Will a Thunderbird MBA help increase my earning potential? How much? How quickly? During 2006-2007, Thunderbird’s MBAs fared well– earning slightly more than the average MBA compensation reported in the GMAC Corporate Recruiter's Survey (Graduate Management Admission Council). Below, Associate Vice President for Professional Development and Career Management, Kip Harrell, provides career tips and shares the facts behind reported salary figures. Harrell leads Thunderbird’s Career Management Center, which helped facilitate 65 percent of the job offers received by students seeking employment in 2007. Q. What salary can I expect with a Thunderbird degree? A. Salaries vary and are as different as Thunderbird’s diverse student body. Our students come to Thunderbird with different experience levels – most averaging five years of professional work experience, but some with as many as 25 years. Your salary will depend on the skill sets you bring to your employer. Some Thunderbird students accept jobs in non-profits in developing nations where a $21,000 salary (in U.S. dollars) is in the top one percent of income earners in that country. Other students with exceptional skills earned well over $200,000 last year. The average base salary, however, is around $80,000, and the average signing bonus is above $12,000. Not everyone receives a signing bonus. Q. So what you’re saying is be careful of how to interpret average salaries reported? A. Yes. Salary ranges differ tremendously between industries, functions and job location, and by the student’s level of work experience at each school. Additionally, the skill sets that people bring to future employers are unlimited. Thunderbird does, however, report current data according to MBA Career Services Council guidelines (a standard used at most MBA schools). Q. How do Thunderbird salaries compare with other MBAs? A. Thunderbird salaries compare favorably with other MBA programs. According to the GMAC (the organization that administers the GMAT and provides ongoing research studies of student and employer trends), the average base salary for MBA graduates in 2007 was $80,452. For Thunderbird, the average was $80,979. Q. What fields do Thunderbird students enter upon graduation? A. Thunderbird students enter a variety of fields that mirror the school’s curricular focus areas in finance, international development, marketing, and management. The majority of Thunderbird employers, like our students, also represent diverse industries and functions. Top Thunderbird employers in 2007 included: Cisco, Deloitte Consulting, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Hilti, IBM, Unilever and others. In 2006-2007, the highest number of graduates accepted marketing/sales roles (28 percent). Twenty-two percent accepted positions in consulting; 22 percent in finance (corporate audit, private banking, financial operations and investment banking); and 10 percent in general management, with the remaining students finding employment in human resources, operations and a variety of other functions. Q. Where do Thunderbird students accept jobs? A. During academic year 2006-2007, Thunderbird students accepted jobs in 21 countries outside the United States, among them Brazil, Germany, Greece, Japan, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Panama, Switzerland, South Korea, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates. In the United States, 22 percent of students accepted positions in the Southwest. The remaining 48 percent were spread across the Northeast (18 percent), Midwest (15 percent) and West Coast (15 percent). Q. What’s the most important thing I can do in my career search to help ensure success? Start the career search process early, using Thunderbird’s career services that include career coaching and advising; résumé preparation and review services; mock interviews; online tools and workshops; and more. Stay actively engaged in the search process. Don’t wait until the last trimester to look for a job if you expect to have an offer by graduation. Thunderbird students are frequently described as global explorers, and often delay the job search process until after graduation. Many choose to travel the world before seeking employment. Keep in mind, however, that this impacts the school’s ability to report students’ job offers by graduation. It also results in seemingly lower employment rates for Thunderbirds upon graduation than other business schools report. However, consistently over the past three years, more than two-thirds of Thunderbird students who begin their job search during the first trimester have job offers by 90 days after graduation. And the 2006-2007 year saw the highest offer rate since Thunderbird began tracking employment data according to MBA CSC standards, with 69 percent of those seeking employment receiving job offers. For more information about Thunderbird graduate employment, view our 2007 Report. |  |
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