Darden MBA Jobs Report 2025: Offers Slip To 10-Year Low

For the third straight year, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business MBA employment report shows signs of a slower MBA hiring market.

Within three months of graduation, 90.2% of Darden’s job-seeking Class of 2025 MBAs received a job offer and 89.3% accepted one. That’s the lowest percentage of MBAs getting offers post-graduation in 11 MBA classes, going back to 2015. It’s 7.4 percentage points lower than the 97.5% posted by the Class of 2022.

Darden’s MBA employment report is the first we’ve reported on this cycle, so it’s still too early to identify hiring trends for Class of 2025 MBAs across schools, but the broader economic indicators aren’t encouraging. Slower job creation, cooling wage growth, and continued sluggish tech hiring suggest graduates may be navigating another cautious recruiting year.

A bit of good news for Darden MBAs is that overall compensation held steady. The median base salary remained at $175,000 and the median signing bonus stayed at $30,000 for the fifth year running.

Darden’s employment report tracked outcomes for all 352 MBAs in the Class of 2025. Of those, 327 sought full-time employment, 12 were starting new business, 8 were either continuing education or not looking for work, and 5 were company sponsored.

OFFERS & ACCEPTANCES FALL TO 10-YEAR LOWS

The early-cycle employment drop was even more stark for Darden graduates. Only 79.5% of job-seeking MBAs had received an offer by graduation, and 76.8% had accepted one by then — both the lowest “by graduation” outcomes Darden has posted since 2015.

It continues the slide that started in 2023.

For 2025, there was an 11.9 percentage point difference between MBAs getting offers by graduation and those getting one within 90-days of graduation. For accepting, it was a 14% difference. That’s the largest spread from grads to post-grads since 2015. In other words, Darden grads are still landing jobs, but more of them are doing so after commencement because fewer students are locking things up quickly.

Zooming out, Darden’s three-month outcomes were consistently between 95 and 97% from 2019 to 2023, except for the Class of 2020 which was the first to graduate during the pandemic. Still, 92.7% of that class had received offers three-months after graduation.

Since 2023, offers after graduation have fallen from 95.4% to 90.2% while acceptances for the same time period have fallen from 94.6% to 89.3%.

TOTAL COMPENSATION HOLDS STEADY

Some reassuring news for MBAs in Darden’s report: The median base salary held at $175,000 and the median signing bonus stayed at $30,000 for the fifth year running. The average base salary dipped slightly to $162,578 from $163,710, while the average signing bonus rose to $36,906.

“Even in a challenging job market, our graduates continue to find success,” Senior Assistant Dean Jeff McNish says in the school’s employment release, pointing to student resilience and strong alumni support.

Average starting salary for Darden’s MBAs grew by $32,731 (24.2%) between 2019 and 2023. But, that growth stalled last year. The Class of 2024 was the first since the pandemic to report a lower average base salary than the class before them. The second straight year of slipping average starting salaries may be more evidence – beyond all the news headlines – that 2025 MBAs are entering a tougher job market.

CONSULTING LEADS, TECH REBOUNDS

Consulting remained Darden’s anchor industry, taking 37.3% of the class. A recent analysis found that nearly 400 Darden MBA alums currently work at McKinsey & Co. Financial services came in second at 26.0%. The more interesting move is tech. After Darden’s tech pipeline shrank steadily through 2024, tech hires jumped to 47 students in 2025, or 16.1% of the class — nearly double last year’s 26 students (8.8%).

Darden consultants also posted the highest base salaries with an average of $184,809. It was followed by financial services with an average base of $165,000 and tech at $137,965.

You can see Darden’s full 2025 MBA employment report here.

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