Over A Third Of Haas Grads Get Stock

U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business

MBAs who graduated from UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business last year landed first-year median compensation packages of $147,457 that firmly puts the school among the top five in the world. The bigger surprise perhaps is that 36% of Berkeley’s Class of 2015 received either stock or stock options with their job offers, up from 31% a year earlier.

The total median pay includes median base salary of $125,000, a median sign-on bonus of $25,000, received by 72% of the class, and median other guaranteed compensation of $20,000, received by 22% of the class. It does not include the value of the stock grants because they are undisclosed. Generally, schools do not release stock data so it is rare to come by. Still, it can be a valuable part of a comp package, especially when 37.8% of a school’s graduates are taking jobs in tech as they do at Haas. Overall, only MBA graduates from Stanford, Harvard, and MIT Sloan made more out of the gate.

In common with most prestige schools, Haas also had impressive results when it came to actual placement. The school said that 82% of its graduates had job offers at commencement, while 95% had received offers three months later. Some 31 members of the class of 248 graduates started their own companies.

Major employers of the Class of 2015 at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

BIGGEST SHARE OF THE CLASS WENT TO WORK AT TECH FIRMS

Once again, high tech lured the highest percentage of Haas grads, snaring 37.8% of the class, down from the 2014 peak of 43.4%. Amazon, Google and Adobe were among last year’s major employers at Haas, along with the big consulting giants McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte and A.T. Kearney. Not surprisingly, consulting attracted the second largest percentage of the class, hiring 25.0% in 2015, down a touch from 26.4% a year earlier (see table below)

The decline in both tech and consulting was more than made up by financial services, led by both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, who were among the largest employers of the class. Some 15.0% went into finance, up four and one-half percentage points from 2014’s 11.5%. Also up was healthcare and pharma, drawing 6.6% of Haas grads last year, up from just 3.8% the year before, and real estate, which attracted 3.3% of the class, up from only 0.5% in 2014.

Some 4.4% of Haas’ Class of 2015 ventured into the energy field, up from 3.8% a year earlier but still considerably lower than the 11.0% the industry drew in 2013. Just 3.9% of the graduates took jobs in consumer packaged goods and retailing, roughly the same as the 3.8% who went that route in 2014. Haas grads entering the non-profit and social sector also declined to 1.2% last year, down from 3.8% a year earlier.

(Turn to following page to see how Haas MBA pay compares with other top business schools)