Majority of the students who enroll in an MBA program at a popular business school dream of getting placed in a high profile global corporate organization with a six digit pay package. For many of them, the dream remains to be just that: A Dream. But there are those, who you can call as the super lucky ones whose dream does come true. They are the ones who get job offers of more than $200,000 upon graduating from the business school. Oh, you think $200,000 was the highest? Nope, the highest went up to $350,000!

Are you wondering as to which business school students (now alumnus) received this coveted offer in 2010? Nah, neither HBS nor Stanford GSB student bagged the $350,000 placement. A student from the Wharton University received this sinfully lavish offer. Agreed that there are millionaires and billionaires in the world, but it is no small deal to get such lucrative offer at the start of one’s post MBA career.

The next in the list is the $330,000 job offer received by a Stanford Student to work in the private equity niche. The highest MBA salary was also paid for working in the private equity sector and so was the next salary figure on the list: $300,000.

A student each from business school at Chicago, Columbia and Kellogg received job offer worth $300,000 and what came as a surprise for us, was that the highest salary declared by Harvard was only $250,000, (this figure was also calculated on the basis of the 75^th percentile salary mentioned in the HBS’s press publication). Harvard Business School is amongst the best business schools throughout the world, second only to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Despite the high level reputation enjoyed by the HBS, the highest salary offered to the MBA students 2010 was lower than that offered to the students at Duke and Kellogg, the business schools that rank considerably lower than the Harvard.

The highest offer at MIT was under $200,000, around $180,000 to be precise, which is also not that great, when compared to the fact that MIT Sloan is one of the top five business schools in the country. The salary offered at Dartmouth’s Tuck School was higher than that offered at MIT Sloan. For Tuck’s students, the highest was around $225,000.

If you are appalled at the big bucks that MBA graduates easily came by in 2010, then you will be astonished at the placement figures for the current batch of MBA students. The world economy as a whole is in full swing, the domestic markets have improved and Asia is emerging as the hub of business activity, attracting business schools students from all over the world. The stakes are all set to go higher. After all, nobody said about the skies being limited at all!

Learning knows no age – this old age adage is very much true as far as class age demographics at the best business schools are concerned. Though the students keep asking about the right age to pursue an MBA course, the universities as such do not define any such norm. The HBS does not say that students over 30 years of age cannot enroll for its coveted MBA programs. It even accepts talented and skilled just out of college students to its MBA programs.

Work experience does matter, not only in matters of business school admission but also at the time of campus placements. You may argue that the HBS or Stanford GSB brand is applicable for all the students for a particular batch year, say for the class of 2010. Then why do the corporate organizations offer different salaries to students with varying levels of work experience? Read more…

What is the main inspiration behind joining an MBA program? It varies from student to student for sure, but it won’t be an exaggeration if we say that post MBA job and compensation offered play a crucial role in the growing popularity of the international MBA programs.

Especially in case of a fresher, who has just finished his bachelor’s from an undergraduate college and has enrolled in an MBA program so as to enhance his resume and get better paying job opportunities. The bright job prospects after MBA, which the students enjoyed between 2003 and 2008, had led to a tremendous increase in the number of students applications to business schools. The society as a whole considered education as one of the best forms of future investments with secured and high return on investment.

The stock market crash of 2008 shattered the dreams of those who graduated in the year 2009, not only from the business schools but also from universities offering various other graduate courses. Forget the decline in hiring, corporate organizations were downsizing their workforce at a nightmarish rate.

However, the good times are here again and the business schools all over the world are reporting increased hiring by the Fortune 500 and Forbes corporate organizations. Along with the increase in the placements,   the average MBA salary has also shot up, fuelling the demand for a degree in business administration from the best MBA college.

