What is the Most Valuable San Francisco MBA?
There’s no doubt: San Francisco is a great city to earn your MBA. Located near Silicon Valley, business schools throughout the area provide not only an excellent education but also opportunities to interact with many tech and industry leaders in the area. But which MBA programs in San Francisco are the best?
This is not an easy question to answer. You can check rankings, to see which MBA programs perform well based on surveys and statistics provide to The Financial Times, U.S. News and World Report, and The Economist. And that’s a great place to start, but probably the most essential value when determining the right MBA program for you is your return on investment (ROI).
The ROI of an MBA program is one of the best indicators of what your MBA is actually worth. It looks at statistics such as average salary increase, post-graduation employment, tuition cost, cost of living, and more. To help you out, we looked in-depth at the best business schools in San Francisco to see which offer the best ROI. Continue reading…
What Are The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms in the World?
“Is this going to be worth it?”
If you are currently or have ever considered earning an MBA degree, it’s likely that you’ve asked yourself this question. Given the burgeoning cost of tuition—especially for top business programs—plus the loss in income and cost of living while pursuing your education, it’s a fair question to ask. Does it make sense to invest this sort of money into your education with no guaranteed result?
Of course, many of the benefits of earning an MBA simply can’t be quantified and boiled down to raw numbers. The new opportunities created through study abroad or case competitions, the expansion of your professional network and chance to connect with industry professionals. All of these considerations can make it difficult to ever truly gain perspective on an MBA degree’s worth.
Thankfully, there are some areas where the numbers still do the talking. In particular: post-graduate salary. This is one of the easiest and simplest ways to see the true value of an MBA. And it’s not just helpful to look at the increase in salary after earning an MBA—it can be just as enlightening to see the difference in post-graduate salary for various MBA concentrations. This data can help you make important choices about what kind of path you’d like to pursue while earning your MBA, and how to make the most out of the time and money spent on your education.
U.S. News & World Report found found that strategy, while one of the least popular MBA concentrations (chosen by just 4.3 percent of business school students), led to some of the highest paying jobs after graduation. Since students concentrating in strategy typically go into jobs at consulting firms following graduation, they are more likely to earn high salaries that can help increase the overall value of their degree—not to mention pay off their student loans much faster.
For students looking to increase the worth of their MBA with a high-paying job in consulting, we’ve rounded up the highest paying firms in the consulting industry. Working towards careers in these top companies will guarantee that the answer to “is this going to be worth it?” will always be “yes!”
The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms
Formerly known as Ernst & Young, EY-Parthenon is one of the top paying consulting firms for MBA graduates. The company is headquartered in London, England, with more than 250,000 employees at offices throughout the world. EY is known as one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, joining Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG as the four largest professional services networks in the world. Last year, EY was also named 29th on the “100 Best Companies to Work For” list from Fortune.
According to Business Insider, EY-Parthenon employees with just an undergraduate degree make up to, on average, $110,000 annually, including base salary, signing bonuses, and extra incentives. Management Consulted data found that MBA grads earned an astounding base salary of $170,000 at the company. That figure doesn’t include signing bonuses, relocation expenses, and more.
Founded in 1926 by University of Chicago economics professor James McKinsey, McKinsey & Company has transformed into one of the world’s most iconic consulting empires. The company has opened in more than 120 global cities, employing more than 14,000 consultants—many of which comes from prestigious MBA institutions.
According to Management Consulted data, McKinsey & Company is the second-highest paying consulting firm in the world for MBA grads, with offered base salaries coming in at $152,000. With an added potential performance bonus of $35,000, those figures can rise to $187,500 in just one year.
Strategy& has grown exceedingly since its beginnings as Booz & Company in 1914. One of the top global strategy consulting firms in the country, the company now has 57 offices throughout the world, revenue upwards of $1.3 billion, and 3,000 employees. Nearly a century after their founding, in 2013, the company was acquired by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and officially renamed to Strategy&.
The company comes in third overall among for annual base compensation for MBA grads, at a lofty $152,000. The company also offers one of the most unique and lucrative retirement funding options for consulting employees, with 6 percent of base salary and bonuses matched for its 401k plan.
L.E.K. is technically the youngest company to make the top five, which was founded in the early 1980s by former Bain partners James Lawrence, Iain Evans, and Richard Koch. Headquartered in both Boston and London, L.E.K. is also the smallest company on this list, with around 3,000 employees.
Despite its size and relative newness in comparison to many of the other companies on this list, L.E.K. pays its employees more-than-handsomely, offering a tempting base salary of $150,000 and upwards of $25,000 in performance-based potential incentives.
