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MBA Careers: Google, Apple, Amazon Lead Tech Recruiting Surge

Georgetown McDonough latest school to catch tech fever

By  Seb Murray

Thu Oct 15 2015

BusinessBecause
Tech fever has swept through Georgetown McDonough, with the Washington based business school becoming the latest to report tech companies like Amazon, Apple and Google becoming magnets for MBA students.

Tech now is the third most popular industry among Georgetown’s graduates and the third-best compensated among MBA graduates, data released on Wednesday show.

The findings follow a broader tech trend at the elite US business schools, as MBAs push into Silicon Valley companies like SAP, eBay and Adobe.

“Many technology companies consistently appear on ‘best company’ lists, making them among the more desirable companies for MBAs,” Doreen Amorosa, managing director of Georgetown’s MBA Career Center, told BusinessBecause. “And, of course, the compensation offers are typically strong.” 

At Berkeley-Haas School, a staggering 43% of last year’s MBA class were employed in the technology industry, with Microsoft and Samsung among the top hiring companies.

MIT Sloan’s latest career report shows that 25% of the MBA class were employed into the high-technology industry — including electronics, internet and software businesses such as Dell and Facebook — up from 20% in 2012.

At UCLA Anderson School of Management, more than 75 MBAs from the class of 2014 accepted job offers from the tech sector, the highest of all industries and topping finance, which hired around 50.  

Chris Weber, associate director for careers at UCLA Anderson, said: “Technology companies are often providing similar pay, little to no travel requirements as part of the job, great perks, and increasingly better exit opportunities.”

For Michigan’s Ross School, 17.6% of the MBA class this year reported working in the tech sector, higher than the 7.5% working in financial services excluding investment banking.

The tech migration is evident in Europe too. At the UK’s Cambridge Judge Business School, Google and Infosys are among the top five employers for 2015. For INSEAD, which has a campus in Europe, both Google and Amazon were last year reported as top MBA employers.

“A small number of high-profile tech companies have been growing their MBA level hiring rapidly,” said Christian Dummett at London Business School, highlighting Amazon.

Paula Quinton-Jones, director of career services in London at Hult International Business School, said: “Technology companies are seen to be the place of innovation and creativity, and this is really attractive to MBA candidates.”

The allure of tech has for some schools come at the expense of more traditional MBA industries, such as management consulting and finance.

Although overall employment at consultancy firms and banks remains robust, some schools report decreases: the percentage of Stanford GSB’s MBAs going into consulting fell to 16% last year from 27% in 2011. The percentage flocking to tech meanwhile has risen from 13% to 24% over the same period.

“While interest in finance has remained strong before, during and after the crisis, we’ve seen some interesting shifts,” said Roxanne Hori, associate dean of corporate relations and career services at NYU Stern School of Business.

At Harvard Business School, 8% less MBAs are entering investment banking than before the financial crisis. Yet the number entering technology has surged by 10% to reach nearly 20% of the class.

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