBAs, bringing on 18, while Amazon.com was the single biggest employer for MBAs at the University of Michigan’s Ross School, hiring 15 this year.

Deloitte Consulting apparently found Columbia, Duke, Michigan and Berkeley to be happy hunting grounds for MBAs. The firm hired a dozen MBAs from both Columbia and from Duke and 11 from Michigan. Deloitte also hired the most MBAs from Berkeley’s Haas School in 2010, taking away 11 grads. Microsoft brought aboard eight MBAs from Kellogg this year, along with seven from Wharton, and another five from Michigan. Bank of America, meantime, hired 11 MBAs each from Duke and Chicago, 10 from Wharton, and four from Columbia Business School.

A STANFORD MBA LANDS A $330,000-A-YEAR JOB IN PRIVATE EQUITY.

While these firms were among the largest employers of elite MBAs, they didn’t necessarily pay the highest starting pay packages. The highest reported salary by a Class of 2010 MBA came from a graduate of Stanford who went into the private equity/leveraged buyout field. That person, anonymous in the pile of combined statistics on salaries of grads, told Stanford he landed a job at an unidentified private equity or LBO firm paying a salary of $330,000 a year. Another Stanford MBA won a job with a venture capital firm for $250,000 a year, while yet another joined a hedge fund for a $200,000-a-year salary.

At Harvard Business School, private equity firms were among the highest paying recruiters of MBAs as well. The median salary for an MBA going into private equity this year was $135,000, but some Harvard grads were paid much more. The school reports that the 75th percentage of the range of salaries among MBAs going into private equity was $185,000. The median signing bonus was $35,000, while the median additional guaranteed compensation was a whopping $155,000. Of course, these firms tend to recruit fewer MBA candidates–typically fewer than the fingers on one hand–and only at the most elite business schools.

See results below for the big MBA recruiters (An asterisk indicates that a company hired at least three MBAs. When a minus sign appears before a 3 and an asterisk it indicates the company hired fewer than three MBAs.):

CONSULTING FIRM HIRES OF 2010 MBAS FROM TOP B-SCHOOLS

Firm	Chicago	Wharton	Columbia	Kellogg	Duke	Michigan	MIT	Berkeley
McKinsey	24	44	38	32	7	13	15	7
BCG	19	43	25	35	8	6	14	5
Bain	15	18	17	17	4	5	12	NA
Booz & Co.	10	11	16	11	2	6	5	NA
Deloitte	10	7	12	NA	6	11	3*	11
Accenture	4	7	NA	7	3	9	0	NA
AT Kearney	7	NA	3	7	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Monitor Group	NA	NA	NA	6	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Cambridge	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	0	NA
LEK Consulting	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Infosys	NA	NA	NA	3	3	NA	3*	NA
Oliver Wyman	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	NA	-3*	NA
ZS Associates	NA	NA	NA	NA	3	3	0	NA

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FINANCIAL SERVICE FIRM HIRES OF 2010 MBAS FROM TOP B-SCHOOLS

Firm	Chicago	Wharton	Columbia	Kellogg	Duke	Michigan	MIT	Berkeley
Goldman Sachs	9	13	17	7	4	0	6	NA
JP Morgan/Chase	7	8	13	3	0	1	3*	NA
Morgan Stanley	11	14	10	4	NA	NA	3*	NA
Credit Suisse	12	12	16	NA	2	0	3*	NA
Deutsche Bank	10	10	14	14	NA	2	5	NA
Citigroup	13	11	10	NA	1	8	3*	NA
UBS	7	9	12	NA	3	7	-3*	NA
Barclays	16	7	8	NA	4	2	5	NA
BofA/MLynch	11	10	4	3	11	1	3*	NA
American Express	7	NA	12	NA	7	3	-3*	NA
Wells Fargo	NA	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	0	NA

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TECH COMPANY HIRES OF 2010 MBAS FROM TOP B-SCHOOLS

Firm	Chicago	Wharton	Columbia	Kellogg	Duke	Michigan	MIT	Berkeley
IBM	8	13	6	NA	1	1	3*	NA
Samsung	NA	NA	5	4	8	NA	3*	3
Microsoft	NA	7	NA	8	NA	5	6	NA
Apple	4	NA	NA	NA	6	NA	6	3
Dell	NA	NA	NA	NA	5	2	-3*	NA
Genentech	NA	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	3*	NA
Amazon	NA	NA	NA	8	4	15	6	9
Cisco	4	NA	NA	4	NA	6	3*	NA
Intel	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	3*	NA
SAP	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Symantec	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	0	NA
Hewlett-Packard	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	0	0	3
Google	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	2	3*	3
Yahoo!	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	-3*	4

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OTHER COMPANY HIRES OF 2010 MBAS FROM TOP B-SCHOOLS

Firm	Chicago	Wharton	Columbia	Kellogg	Duke	Michigan	MIT	Berkeley
Johnson&Johnson	NA	NA	NA	8	18	3	3*	NA
Medtronic	NA	6	NA	NA	NA	NA	-3*	NA
General Electric	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	2	3*	NA
General Mills	NA	NA	NA	9	NA	3	0	NA
P&G	NA	NA	NA	6	2	1	0	NA
Heinz	NA	NA	NA	NA	6	NA	0	NA
Wal-Mart	NA	NA	NA	5	5	NA	-3*	NA
Anheuser-Busch	NA	NA	NA	5	NA	NA	NA	NA
PepsiCo	NA	NA	NA	5	NA	2	-3*	NA
Target	4	NA	NA	5	NA	2	-3*	NA
United Airlines	NA	NA	NA	5	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Mars	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Nissan	NA	NA	NA	4	NA	NA	0	NA
Eli Lily	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Emerson	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Del Monte	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	0	3
Danaher	NA	BA	NA	3	NA	NA	0	NA
Baxter Healthcare	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	-3*	NA
Becton, Dickinson	NA	NA	NA	3	NA	NA	0	NA
Dow Chemical	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	3	0	NA
Sun Power	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	0	5
Chevron	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	0	3
PG&E	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	-3*	3
Bloom Energy	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	0	3
Novartis	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	5	NA