Berkeley Haas full-time 2024 MBA graduates continued to land impressive positions at a variety of different companies, successfully competing in a tougher market for consulting and technology sector jobs in particular.
The average base starting salary for the class dipped 2% this year to $159,412 after years of successive increases. Seventy-two percent of graduates received a sign-on bonus averaging $34,740, and 75% expect to receive additional cash bonuses of $33,575, on average, during their first year. Importantly, 32% of the graduates also received equity packages totaling an average of $153,000, adding significantly to their long-term compensation packages.
Overall, about 86% of the 207 graduates seeking post-graduation employment received offers within three months of graduation, with 84% accepting offers within that window. Equity proved a key part of compensation this year, among the 255 students who graduated.
View the 2024 compensation report.
“We’re pleased that overall compensation, buoyed by robust equity, remained strong in this difficult year for tech hiring in particular. Our graduates worked incredibly hard and ultimately persevered in finding terrific post-MBA roles,” said Abby Scott, assistant dean of MBA Career Management & Corporate Partnerships. “These outcomes are a testament to the continuing value of the MBA degree. Our graduates leveraged both our amazing alumni network and stellar career management professionals.”
Of note, equity packages graduates received from public and private companies played a critical role in compensation. For those receiving stock, 65% of students received equity from public companies, worth an average of $84,000. Grads moving on to privately-held companies and startups also received generous equity packages that often begin to pay off in the first year.
A few highlights from the Haas Career Management Group:
- About half the class accepted positions in tech and consulting, aligned with previous years. Consulting was the top industry employer overall, (about 25%), followed by tech (24%).
- The median base salary for the consulting sector was $190,000. Technology positions paid an average of $154,000.
- Top consulting employers who hired three or more Berkeley Haas graduates this year included McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, and EW Parthenon. Adobe, Amazon, and Western Digital were the top tech employers.
- The financial services industry was the third largest employer of Haas grads, (16%), followed by healthcare/biotech with 8% of graduates. About 6% of graduates accepted positions in both the climate tech/energy sector and in CPG/retail.
- 14% of the class went to work at startups.
A pivot to consulting
About 40% of graduates each year convert their summer internships into full-time jobs. Among them is Shruthi Narasimhan, MBA 24, who accepted a full-time job at McKinsey & Co. after completion of her summer internship.
A former food scientist at Impossible Foods, Narasimhan arrived at Haas with a long-term goal: to focus on sustainability in the food industry supply chain. She quickly realized that she could have the greatest impact while working as a consultant—and she arrived at Haas equipped to achieve her goal.
Working closely with the Career Management Group, Natasimham was assigned a career coach and second-year MBA peer advisor.
“I started off with a very detailed timeline of how consulting recruiting looks, and what I would need to accomplish at every stage in that journey in order to be successful,” she said. “I followed it to a ‘T’ taking help from the Haas community, which was truly a village who helped me through this.”
At McKinsey, she said she’s looking forward to working on diverse projects that will provide international exposure to new kinds of clients. “The best way to put it is that I get to learn as much as I get to give, which is a unique combination,” she said. “I look forward to lending my experience in supply chain and sustainability to other global organizations.”
A focus on impact
About 23% of the 2024 class embarked on “impact careers,” defined as jobs in climate tech, healthcare, edtech and certain areas of finance and real estate.
Among them was Ellison Etnier, who sought a career in clean energy and ultimately accepted an offer as a senior associate in product development at Avantus, a San Francisco-based green energy supplier. Prior to Haas, Etnier worked in life sciences.
“I wanted to do something productive for society, and energy, in particular, is so critical to addressing the climate crisis,” he said. “At the end of the day, if we want society to decarbonize, we need to start with electricity. For me, doing something that has a really big impact and can decarbonize across society was super appealing.”
Etnier said the CMG team helped him position his resume and career narrative to enable his transition.
“They helped me keep an eye out for product development roles specifically within clean energy and gave me a heads-up that these roles were going to be posted at Avantis, where I ultimately ended up working.”
In his new role, he will work on complex, multifaceted projects that reach across project finance, engineering, land issues, and permitting.
“As the product developer, you’re ultimately responsible for making sure that the project stays on track, which means that you work across all of these teams and make sure that all the pieces that they’re contributing are going to happen correctly and in time for the project to move forward,” he said.
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