According to its 2021 jobs report, 97% of Cornell Johnson MBAs received employment offers within three months of graduation. Courtesy photo
Though salaries and bonuses continue to rise year-over-year for Cornell University’s MBA graduates, the winning stat from its recently released 2021 MBA employment report is the 97% job offer rate three months post-graduation.
Last year, in the middle of the pandemic, Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management saw employment offers slip by 1 percentage point from the previous year — avoiding, in that metric at least, the harsh effects of Covid-19 that impacted so many other programs. But Cornell did not miss out on the big 2021 rebound, as job offers jumped 4 percentage points and reached their highest rate in five years.
“Johnson students enjoyed extraordinary placement success in 2021,” Cornell Johnson Dean Mark Nelson tells Poets&Quants. “We saw record highs in offer rate, acceptance rate, average base salary, and average signing bonus, with particular strength in MBB consulting, tech, and investment banking. Record numbers of recruiters interacted with our students, and we used our top-notch technology infrastructure to support virtual events and virtual interviews as appropriate.”
CORNELL MBAs WITH WORK AUTHORIZATION HAVE SLIGHT EDGE
For Johnson’s Class of 2021, 259 out of 278 two-year MBA grads sought jobs, and 97% of them got a job offer within three months of graduation; 95% accepted. Compare that to 2020 when 93% of the class were offered jobs while 90% accepted.
The offer rate at Cornell Johnson (ranked No. 15 in our latest ranking of the 100 best business schools) is on par with many of the other top-ranked schools. Comparatively, 96% of Harvard Class of 2021 MBAs got offers within three months of graduation, 98% of Dartmouth Tuck MBAs, and 98% for Chicago Booth.
For the class of 2021, percentages were slightly higher for Cornell MBAs authorized to work in the United States (98% offered jobs, 97% accepted), but lower for those with non-U.S. work authorization (93% offered, 89% accepted.)
BASE SALARY AND SIGNING BONUSES ARE UP
Mark Nelson
While MBA pay slumped during the first pandemic year of 2020, graduates from Cornell University’s two-year program fared better than most. Class of 2020 graduates earned the seventh highest compensation package of all the top programs. For the Class of 2021, base salaries and bonuses continue a five-year growth trend and are up over 2020, but they’re rising at a slower clip than in previous years.
Since 2017, average base salary for two-year MBA graduates has increased 10.8% from $125,578 to $139,121. The biggest increase was in 2020 when base salary jumped 5.8% to $138,767, which was an even faster rate of growth than the 4% between 2018 and 2019. The 2021 number represents a mere 0.26% increase from 2020. (Base salary for U.S. work authorized MBAs was $141,397 and $133,173 for non-U.S. work authorized.)
Meanwhile, average bonuses for Cornell’s two-year MBAs are up 19% since 2017, with a 3.6% increase from 2020 ($36,391) to 2021 ($37,684). (The average signing bonus for 2021 MBAs authorized to work in the U.S. was $35,925 while it was $43,208 for those authorized to work outside the country.)
“The value of a Cornell MBA has never been higher,” Nelson says. “We are tremendously proud of our excellent students, our innovative curriculum (including our immersion programming and opportunity for study on both our Ithaca and NYC-based Cornell Tech campuses), and the dedicated alumni, faculty and staff that support everything we do.”
Next page: Where Cornell MBAs go to work
Johnson MBAs with the Cornell University mascot. Courtesy photo
WHERE CORNELL GRADS GO TO WORK
Johnson’s MBAs were recruited by a record total of 233 companies for either full-time employment or internships during the 2020–2021 academic year. Top employers included Amazon, Bain & Company, Bank of America, Deloitte, McKinsey and Company, and Citi.
Financial services continues to be the preferred industry with more than a third (36%) of Johnson graduates employed. It also has the second highest average base salary of $147,396. That’s up from 34% employed in 2020 with an average base salary of $139,752.
Consulting is the second most popular occupation (27%), but it has the highest salary at $148,389, which is down from $154,608 the year before. Technology rounds out the top three with 17% employed and an average base salary of $132,084. Tech salaries rose 2.7% from last year’s average base of $128,656.
An overwhelming majority of Cornell grads (51%) stayed in the Northwest, earning an average base salary of $144,098. Interestingly, the southwest provided the highest base salary for 2021 grads at $147,647, but only 7% took jobs there.
You can see Cornell’s full 2021 jobs report here.
INTERNS SEE HIGH ACCEPTANCE, FLAT SALARIES
Of the 272 Class of 2022 MBAs seeking summer internships, 99% accepted offers. The average monthly salary of $9,712 was flat compared to that of last summer’s Class of 2021 interns. U.S. work authorized salaries were slightly higher at $10,079, while non-U.S. work authorized were slightly lower at $8,930.
“In addition to placements for full-time offers, we also track internship recruiting success, and our Fall 2021 internship stats are similarly excellent. That suggests continued strength and foreshadows a similarly strong 2022 Employment Report,” Nelson tells Poets&Quants.
Like the 2021 graduates, financial services was the most popular industry for interns at 34%. The average monthly salary was $10,974. Consulting was a the second most popular industry at 24% with a salary of $11,638, followed by technology at 20% of interns with a monthly salary of $7,933.
See all the internship data in Cornell Johnson’s employment report here.
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