Business Majors: The Degree That Gets You A Job

Dean Idalene Kesner of Indiana University’s Kelley Schol

LUCRATIVE SALARIES & HEFTY SIGN-ON BONUSES KEEP FINANCE POPULAR

That shift was also evident at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where 18 students went into tech, up from 12 in 2013, said David Vogel, who leads career development and employer relations for the undergraduate business program.

Despite the competition from tech, finance, with its lucrative salaries and hefty sign-on bonuses, remains a popular field for graduates of top undergraduate business programs.

At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, the number of students heading into finance has “stayed exactly the same,” said Damian Zikakis, Ross’ director of career services, with 44.4% of the class going into that field. Banks have shifted their recruitment strategies a bit in the last year or so as they’ve struggled with many of their recent hires being plucked by private equity firms, he said.

“The banks are trying to figure out ways to keep the students around longer. They’re making those efforts visible to students in terms of corporate presentations and talk of making the hours less demanding,” he said.

NEARLY 48% OF UVA’S BUSINESS MAJORS WENT INTO FINANCE IN 2014

The finance sector’s allure has held strong at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School, where 47.8% of students accepted jobs in the field in 2014, nearly the same number as last year, said Tom Fitch, McIntire’s associate dean for career services and employer relations. But students entering finance are expanding their horizons beyond investment banking to look at other jobs in the industry, including trading, investment management, and wealth management, he said.

For example, the percentage of graduates going into investment management has steadily crept up over the last three years, from 2.8% in 2012 to 7.2% in 2014, he said. More students are accepting internships in these fields as well, as the school has offered more “industry focus” programs that expose students to careers in niche finance sectors, Fitch said.

“At McIntire, we had a higher number of students this fall bypass interviews and accept internship opportunities than we’ve seen in the past,” Fitch said. “It’s a national trend among some of the major banks, and a trend we anticipate will increase.”

VIRTUAL RECRUITING BECOMING A BIGGER PART OF PLACEMENT

In a surprising shift, several banks and other companies decreased their recruitment efforts on campus in the fall of 2013, especially investment banks that rely heavily on their intern pool for full-time hires.

Campus recruiting was down at Indiana University’s Kelly School of Business, which reported a 7% decline in this area in 2014, according to the school’s most recent undergraduate career services report. Much of the decrease in activity was offset by non-traditional recruiting methods such as virtual recruiting, which has becoming increasingly popular, the school said in the report.

Even so, Dean Kesner notes that more than 300 employers came to campus and 94% to 95% of the Class of 2014 had jobs three months after graduation. “Our stats are great. The average salary for the class was the highest level ever,” she says. “The quality of our students has improved so dramatically over the last few years. We’re just getting a better pool. In 2012, our average SATs were 1355. This year they will be closer to 1390. But the group showing the most growth are students with SATs above 1400.”

SCHOOL OFFICIALS PREDICT ANOTHER STRONG YEAR FOR 2015

Over at Wharton, the number of employers conducting interviews on  campus was down about 10% over 2013, and the total number of interviews held fell 2%, Hewitt said. With those numbers, she would have expected that more students would have accepted a job offer from their internships, bypassing campus recruiting. That was not the case, as just 34.6% of students accepted a job offer from their internship employer in 2014, down from 39.1% in 2013.

“I was a little surprised when I looked at that,” Hewitt said. “It’s still a pretty healthy number, but given there were fewer employers on campus, I’d have expected it to go the other way. I guess with a stronger job market, students had more options, even though they were perhaps getting fewer offers.”

Looking ahead to 2015, career services officers said they expect that the strong job market will keep pace, with several schools already reporting even better preliminary numbers for this year’s graduating class.

A CLASS OF 2015 STUDENT AT WHARTON JUST RECEIVED AN $85,000-A-YEAR OFFER

Wharton’s Hewitt said she already heard one student from the class of 2015 had received a $85,000 starting salary. “If one bank does it, they’ll all try to compete,” she said.

At the McIntire School, 70% of students have already secured full-time offers, up from 60% at the same time last year, Fitch said.

“The job market for them is very good and they are getting great opportunities, including an increase in the number of job interviews and offers,” he said. “I want to be optimistic and say the sky is the limit.”

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