Take a closer look at MBA graduates’ tech industry jobs placement overall and at Big Tech firms for the full-time MBA Classes of 2018 to 2022.
Despite a recent decline in tech industry hiring, the technology sector continues to be a popular choice for MBA graduates because it provides them with the chance to impact a domain with a big influence on everyday life. For example, a project manager role in tech offers MBA graduates an opportunity to manage and launch the latest consumer tech brands. In addition, the top MBA programs have a strong track record of placing graduates in leading ‘Big Tech’ companies, which include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Meta.
Technology Industry Job Placement for the MBA Class of 2022
The following chart highlights the percentage of Class of 2022 full-time MBA graduates who accepted a technology industry job, as reported in the Class of 2022 employment reports for 22 leading programs.
Among Class of 2022 MBA graduates who accepted jobs, Foster (48%) sent the highest percentage into tech industry jobs, followed by Anderson (34%), Haas (33%), Stanford (30%) and Marshall (29%). Tepper (28%) is next, followed by Fuqua (23%), Sloan (23%), and Kellogg (21%). Note that the five business schools sending the highest percentage of graduates into tech industry jobs are located on the U.S. West Coast. This should come as no surprise given the concentration of ‘Big Tech’ firms and venture-backed start-ups located there.
The business schools sending the lowest percentage into tech industry jobs are located on the East Coast and in the Midwest. They include Johnson (15%), Booth (15%), CBS (14%), Yale SOM (14%), Kenan Flagler (14%), Kelley (13%), Goizueta (13%) and Tuck (11%).
As we noted in a recent article, most business schools reported a decline in MBA graduates accepting tech industry jobs from the Class of 2021 to the Class of 2022. The exceptions were a few business schools mostly located on the US West Coast who reported a small increase:
Since MBA programs vary by size, it is helpful to review the total number of MBA graduates who accept technology industry jobs from each of these 22 MBA programs.
The largest MBA programs, including Kellogg (132), HBS (114), Wharton (103) and CBS (95), sent the most Class of 2022 MBA graduates into tech industry jobs. Anderson (93), Haas (84), Stanford GSB (78), Fuqua (77) and Sloan (76) also sent an impressive number of MBA graduates into tech industry jobs given their class size. Conversely, Tuck (27), Goizueta (19) and Kelley (12) sent the fewest graduates into tech industry jobs.
Big Tech Analysis (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta)
Among MBA students and MBA applicants seeking a tech industry career, there is a lot of interest in working at leading ‘Big Tech’ firms, which include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Meta. These large tech firms hire MBAs to fill a variety of positions including product management and logistics roles as well as more traditional corporate roles in strategy, finance or marketing. Of the 22 MBA programs covered in this article, only seven business schools specifically publish the number of Class of 2022 MBA graduates who have accepted jobs at these five Big Tech firms.
While we don’t have a complete set of published job placement data, we have enough to note some MBA hiring trends for these tech firms based the seven MBA programs that share their firm-specific data.
We begin by first reviewing the Amazon job placement data:
Of these seven MBA programs, Amazon hired the most Class of 2022 graduates from Kellogg (48), followed by CBS (23), Booth (22), Ross (19), Fuqua (18) and Sloan (18). It is interesting to see that Amazon’s hiring of Class of 2022 MBA grads at Kellogg is more than double the Amazon hires at any of the other six business schools. Amazon not only is the largest tech employer, but also is one of the biggest employers of graduates from top MBA programs.
When reviewing the Amazon jobs accepted by recent MBA graduates of these seven MBA programs over the past five years, you can see that Amazon hired between 160 – 173 MBA graduates per year from these seven MBA programs in each of the last three years.
However, there is more variation in Amazon hires by business school. Kellogg saw a large growth in Amazon jobs accepted, from 21 hired in the Class of 2018 to 48 hired in the Class of 2022. In contrast, Ross saw a decline from 44 hired in the Class of 2018 to 19 hired in the Class of 2022. Aside from Kellogg, the Amazon Class of 2022 MBA hiring for CBS (23), Booth (22), Ross (19) and Fuqua (18) and Sloan (18) was in a 18 – 23 hires per school range. We don’t know if this was a coincidence or if Amazon was seeking about 20 hires per school.
Next, we review Google MBA hiring at these seven MBA programs:
Google hired 66 Class of 2022 MBA graduates from these seven MBA programs. Google hired between 11 – 13 MBA graduates each from five schools: Kellogg (13), CBS (12) and Sloan (12), Booth (11) and Fuqua (11). Google also hired four from Stern and three from Ross.
Across these seven MBA programs, Google actually increased its MBA hiring from 47 in the Class of 2018 to 60 in the Class of 2020 to 66 in the Class of 2022.
There is more variation in Google’s hiring at individual business schools. For five of the seven MBA programs, Google actually increased its MBA hiring from the Class of 2021 to the Class of 2022. In addition, while Kellogg still had the most Google hires for the Class of 2022 (13), Kellogg’s Google tally is down from the 20 hires in the Class of 2021.