The average salaries for the class of 2010 ranged from $65,286 to $126, 181, which is very good by all the standards. The executive MBA graduates landed better and still higher paying offers with the salary for the directorial posts going as high as $150,000. The maximum increase in the compensation package was seen in the investment banking and financial consulting jobs, with Bank of America Corp emerging as the best recruiter, offering an average salary in the range of $60,000 to $125,000, depending upon the business school and the work experience of the candidate.

There has been a hike in the salaries for Project Manager, Financial Analyst, Senior Financial Controllers and Human Resource Managers as well. It came as a surprise to the admission counselors and MBA statisticians when the IT companies like Microsoft Corp, IMB, HP and even Facebook enhanced their campus recruitment programs to target more number of potential employees from the best business schools in the country.

Asia is where all the action is! This statement is true as far as MBA recruitment and placements by the global banking and investment firms are concerned. The best brains in the best business schools in US and UK are being hired to work in the emerging economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Mumbai. And, guess what? The newbies, those who have recently graduated from the best MBA universities are readily heading east, with a six figure job and their backpacks.

The popularity of the Asian centers of the global investment banking firms such as Goldman Sachs, HSBC etc is on account of following:

• Higher growth opportunities in the emerging economies than in the developed economies of the world where the job market is almost saturated
• Easy and smooth tax regulations, which leave people with higher disposable income
• Government regulations and restrictions are more relaxed in these economies, providing the managers with much coveted flexibility
• Lower cost of living as compared to the cities like London and New York City
• Ideal locations for bankers with families
• No stringent visa formalities required to be fulfilled
• Good infrastructural facilities
• Greater job stability

In addition to the global corporations, the local corporate giants have also beefed up the demand for MBA professionals from the best business schools, often luring them with upfront cash bonuses and high pay packages. Those employed with the globally recognized banking giants received annual bonus of more than 40 percent for the previous year, which is really good, keeping in view the lower cost of living in the region and less taxable income.

The business schools in the region are also attracting MBA aspirants from around the world. The MBA universities in China, Singapore and India rank in the top 15 business schools in the world and the placements at these hallowed portals of learning has increased impressively over the past couple of years. At the Indian School of Business placements, the corporate hiring for the batch of 2011 went up by 22 percent, with the average salary offered being around $44,000.

This is surely good news. At least for the hundred thousands of students who take GMAT and GRE exams every year, not once but twice or thrice. What do you think is the driving force behind the relentless studying and unceasing efforts that candidates put into studying so as to get the best possible GMAT scores or GRE scores? In addition to pursuing MBA education from the best university in the country, the prospect of a six figure annual income is very alluring. If GMAC survey reports are to be believed, then the day is not far when the B-School graduates in the country and abroad will boast of the pre-recession income levels.

In the past two years, basically in the post-recession period, unemployment rate in the country increased to unprecedented levels and the MBA graduates were amongst the worst hit. A major percentage of those who graduated in the year 2008 and 2009 found themselves either without a job or jobs with very low-income levels.

The recovery measures adopted by the federal government and the positive response of the markets have led to an increase in the employment level and an improvement in the salary offered. According to a recent survey undertaken by Graduate Management Admission Council, the body that regulates and conducts the GMAT, Graduate Management Admission Test, the average pay of B-school graduates is up by $12, 126 in the year 2010, as compared to the median pay figure of $66,694 in the year 2009. (Here, the years refer to the batch graduating in that particular year)

Another trend that has been observed is that not only financial and investment consulting firms, but also firms operating in energy, hospitality, health and biotechnology sectors are increasingly recruiting students fresh out of the business schools in the country. Even federal administrative departments are not to be left behind in the rush to capitalize upon the best knowledge pool in the country.

However, there are analysts who question the credibility of the survey figures on the grounds that those surveyed were the ones who were employed by various companies and enjoyed high salaries and bonuses. This does not present the entire story because the unemployed and the self- employed MBA grads who do not enjoy such beefed up income figures were not a part of the survey. Had they participated in it, the median salary range would have gone down sharply for the simple reason that the unemployed candidates had zero income and the sel- employed ones had only meager income.

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