Columbia Business School released its employment report for their MBA Class of 2020. This year’s 755-strong graduating class entered the pandemic-rocked global business community and found success. Ninety percent received job offers within three months of graduation and 87 percent accepted. While the median salary remained flat over 2019, median signing bonuses slightly increased. Despite the economic uncertainty, 19 students went on to found their own companies upon graduation.
| Consulting | 34% |
| Financial Services | 33.2% |
| Media/Technology | 19.8% |
| Manufacturing | 4% |
| Healthcare/Pharma | 3.8% |
Graduates entering the consulting industry made up 34 percent of the class, a slight increase over last year that displaced financial services as the top industry choice for CBS graduates in 2019. This year 33.2 percent of graduates entered financial services. Media and technology took 19.8 percent of graduates, 4 percent went to manufacturing, and 3.8 percent went into the healthcare industry.
Seventy-two percent of graduate opportunities were school-facilitated through on-campus recruiting, school-facilitated internships, and Columbia’s Career Opportunity Information Network (COIN) job postings. For those graduates who started careers internationally, 35.4 percent of jobs outside the U.S. were in Asia, 28.1 percent were in Europe, and 17.7 percent were in the Middle East. CBS graduates enjoy the support from 85 alumni clubs around the world.
Columbia Business School Achievements and Initiatives in 2020
This year CBS’s MBA and EMBA schools achieved STEM designations, retroactive to May 2019. This designation distinguishes the school’s graduates’ strengths in technology and data science, while also conferring benefits for international students in the opportunity to continue working in the U.S. up to three years after graduation.
CBS took progressive action in efforts to increase diversity and pursue social justice. They convened a task force, focused on increasing minority representation in faculty, and announced the Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) program to begin in spring 2021. Named after the late Professor Katherine Phillips, the PPIL program requires students to take classes and training designed to develop their skills as ethical and inclusive business leaders.
“With our STEM designation, our robust initiatives in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our ongoing investment in innovation, we are committed to ensuring that our graduates are prepared to lead the type of complex, cross-disciplinary teams working today to solve business challenges and better our society,” said Costis Maglaras, Dean and David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business, in the school’s official report.
