War For Talent Between Consulting & Finance Leads To Soaring MBA Pay At Chicago Booth

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business — Photo by John A. Byrne

MORE THAN 40% OF CHICAGO’S MBA CLASS WENT TO EITHER THE EAST OR WEST COASTS

The largest single group of graduating MBAs stayed in the midwest (28.9%), with 26.1% taking jobs in Chicago. About 21.7% of the class headed to the west coast, with 13.5% in the Bay Area, 6.1% in Seattle and 2.0% in Los Angeles. A nearly equal percentage (21.3%) accepted jobs in the Northeast, mainly in New York which accounted for 18.0% of the class.

Some 12.8% of this year’s crop of Booth MBAs assumed jobs outside the U.S., with 5% in Asia, 4.8% in Latin American and the Caribbean, and just 1.7% in Europe, mainly London which accounted for 1.1% of the class.

The vast majority of tech hires went to work in eCommerce and Internet companies (11.7% of the entire class), with software a distant second (4.6%), followed by hardware (1.7%). Those numbers are roughly in line with the year-earlier stats on tech, though eCommerce grads in 2018 accounted for 10.7% of the class.

MAJOR EMPLOYERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE FINAL EMPLOYMENT REPORT

The preliminary report did not yet provide detail on the school’s major employers. That will come in the final employment report. Last year, McKinsey & Co., the prestige global consulting firm, topped all other employers in hauling away the largest group of students. In 2018, McKinsey hired 39 Booth MBAs, roughly 8% of the entire class, down from 48 a year earlier. McKinsey rival Bain & Co. employed 25 MBAs, three more than in 2017, while Amazon’s hire of 23 Boothies was slightly down from its peak hires in 2017 from Booth of 26 (see Record Total Pay In 2018 At Booth As Tech Gains Favor).

Boston Consulting Group and Accenture rounded out the top five major employers in 2018, with BCG taking 19 MBAs and Accenture hiring 13. The first financial services firm to make the list was JPMorgan Chase, which upped its hiring to 12 from nine in 2017. Both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley employed seven, while Citigroup and Evercore Partners each hired a half dozen Booth MBAs. Google, meantime, brought away nine Boothies, up from six in 2017, while Microsoft hired seven, down from 11 in 2017.

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