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Yale SOM’s 2024 Struggles Mirrored MBA Peers’: Median Pay Down 8.5%

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Yale SOM grads had a harder time finding jobs in 2024 than they likely expected when they started the program in 2022

Yale School of Management

graduates last year entered one of the toughest job markets in living memory — and that’s not forgetting the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic. For MBAs from Yale and other business schools in the United States and Europe, 2024 was a worse environment for finding jobs — and, in select industries, for getting paid better than the classes who came before you.

Hurt by the contraction in the consulting industry, Yale SOM’s job offer rate three months after graduation dropped to 84.8% from 91.5% a year earlier, and acceptances fell to 81.2% from 88.8%. Both are the lowest in at least a decade. But a bigger hit was in salary: Yale MBAs in 2024 saw their median starting salary drop to $160K from $175K in 2023, setting them back lower even than the benchmark set two years ago by the Class of 2022.

With a drop in median year-end bonus (to $24K from $30K) and a decline in those reporting receiving signing bonuses, which were flat for a seventh straight year at $30K, total pay for Yalies in 2024 declined 8.5% from the year before to $183,712, dropping SOM out of the $200K Club.

PAY & PLACEMENT	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019
Median Base Salary	$160,000	$175,000	$160,110	$140,400	$140,000	$130,000
Median Signing Bonus	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000	$30,000
Median Guaranteed Year-End Bonus	$24,000	$30,000	$20,000	$22,950	$20,413	$20,000
Median Total Pay	$183,712	$200,830	$186,930	$165,248	$165,333	$155,170
Job Offers 3 Months After Graduation	84.8%	91.5%	96.1%	95.7%	90.2%	92.4%
Job Acceptances 3 Months After Graduation	81.2%	88.8%	93.3%	94.1%	85.9%	91.4%

In a commentary accompanying the release of Yale SOM’s 2024 employment report last fall, Assistant Dean Abigail Kies acknowledges the ongoing travails in the tech and consulting industries have created a challenging environment for business school graduates. But she sees continued “healthy and robust demand for MBA talent” and adds that “Yale MBA students have leveraged this demand to find meaningful opportunities across diverse industries.”

“In 2024, Yale SOM students chose employment in an even broader array of organizations than in recent years. They continued to benefit from Yale SOM’s broad network of employers and our deliberate strategy to not become over-reliant on a few organizations.

“Looking at the breakdown by industry, we see more students taking jobs outside the top five industries, primarily driven by large strategy consulting hiring normalizing after a few expansive years.

“In some cases, particularly technology, there is a shift among employers within an industry. While tech overall was quite active, and the number of 2024 tech employers was flat vs. 2023, we saw large brand-name tech cooling. Students who broadened their target list of companies found success in tech despite the plethora of doom and gloom news.”

The doom and gloom was justified, however: Of the major (and mid-size, and minor) B-schools in the United States, only Columbia Business School reported an increase in its MBA placement rates in 2024. See links below. Europe’s top schools are beginning to release their jobs reports for last year; at INSEAD, the consulting decline sparked a big drop in job offers and a corresponding decline in average salary.

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

THE WHARTON SCHOOL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

NORTHWESTERN KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL

CHICAGO BOOTH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Industry	2024	2024 Median Salary	2023	2022	2021	2020
Consulting	31.9%	$190K	44.1%	46.0%	34.2%	36.9%
Finance	26.2%	$171K	22.2%	21.7%	25.1%	23.3%
*Investment Banking*	14.0%	$175K	11.5%	9.9%	13.8%	10.6%
*Investment Management*	6.1%	$150K	3.8%	4.6%	1.3%	4.2%
*Diversified Finance*	3.1%	NA	3.8%	3.0%	4.2%	2.1%
*PE/VC*	3.0%	NA	3.1%	4.2%	5.8%	6.4%
Technology	9.6%	$146,600	10.0%	7.6%	10.0%	12.7%
CPG/Retail	4.8%/4.4%	$123,500/$142,900	9.2%	11.4%	15.8%	11.9%
Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals	6.1%	$140K	3.1%	3.8%	2.9%	4.2%
Nonprofit	3.1%	$105K	2.3%	1.9%	1.3%	2.5%
Manufacturing*	1.3%	NA	1.1%	0.8%	0.8%	1.7%
Media/Entertainment	2.2%	NA	1.9%	0.4%	3.8%	1.3%
Energy	4.8%	$130K	2.3%	1.5%	2.9%	1.7%
Government	3.1%	$100K	0.4%	0.8%	2.1%	1.3%

Yale overall saw a steep decline in the percentage of students seeking employment, down to 83.2% (282 of 339 grads) from 91.5% (269 of 294) last year.

Those who were seeking may have had to look elsewhere if consulting was their first choice. After 44% of the Class of 2023 went into that industry, just 32% of their successors found success in the job hunt there, though they did manage to earn the same median salary: $190K. Finance grads grew as a proportion of the class to 26.2% from 22.2%, but their median salary shrank to $171K from $175K. And after a one-year bump arrested a four-year slide, tech was again on the wane in 2024, slipping to 9.6% of the class from 10% while median salary for techies cratered by nearly $20K to $146,600.

Perhaps inspired by the difficult job market, more Yalies started their own businesses this year than last: 18 (5.3%), compared to 10 (3%) last year.

Kies writes that many 2024 MBAs found work after the deadline to report had expired. A chorus of her colleagues has expressed interest in a new metric, perhaps five months or six instead of three, by which to measure job search success.

“While MBA hiring continued to be robust, competition was fierce and the effort required of students was considerable. As a result, timelines for searches were longer across many industries,” Kies writes. “After the official reporting deadline, students continued to share received and accepted offers including: Chief of Staff at American Express; Vice President at Kroll Consulting; Manager, Brand Activation at Chicago Redstars; Executive Director, Market Intelligence at Goldman Sachs; Associate Investment Officer at IFC/ World Bank Group; Investment Associate at Sweetwater PE; Associate Brand Manager at Henkel; and Account Director at Raptor Maps, among others. These results couldn’t be included in our numbers but reflect students’ ongoing success. The Career Development Office provides lifelong career support and continues to work with recent graduates as long as needed.

“It’s also important to note that this employment data only reflects individual student choices, not their opportunities. Yale SOM students had many options this year. We want students to search and find what’s best for them individually. Numerous factors drive those very personal quests, resulting in many different first post-MBA roles.”

DON’T MISS YALE JOINED THE $200K PAY CLUB IN 2023 and ONE IN 5 INSEAD GRADS HAD NO JOB OFFERS 90 DAYS AFTER GRADUATION IN 2024

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2025-01-23 17:09:27