Next we review Microsoft hiring at these seven MBA programs:
Microsoft has traditionally been a big hirer of MBA talent, though they have been a less active MBA recruiter than they were several years ago. Among these seven MBA programs, Microsoft hired the most Class of 2022 graduates from Fuqua (11), followed by Kellogg (4), Ross (4) and CBS (3). Microsoft also hired two from Booth and one each from Sloan and Stern.
As we can see in the chart below, Microsoft jobs accepted from these seven MBA programs have declined from 51 in the Class of 2018 to just 28 in the Class of 2022.
Reviewing the Microsoft hiring by MBA program, we can see that five of the seven schools reported a decline in Microsoft jobs accepted from the Class of 2018 to the Class of 2022. In contrast, Fuqua (11) was able to maintain its Microsoft jobs accepted.
Now we will review Apple hiring at these seven MBA programs:
While Apple is a big tech company, they have traditionally hired fewer MBA graduates from these seven MBA programs than some of their Big Tech peers. Among the Class of 2022 MBA graduates, Apple hired only four each from Fuqua, Kellogg and Sloan, followed by two each from CBS and Booth and one each at Ross and Stern.
Across the seven MBA programs, Apple reduced its hiring for MBA graduates from 24 in the Class of 2019 to just 17 in the Class of 2022. Kellogg saw the biggest decline from 10 Apple hires in the Class of 2019 to just four Apple hires in the Class of 2022 while MIT Sloan saw an increase in Apple jobs.
Now we review Meta hiring at these seven MBA programs:
While Meta is a big tech company, they have been less active at hiring Class of 2022 MBA graduates from these seven MBA programs. CBS leads with five Meta hires, followed by Ross with three Meta hires. The rest had one hire each.
When reviewing the collective Meta hiring across these seven MBA programs, Meta has actually increased its MBA hires from 10 in the Class of 2018 to 18 hires in Class of 2022.
Reviewing the Meta hiring at the individual MBA programs, Kellogg saw the largest increase of Meta jobs in the Class of 2022, followed by Booth. In contrast, Stern has seen a decline in Meta jobs.
In summary, of the Big Tech hiring of Class of 2022 grads at these seven MBA programs, Kellogg (70) placed the most Class of 2022 MBA graduates into jobs at these five Big Tech firms. Next are Fuqua (45) and CBS (45), then Booth (38), Sloan (36) and Ross (30). Stern is farther back with 19 Big Tech jobs accepted.
To account for the difference in class size across these seven MBA programs, we will now compare the Big Tech jobs accepted by MBA graduates in the Class of 2022 vs the Class of 2021 as a percentage of total tech industry jobs accepted by these graduates.
Of the Fuqua Class of 2022 Daytime MBA graduates who accepted technology industry jobs, 58% accepted jobs at one of five Big Tech firms (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Meta). Kellogg is next with 53%, followed by Ross (51%), Stern (50%), Booth (48%), CBS (47%) and Sloan (47%).
Five of the seven MBA programs actually increased their Big Tech percentage from the Class of 2021 to the Class of 2022 while Fuqua saw a decline and Ross stayed the same. Given the overall decline in tech industry hiring of MBA graduates from the Class of 2021 to 2022, it is interesting to see this growth in Big Tech’s percentage of tech hires. We believe that this increase is mainly due to the MBA recruiting calendar for Big Tech firms. This is because Big Tech companies extended their job offers to Class of 2022 MBA graduates in the Fall of 2021 before the tech industry slowdown began in 2022. In contrast, smaller tech firms that were more likely to hire Class of 2022 MBA graduates in the Spring of 2022 may have reduced their MBA hiring given the slowdown in 2022. Thus, it would make sense that if Big Tech firms maintained their Class of 2022 hiring while overall tech hiring declined, then Big Tech hires would represent a higher percentage of the total tech hires. Of course, given the tech layoffs announced in late 2022 and early 2023, Big Tech firms are likely to pull back on hiring for the Class of 2023.
In summary, among the 22 MBA programs, Kellogg, HBS and Wharton stand out as placing the largest number of Class of 2022 MBA graduates into tech jobs while West Coast schools such as Foster, Anderson, Haas, Stanford GSB and Marshall send the highest percentage of Class of 2022 graduates accepting tech jobs.
Among the seven MBA programs that share firm specific hiring data, Big Tech jobs are particularly popular as over 47% of tech jobs accepted by Class of 2022 graduates were at 5 Big Tech companies. Among these seven MBA programs, Fuqua stands out for sending the highest percentage (58%) into Big Tech jobs.
Given the recent slowdown in tech hiring and tech industry layoffs, we expect that the MBA Class of 2023 will show a further decline in tech industry jobs accepted, including at the Big Tech firms. Having said this, given the large role that tech plays in the economy, we suspect that tech industry hiring of MBAs is here to stay.
