Yes, graduates of America’s elite business schools are finding it harder to land jobs. On average, the percentage of those MBAs with jobs three months after graduating dropped by 6% last year. As an example, only 77% of graduates of MIT’s Sloan School of Management had jobs three months after graduating in 2024. (The job statistics are even worse at some other top business schools.)
What is happening? Many postulate that we have reached “peak MBA,” the point at which the added costs (actual and opportunity) of obtaining an MBA are not justified by the returns. While I’m not sure that I buy into that math, there are some fundamental economic changes afoot.
Perhaps the most noteworthy change is that technology firms are hiring fewer MBAs. Tech firms represent approximately 10% of the current US economy, a share that continues to grow. With these firms seemingly soured on the prospect of packing their management ranks with MBAs, this reluctance has a spillover effect: They hire fewer management consultants as well.
The Economist studied data from four prominent US Business Schools (Chicago Booth, Columbia, MIT Sloan, and NYU Stern) and that analysis showed that hiring by consulting firms fell by over 25% last year. While some of this decline may be cyclical, the trends are more long-standing. Consulting firms are hiring fewer MBA graduates too.
Many believe that MBA programs are out-of-step with modern business. They argue that schools must change their teaching to better reflect the current business reality.
One such reality just may be that fewer company managers see the merits of hiring a consultant, one who is little more than an inexperienced, recent MBA graduate, in order to learn how to improve their businesses.
Have we reached Peak Consultant also?
Peter has spent the past twenty-plus years as an acting/consulting CFO for a number of small businesses in a wide range of industries. Peter’s prior experience is that of a serial entrepreneur, managing various start-up and turnaround projects. He is a co-founder of Keurig.