Bain & Company, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is a global management consultancy firm providing advice for public, private, and non-profit organizations. Along with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company is one of the “Big Three” firms. Founded in 1973, Bain & Co. today has more than 8,000 employees throughout the world and an estimated revenue between $3.7 and $4.5 billion.
Bain offers its recently employed MBA grads a starting base salary comes in slightly above aforementioned Deloitte employees, snagging $148,000 per year, which can grow to $185,000 in total compensation.
Honorable Mentions
The Boston Consulting Group, founded in 1963, now has more than 90 offices in 50 countries, advising clients throughout the private, public, and not-profit sectors.
The Massachusetts institution offers its MBA graduates right around the same compensation as Bain & Co, the companies unofficial direct competitor. Base salaries come in around $147,000, but massive (and we mean massive) bonus incentives can bring that total up to $191,100.
Another one of the “Big Four,” Deloitte has witnessed non-stop growth since its founding in 1845. Today, the firm makes more than $38.8 billion USD in revenue with roughly 263,900 employees throughout the world. As of 2016, Deloitte was ranked as the sixth largest privately owned organization in the U.S. The firm’s offerings span across audit, tax, consulting, financial advisory, and enterprise risk services, with offices across the world in cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Madrid, Tel Aviv, and many more.
Management Consulted data found that MBA grads at Deloitte reported a base salary slightly smaller than its aforementioned contemporaries, pulling in $140,000 per year. Deloitte separates itself from its competition by offering returning interns a potential to pay for the send year of their MBA education in the form of reimbursement.
2018 Trends: How Much Can You Get Out of a Boston MBA?
Boston, the largest city in New England, is often considered the academic, economic, and cultural center of the Northeastern United States. Beantown is also considered one of top college towns in the country thanks to its numerous esteem colleges and universities. Lots of that talent sticks too: Forbes ranks the city as one of the best places for business and careers. Continue reading…
Facebook Tops Glassdoor’s 100 Best Places to Work List
Employer review website Glassdoor, which allows users to read anonymous employee testimonials about employers, has revealed its annual “Best Places to Work” list, with familiar MBA recruiters Facebook, Bain & Co, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) earning the top three spots.
Why Facebook?
Since 2011, the social media empire has been one of Glassdoor’s most praised companies to work for, earning a top five spot seven out of the past eight years, including three number one overall awards. Facebook employees are often given extensive benefits, including four months of paid maternity leave—a policy often considered a luxury in the U.S., which has no legally mandated paternity leave policies for employers. As well, earlier this year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced the company would implement paid sick time for employees and family members.
With increasing revenue streams, the company’s hiring numbers have continued to swell, with nearly 19,000 employees as of earlier this year—a 38 percent jump from March 2016 to March 2017. In fact, just this week, the company announced it will be adding 800 more jobs at its new London office.
Data via Facebook, graphic by The Atlas/via Quartz.
Of course, the central pitch to work at the social media monolith may be predicated on the payment of employees. According to Paysa, the average Facebook salary is north of $250,000 annually, combining base pay, bonuses, and equity. Most jobs at the company start at, at least, $70,000 USD annually, with business management roles starting at $135,000.
The company has also made a concerted effort at diversifying its hiring. Speaking with Forbes, Lori Goler, vice president of people, said, “Diversity is critical to our mission at Facebook, because we serve a community of 2 billion around the world, and of course there’s diversity in that community.”
The company, according to Forbes, employs between 33 and 35 percent women, and there has been considerable gains among women employed with computer science and engineering backgrounds, as well as a 500 percent increase in employment among those of African descent since 2014. In the interview, Goler added, “We’re nowhere near where we want to be, but we’re at least hearted to see that at least we can make some progress.”
Check out Facebook’s graduate student recruitment page here.
Consulting Companies Still Reign
While certain statistics indicate a wave of MBA grads may be leaving consulting in favor of tech-centric employers, as evident by the recently released Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management employment report, consulting companies are remain one of the primary targets for MBA students and graduates, and for good reason.
Bain & Co., like Facebook, has been endlessly praised by Glassdoor reviews, ranking among the top four best places to work every year since 2009. Like most of the companies on the year-end list, Bain offers ample benefits, including several months of paid maternity leave, comprehensive vacation and insurance policies, and one of the world’s best 401K offers. Fellow Boston metro company BCG also officers a considerable parental leave benefits package, retirement planning, and lofty salaries.
Inside the New York City BCG office/Photo via BCG.
Like Bain, BCG makes a concerted effort to bring in incredibly comparable MBA graduates, recruiting students from multiple prominent business schools like The Wharton School, NYU Stern, Columbia Business School, and many more.
