Take a closer look at MBB consulting jobs placement out of the best MBA programs.
MBA graduates continue to seek out management consulting jobs for the opportunity to provide strategic advice to business leaders operating large companies. Jobs at leading strategy consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain and BCG (known as the MBB) are particularly coveted by business school students because these firms often provide a fast track to senior positions in large corporations. In addition, M7 business schools such as Booth and Kellogg have very strong track records of MBB job placement.
Management Consulting Job Placement for the MBA Class of 2023
All of the top MBA programs provide their MBA graduates with the opportunity to pursue a management consulting career. You can see this in the following chart, which highlights the percentage of Class of 2023 full-time MBA graduates who accepted a management consulting job, as reported in the Class of 2023 MBA employment reports for 21 MBA programs.
Jobs in the management consulting industry are quite popular with recent MBA graduates. Among Class of 2023 MBA graduates who accepted jobs, Goizueta sent the highest percentage into management consulting, followed by Darden (46%), Tuck (46%), Ross (45%), Yale SOM (44%) and Fuqua (43%). In fact, 15 of the 21 MBA programs included in this analysis reported that over 34% of their Class of 2023 graduates accepted jobs in the management consulting industry. In addition, there are five programs that sent between 24% – 29% into consulting jobs, including Wharton (29%), Haas (28%), Kelley (27%), HBS (25%) and Kenan Flagler (24%). Stanford GSB (15%) sent the smallest percentage into consulting jobs.
Since the MBA programs vary by class size, it is also helpful to view the total number of MBA graduates that accept consulting jobs.
Larger MBA programs such as CBS, Booth and Wharton each sent over 180 MBA graduates into strategy consulting jobs while Kellogg and HBS each sent over 140 MBA graduates into consulting jobs.
There are also a number of smaller MBA programs that send a lot of graduates into consulting jobs as well. For example, Fuqua and Darden each sent over 140 graduates into consulting jobs while Ross, Stern, Yale SOM, Tuck and Johnson each sent over 110 MBA graduates into strategy consulting jobs.
McKinsey, Bain, BCG (MBB) Analysis
Of the 21 MBA programs covered in this article, only seven publish the number of Class of 2023 MBA graduates who have accepted a job at an MBB consulting firm.
While we don’t have a complete set of published MBB job placement data, we have enough to note some MBA hiring trends for McKinsey, Bain and BCG based on the seven business schools that share their MBB data. In addition, while M7 schools such as HBS and Wharton do not share this data, their MBB job placement percentages are likely similar to those of Kellogg, Sloan, and Booth who do share this data.
We begin by first reviewing the McKinsey job placement data:
Of the seven MBA programs that report Class of 2023 McKinsey job acceptances, Booth leads with 71 followed by Kellogg (46) and CBS (38). Next are Ross, Fuqua, Sloan, and Stern. It is worth noting that Booth has more than twice the number of McKinsey job acceptances as do Ross, Fuqua, Sloan and Stern.
Let’s take a look at the figures for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG):
Among the seven MBA programs reporting Class of 2023 BCG job acceptances, Booth leads with 52 BCG jobs, followed by Kellogg with 45. Interestingly, Fuqua has more BCG job acceptances than CBS does. This is impressive since Fuqua has a smaller class size than CBS does. Stern only sent 13 Class of 2022 graduates to BCG.
And here are the numbers for Bain & Co.:
Among the seven MBA programs reporting Class of 2023 Bain job acceptances, Booth leads with 30. Next are Kellogg (26), Ross (25) and Sloan (25), followed by Fuqua, CBS and Stern.
In the chart below, we combine the Class of 2023 MBB job placements by MBA program.
Booth leads with 153 MBB jobs accepted, followed by Kellogg (117). Both Fuqua and CBS have 83 each, followed by Sloan (74), Ross (72), and Stern (49).
Now, Kellogg, Booth and CBS do have larger class sizes than the other four MBA programs listed. To account for this, we will now review the MBB jobs accepted as a percentage of total consulting jobs accepted by Class of 2023 MBA graduates of these programs.
Booth (80%), Sloan (75%) and Kellogg (72%) have the highest percentage of MBB consulting job placement. This suggests that these three programs are very good at placing their MBA graduates into jobs at these top consulting firms. In addition, Fuqua (54%) and Ross (54%) have solid placement relative to CBS (42%) and Stern (40%).
It is also helpful to see the five-year trends in MBB job placement at these business schools:
From 2019 to 2023, the MBB firms have been increasing their market share of the MBA graduates accepting consulting jobs from top MBA programs. For example, Booth, Sloan and Kellogg have grown their percentage of MBB consulting job placement from 67%, 72% and 62% in the Class of 2019 to 80%, 75% and 72% in the Class of 2023, respectively. It is also interesting to see the rapid growth in MBB job placement from the Class of 2019 to the Class of 2023 at Fuqua (39% to 54%), Ross (36% to 54%), and CBS (33% to 42%).
We can also compare the five-year trends by total MBB consulting job acceptances by MBA program:
Booth, Fuqua and Stern posted solid increases in MBB jobs accepted for the Class of 2023 while Kellogg and CBS saw declines in MBB jobs accepted after hitting highs in the Class of 2022. This helps to narrow the gap in MBB jobs accepted across these seven schools.
While this article has primarily focused on MBB job placement, all of the top MBA programs provide their MBA graduates with the opportunity to pursue a management consulting career. In addition to the MBB firms, there are other leading consulting firms that also hire a lot of top MBA graduates, including Deloitte, EY Parthenon, and Accenture.
In summary, for any MBA applicant interested in pursuing a post MBA career in strategy consulting, it makes sense to review the consulting job placement numbers, including both the percentages and the total number of MBA graduates accepting consulting jobs from each MBA program.
