Where Consumer Goods Firms Get Their MBAs

Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business is the top private school producer of consumer goods MBAs among 30 elite U.S. schools examined by Poets&Quants. Mendoza sent 14.6% of its Class of 2016 into the industry. Courtesy photo

FOR SIGNING ON THE DOTTED LINE … 

Of course, base salary is not the only compensation MBAs can expect, whatever their line of work. Consumer packaged goods MBAs are no different, and their signing bonus amounts compare well to other industries — even if the amount has remained static for the last couple of years.

CPG MBAs from most of the top schools can expect sign-on bonuses of between $20,000 and $25,000, while some may get as little as $10,000 (looking at you, Stanford) or as much as $30,000. Two schools boast median sign-on amounts of that much: Columbia and Indiana Kelley. Among the seven schools that report median sign-on bonuses of $25,000 are a pair of Midwestern schools, Northwestern Kellogg and Michigan Ross, as well as Emory Goizueta and MIT Sloan (actually $25,750).

For the schools reporting averages, the high-water mark was the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, at $27,727, while the low was Yale SOM’s “other compensation” total of $15,000.

And how about those non-U.S. schools? IESE reports a median sign-on bonus of US$25,077, while INSEAD reports only US$15,400. LBS reports a whopping average of US$38,700, but that’s for total other compensation, not merely signing bonus.

DON’T MISS THESE ARE THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY’S TOP FEEDER SCHOOLS and TECH FIRMS GET THEIR MBA TALENT FROM THESE SCHOOLS