Some Traditional Companies Remain Steady, While Giants Like Apple Stumble
Tech empire Google, not surprisingly, held its place among the top 10 companies—having never fallen lower than eighth overall since 2012. Just outside of the top ranking companies, McKinsey & Co. stayed within the top 20, while other notable heavyweights like Microsoft (39th), Capital One (69th), Deloitte (77th), Accenture (83rd), and Apple (84th), the world’s most successful consumer company, fell to the lower ends of the list.
Despite having the second most profitable year in company history, falling shortly behind it’s 2015 figures, Apple has been steadily dropping down Glassdoor’s annual Best Of list, posting its worst standing in the history of the ranking—nearly 50 spots worse than last year’s ranking of 36th overall.
Considering, however, that the annual ranking is comprises of over 500,000 companies, this drop may not be as serious as it would appear. The overall Glassdoor rating for Apple was 4.3, in contrast to Facebook, which boasts a current 4.6 rating. The average Glassdoor rating for employers, for context, is 3.3.
Some Surprises
Not every company included in the Glassdoor Best Of list could be considered a traditional MBA recruiters, including beloved U.S. west coast fast food chain In-N-Out Burger (fourth overall), growing athletic leisurewear empire Lululemon (sixth), wine company E. & J. Gallo Winery(14th), Delta Airlines (17th), and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (19th), which provides “Excellent dental and medical coverage,” according to an anonymous employee. Plus, “you work with people who don’t swear.”
For a more extensive overview of the methodology behind the ranking, click here.
Tech Grads Surge in New Northwestern Kellogg Employment Report
The Kellogg School of Management released new employment data and statistics from the Class of 2017. According to the school, 94 percent of Kellogg’s full-time MBA Class of 2017 received an offer within three months of graduation.
“Kellogg leaders take a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex business challenges,” said Matt Merrick, Associate Dean of MBA Operations. “The versatile skills they hone at Kellogg enable them to make an immediate impact across all types of organizations.”
MBAs were hired by a wide variety of companies across all disciplines and industries, shapes and sizes. Some of the top companies hiring Kellogg students include McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Amazon, Bain & Company, and Microsoft.
Employment data shows that the most popular industries were consulting (33 percent), technology (25 percent), finance (13 percent) and CPG (12 percent). The Kellogg Career Management Center helped students establish relationships with more than 50 technology companies in order to help secure these employment opportunities. Overall, the Career Management Center works with employers to create custom recruiting strategies, forging deep relationships with employers of all sizes, from all industries and regions.
According to our sister site Clear Admit, the 25 percent of Kellogg grads that landed jobs in the technology industry was a school record.
Jeanette Brown writes:
“Amazon hired 32 Kellogg grads, making it the third largest recruiter in 2017, behind only McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). But Amazon was far from the only tech firm to hire at the school. ‘It’s not only the big employers like Amazon, Apple, Google—but the small companies as well, the ones that hire just one to two MBAs,’ explains Liza Kirkpatrick, Senior Director of the full-time MBA program at Kellogg’s Career Management Center. ‘We had over 50 unique tech employers that hired our students this past year, which demonstrates that we really have that depth.’ Kirkpatrick further noted that the types of jobs for which tech firms are hiring Kellogg grads is widely varied, including product management, sales, marketing, business operations, supply chain, product development, and others.”
Kirkpatrick notes that the surge in tech jobs stems from a concerted effort from the business school, which was also reflected in the number of technology industry internships for the Class of 2018.
“‘We started developing relationships in the tech space many years ago,’ acknowledges Kirkpatrick. ‘It has taken a while for firms to recognize that when an MBA comes on board, it really adds value.’ But they certainly have, which can also be seen reflected in the number of tech firms that now take on summer interns. ‘They have really organized themselves to bring on an MBA class as interns as a result,’ Kirkpatrick adds. The most recent employment report reveals that 26 percent of the Class of 2018 interned at technology firms.”
In a press release from the school, Jodi Washington, a Program Manager for the Networking and Security Transformation team, said, “Kellogg’s curriculum builds leaders who are strong analytical thinkers and are confident collaborating across organizations. The Kellogg graduates we hire jump in on day one, but also continue to mature at Cisco.”
2017 statistics/photo courtesy of Northwestern Kellogg.
The statistics show that the number of Kellogg MBAs to accept job offers on the West Coast has also increased (31.4 percent) from last year, a direct correlation to uptick in tech hires. Meanwhile, 30 percent of 2017 MBAs stayed in the Midwest and 33 percent accepted jobs on the East Coast.
You can read more on Kellogg’s latest employment stats and the Clear Admit interview with Kellogg Senior Director of Career Management Liza Kirkpatrick here.
