![\"Students-VU-hands\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2016\/07\/p20b.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLike the stock market and the world economy, the marketplace for MBA talent is in constant flux. For Vanderbilt and its students, preparing for the future means keeping a constant eye on hiring trends, technological developments and geographical shifts, among a dozen other parameters. With employment figures in for the Class of 2015, Vanderbilt Business decided to look at job placement and trends in the years before and after the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s economic environment is still evolving, but Vanderbilt\u2019s 2015 full-time MBA graduates entered a business world viewed as stronger than any since before the recession. In fact, Bloomberg Business Week called it \u201cthe best job market in a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
One sign of the rebound, according to Emily Anderson, MBA\u201999, director of Owen\u2019s Career Management Center, was visible in the internships that are such a key part of the MBA program at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
A full 100 percent of the Class of 2015 looking for internships had offers during the summer of 2014. Those impressive figures correlate to employment stats. \u201cIn 2010, less than 20 percent of internships turned into full-time job offers,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cIn 2015, it was more than 50 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where they\u2019re going<\/h4>\n
Individual companies help drive those geographical trends, and the most obvious takeaways in the recent list of top-hiring companies for Owen grads are the No. 1 hiring position of Amazon and the presence of firms like AT&T, Citi, Deloitte, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, and Johnson & Johnson as the ultimate destinations of many Owen grads.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are impacted by individual company hiring needs and expansion,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cThe most obvious example for Owen is Amazon\u2019s expansion. Amazon has multiple MBA-level management development programs and is able to provide a lot of geographic flexibility for the students.\u00a0They certainly have corporate functions in Seattle, but other opportunities throughout the U.S. as well because of their extensive distribution footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s begin with geography and a growing shift westward for Owen grads. Nashville remains the top city for Vanderbilt MBAs (as is typical for any national MBA program, the largest alumni base is always in its own region). New York and Atlanta have jockeyed for second place as employment destinations throughout the past decade, and San Francisco has become a steady top-five presence. Now with Los Angeles and Seattle both making the top 10, the pull in that direction is obvious.<\/p>\n The Amazon connection figures prominently in the visibility of operations management as a job function.<\/p>\n \u201cEmployment in operations has increased primarily because we are a major partner in recruiting with Amazon and they have hired a lot of students over the past three years\u2014mostly in operations roles,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cThere are a few other firms as well, especially in technology, that have increased hiring, but the majority of the impact comes from Amazon. They became our largest employer three years ago and will be again this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Technology is, of course, a prime driver of economic growth and change, and it has had an increasing role in employment decisions. The field saw dramatic change over the past decade, with employment for graduates falling by half between 2007 and 2009, and then climbing\u2014first slowly, then dramatically\u2014between 2011 and 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cThe growth and excitement in technology has certainly led to increased interest in the tech sector, and we see more of our students heading to tech hubs in Seattle and San Francisco,\u201d says Owen Dean M. Eric Johnson. \u201cOur annual tech trek to visit companies keeps growing, with this year\u2019s trek being the biggest\u2014both in terms of the number of companies visited and students participating.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaining new skills was key to the career plans of second-year MBA student John Von Euw. A Massachusetts native who taught in New Orleans with Teach for America, Von Euw moved into administration and then decided he needed to expand his quantitative and technical skills.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I got to Owen,\u201d he says, \u201cI decided to pivot away from education and focus my job search on strategy consulting in the private sector. I think what really motivated me was the opportunity to work for a consulting firm on projects in a number of different industries.\u201d<\/p>\n Consulting, in fact, has seen a strong uptick among Owen grads after a downturn during the recession.<\/p>\n \u201cEconomic downturns impact consulting first,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cCompanies shift discretionary spending away from projects they would normally use consultants for\u2014like big software implementations. Consulting hiring out of business schools decreases.\u201d<\/p>\n The bounce back was just as dramatic. By 2015, a quarter of all Vanderbilt MBAs were going into the consulting field.<\/p>\n \u201cComing out of the recession,\u201d Anderson says, \u201cwe have changes in the regulatory environment that impact how companies do their business and may cause them to seek outside help to understand and react. I believe the Affordable Care Act in health care and the financial reform bill did impact and increase hiring for consulting firms.\u201d<\/p>\n With an aging population with increasing medical needs, health care is expected to be the fastest-growing industry in the next decade. Owen\u2019s expertise in health care management makes its students attractive to established firms and startups alike.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rise and growth of new firms in the industry has also increased hiring,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cThese are not hospitals hiring, but firms like McKesson, DaVita, Cardinal Health and Medtronic, which provide products and services to the health care industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Health care hiring at Owen spiked as the recession hit\u2014perhaps because health care is seen as recession-resistant\u2014going from 8 percent in 2007 to 19 the following year. It dropped again dramatically in 2012 and 2013, then rose in the past two years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have many students heading into finance and accounting,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cWall Street beckons many students, and we had a solid group of first-year students visiting the banks this fall. Even so, fewer are focused on traditional Wall Street firms. Rather, we see more students taking finance roles in technology and health care.\u201d<\/p>\n In parsing the numbers since 2007, Anderson adds, \u201cI think the core number of those interested in investment banking was stable. In my observation, student career aspirations did not change that dramatically due to recession. Students continued to seek MBAs and use the degree to redirect their careers in line with their interests.<\/p>\n \u201cFinancial services recruiting decreased during the last downturn,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was due to slower recruiting but was also impacted by graduates deciding to look elsewhere.\u201d Those students who were marginally interested or for whom finance was a second choice chose other industries and functions, she says. \u201cI believe Owen, like most MBA programs, has seen those students gravitating to technology and consulting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Job offers for the Class of 2015 reveal interesting shifts and the results of where grads are accepting employment.<\/p>\nPLACEMENT BY INDUSTRY (2007: blue | 2011: gold | 2015: white)<\/h5>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nTop hiring companies<\/h4>\n
TOP DESTINATIONS FOR CLASS OF 2015 GRADUATES<\/h5>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nTOP HIRING COMPANIES IN ORDER OF NUMBER OF GRADS HIRED<\/h5>\n
2007<\/span><\/h5>\n
\n
2015<\/span><\/h5>\n
\n
<\/a><\/p>\nTrends in operations and tech<\/h4>\n
Consulting blossoms<\/h4>\n
SALARY BY INDUSTRY
\n<\/a><\/h5>\nHealth expectations<\/h4>\n
Attraction of finance<\/h4>\n
SALARY BY GEOGRAPHY<\/h5>\n