2006 MBAs Go to Work
As a fresh crop of MBA students arrived on campus in the fall, the School’s most recent alumni settled into new lives and new responsibilities. And according to MBA Career Services Director Jana Pompadur Kierstead, they have much to celebrate.
“Students enjoyed some nice successes this year, in that 98 percent of the Class of 2006 had offers within three months of graduation. That’s the highest figure I’ve seen since arriving at HBS seven years ago,” Kierstead notes. Ninety-five percent had accepted a position three months after graduation; median total compensation was $138,125, up from $134,438 for the Class of 2005. Another uptick was measured in the number of graduates entering the financial services industry, with a shift from 36 percent to 42 percent.
Kierstead observes that the Class of 2006 is the first to graduate with the benefit of a new career coaching program that uses over thirty counselors (many of whom are HBS alumni) to help students with their job search, from self-assessment to résumé writing.
“It’s a terrific program,” she says. “It will be interesting to see if it results in higher long-term job satisfaction.”
Early signs in that regard are promising. Katie Martin, associate director of MBA Recruiting Services, notes that 88 percent of students report that the job they accepted was their first choice in terms of function. “We ask students to prioritize their career search relative to three components: function, industry, and location,” Martin explains. “We encourage them to give function a high priority because it’s been shown to result in the highest career satisfaction from a long-term perspective. The numbers show that our message is being taken to heart.”
Class of 2008
- Class Size 907
- Yield 90.8%
- Women 35%
- Minorities 22%
- International 33%
- Total Countries 70
Undergraduate Majors
- Humanities and Social Sciences 35%
- Engineering 28%
- Business 24%
- Natural Sciences 8%
- Unspecified Major 5%
Class of 2006
- Median base salary $105,000
- Median total compensation $138,125
Leading Job Locations
- Northeast U.S. 45.4%
(New York City: 25.8%)
(Boston: 11.1%) - Western U.S. 18.1%
(Bay Area: 10.4%) - Central & Southwest U.S. 12.4%
- Southeast U.S. 5.1%
- Europe 8.7%
- Asia/South Pacific 4.8%
- Latin America 2.3%
- Other 3.2%
Industry Choices
- Financial Services 41.6%
(Investment Banking/Sales & Trading: 12%)
(Investment Management: 10.1%)
(Venture Capital/Private Equity/LBO: 15.4%)
(Commercial Banking/Other: 4.1%) - Consulting 21.4%
- Technology/Telecom 5.8%
- Other Services 5.7%
- Pharma/Biomedical 4.6%
- Consumer Products 4.4%
- Retail 4.3%
- Other Manufacturing 3.7%
- Entertainment/Media 3.4%
- Nonprofit/Government 2.8%
- Real Estate 2.3%