Getting Paid: Highest MBA Salaries in Chicago
Like most parts of the country, the U.S. heartland is undergoing a massive shift on all fronts, becoming more urbane, diverse, and open to outsiders than seemingly ever before.
Many communities are becoming increasingly diverse, attracting international residents at an unprecedented rate. Young, urban professional-types who once flocked to the coasts are now moving in droves to Midwestern cities, which were once dismissively filed under “fly-over territory.” Nowhere is this change more apparent than in the Windy City.
Chicago’s long been home to major players in media, education, finance, and food and beverage (shout-out to Giordano’s Deep Dish Pizza), but doing business in the city now also means something new. Like most major metropolitan areas, Chicago’s slowly dipping its toes into the tech game; the city’s home to Groupon, Grubhub, Orbitz, and Reverb.
So, take your pick, aspiring MBAs! When it comes to Chi-City, you’ll be a veritable kid in a candy store.
The 5 Highest Chicago MBA Salaries
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management graduates earned average starting salaries between $106,000-$138,000, depending on their chosen industry. According to recent statistics, the four most popular industries to attract Kellogg MBAs were consulting (32.6 percent), where the starting salary hovers around $138,204 with a $29,375 signing bonus. MBAs in tech (22 percent) earned a starting salary of $119,713 with a $23,749 signing bonus. MBAs that specialize in consumer products (13.8 percent) earned an average starting salary of $106,052 with a $26,634 signing bonus. MBAs in financial services (12.8 percent) earned an average starting salary of $128,090 with a $32,100 signing bonus. Top employers of Kellogg graduates include: Adobe Systems, Amazon, Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Bain & Co, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Boston Consulting Group, Cisco Systems, DaVita Healthcare Partners, Dell, Deloitte, Facebook, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Linkedin, Mars, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, Nike, PepsiCo, among others
DePaul Kellstadt Graduate School of Business
Recent graduates from the DePaul Kellstadt Graduate School of Business posted record employment numbers for the school. According to an overview the school published, 92 percent of 2016 MBAs landed positions within 120 days of graduation. The average starting salaries for Kellstadt’s available MBA concentrations are as follows: Accountancy at $83,000; economics at $90,000; finance at $89,000; management at $83,000; marketing at $75,500; and real estate at $75,000. The most popular industries to attract Kellstadt graduates were accounting, financial services, manufacturing, health care, and consulting. Top employers include: Allstate, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, GE Capital, General Mills, Google, Groupon, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, PwC, United Airlines, and Wilson Sporting Goods, among others.
Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business
According to statistics surveying the most recent MBA class, the average starting salary for Mendoza College of Business graduates is $105,000 with a $20,000 signing bonus. About 91 percent of MBAs received job offers within three months of graduation. The most popular industries to attract Mendoza MBAs are within tech (27.1 percent), financial services (18.8 percent), consumer products (14.6 percent), and consulting (11.5 percent). MBAs working in tech earned average starting salaries of around $110,000; financial services, $110,000; consumer products, $100,000; and consulting, $105,000. Top employers of Mendoza MBAs include: Deloitte, Procter & Gamble, PwC, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Discover, Allstate, IBM, Samsung, Amazon, American Airlines, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, Kraft, Hershey, Heinz, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Major League Soccer, United Airlines, General Mills, General Motors, Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, and Citibank, among others.
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Chicago Booth School of Business graduates earned an average starting salary of $125,000, according to recent statistics. The top industries to attract Booth MBAs are financial services (36 percent), consulting (27.5 percent), and technology (16.7 percent). Booth MBAs working in financial services earn average starting salaries of $125,000 with a $40,000 signing bonus; consulting, $145,000 with a $25,000 signing bonus; technology, $125,000 with a $30,000 signing bonus. Top employers of Booth graduates include McKInsey & Company (7.1 percent), Boston Consulting Group (4.7 percent), Amazon (3.9 percent), Bain & Company (3.1 percent), Accenture (2.6 percent), Google (2.4 percent), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (2.2 percent), and PwC Strategy (2 percent).
University of Illinois at Chicago Gies College of Business
On average, Gies College of Business graduates can expect to start their careers in the $90,000 range with a $10,000 signing bonus. According to statistics supplied by the school, MBA grads have a 94 percent employment rate. The most popular industries are technology (20.3 percent), financial services (18.8 percent), consulting (15.6 percent), and consumer products (12.5 percent). Liautaud MBAs who took positions in tech started at $94,000; financial services, $87,857; consulting, $89,125; and consumer products, $95,800. Liautaud graduates work for a broad range of companies, but top employers include AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Walt Disney, Amazon, Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, Sears, Google, State Farm, City of Champaign, Bank of America, and Whirlpool Corporation.
