Alumni Association Update

Amid the cycle of interviews, career treks, and information sessions, 2006 graduates and first-year students can take comfort in the results achieved during the 2005 season.

Says Christopher Morris, director of MBA Career Management, "The hiring situation for the class of 2005 was better than for the class of 2004 and significantly better than for the two years prior to that."

The results were especially striking for the second- year students, with far more companies coming to campus to interview. In 2005, 94% of MBA graduates seeking employment reported job offers as of September 1, and 93% reported job acceptances with a median total compensation of $135,000. Among first-year students seeking internships, 99% reported offers with 98% accepting summer employment. Employment rates for U.S. and international students were comparable.

Wharton graduates continue to pursue broad functions, industries, and regions. In the past year, more than 2,000 companies engaged Wharton MBA students through a range of activities that included on-campus recruiting, job board postings, and hosting student treks in nearly two dozen cities worldwide. Of these companies, more than 600 made at least one offer to Wharton MBA students in 2005.

Morris, now in his second year as director of the career office, cites two goals: first, to provide a higher level of service to students and recruiters by overhauling internal systems to be more user-friendly and by providing a higher level of customer service. "The second is continuing to provide additional resources for students who are looking for opportunities outside of organizations that historically come on-campus," he says. "We do that by helping students organize company visits to different cities on an industry basis. We've promoted the use of our job boards for companies that are evaluating whether to hire Wharton students or alumni, as a very low-cost way to test the waters to see who responds. We've enhanced the use of technology across the board—providing video-conferenced information sessions from anywhere in the world."

Morris notes that regional and international diversity continues to increase: "What we find in the recruiting process is that for the right job with the right company and the right responsibilities, students will relocate to cities they might not otherwise have considered."

In addition to success among employers who are new to the School, Wharton's traditional pipelines into consulting and banking are back on full force. More than a quarter of full-time hires went into consulting (26.5% in 2005 versus 22.5% in 2004), and the number of graduates going into financial services was up more than 10% (44.1% in 2005 versus 40.6% in 2004) with the hedge funds (4.8%), and private equity (7.6%) particularly hot—each nearly doubling over the previous year's numbers.

For complete statistics or to find out how you can recruit Wharton MBA grads, visit mycareer.wharton.upenn.edu.