Recruiting ‘Stable’ For MBA, Specialty Master’s Jobs

BIG COMPANIES OVERTAKE STARTUPS IN RECRUITING ACTIVITY

Other key findings of the report:

  • Large-sized companies overtook startups to represent the largest increase in recruiting activity based on the type of organization. Startup companies represented the largest increase in each of the last two surveys but has decreased significantly by year, 50%, 47%, and 38% in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.
  • 54% reported an increase in alumni-initiated hiring, and 45% reported an increase in hiring activity from U.S. diversity conferences. Resume book requests saw the largest decrease in recruiting activity.
  • On-campus opportunities for part-time MBAs versus last year increased for 29% of the institutions (35% reported an increase in the 2017 survey).

“You’re seeing that startup companies hiring specialty masters has been increasing over the last couple of years ā€” pretty much doubling from 2017,” Cook points out. “And that may be because a lot of the startups are looking for people with very specialized skills. So, ‘I need a finance person’ ā€” OK, I can just hire an MS in finance or an MS in marketing. And, master’s students tend to be cheaper than MBAs. So if I’m trying to get a company off the ground and I have either very little cash flow or negative cash flow, maybe the best people to start into these more mid-tier roles is someone with an MS degree.Ā And you may hire the MBA to be the CFO or the CMO ā€” or the CEO.”

MBA CSEA found that the top three most common specialized master’s programs offered by responding institutions were data analytics (75%), accounting (75%), and finance (72.5%). Accounting and data analytics both saw a significant increase from 57% in last yearā€™s survey (see How Hot Are Master’s Degrees in Data Analytics? Pretty Hot).

Startups remain popular for specialized master’s students, with 50% of schools indicating an increase in recruiting activity. Large-sized companies also saw an increase (46%).

MBA PROGRAMS

SPECIALIZED MASTER’S PROGRAMS

Source: MBA CSEA

DON’T MISS B-SCHOOLS REPORT TECH, CONSULTING BOOM and FOR MBAs, A RECRUITMENT SLOWDOWN

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