2025 UC Berkeley Haas FTMBA grads achieve record-high starting compensation

UC Berkeley Haas Full-time MBA graduates in the class of 2025 achieved record-high starting compensation fueled by a tech sector rebound and continued success in consulting.

Buoyed by the expansion of AI, tech industry hiring bounced back for the 2025 class to include 38% of the 2025 graduates, compared to 25% in 2024. 

Haas Dean Jenny Chatman said the 2025 graduate employment outcomes speak to the continuing value of the MBA degree. 

“Our students found incredible success at a time when AI is reshaping industries, climate change demands bold action, and social movements are redefining leadership,” she said. “Haas leaders are the right leaders for these times; they harness technology while holding on to purpose and view uncertainty not as a threat but as an opening. We can’t wait to see how this class of innovators and changemakers move business forward.”

The average base starting salary for the class increased 3.5% to an average of $164,930, the highest starting compensation in the school’s history. 

Stock took a front-stage role in compensation this year, with 45% of graduates receiving grants or options from their employers with an average value of $100,000; 75% of graduates received sign-on bonuses.

“We’re so pleased with the employment success of this class and this significant salary achievement, particularly in such a difficult year for hiring overall,” said Abby Scott, assistant dean of MBA Career Management & Corporate Partnerships. “Our graduates worked incredibly hard, and it’s been a pleasure for our team to collaborate on their success during their Haas journeys.” 

About 86% received job offers within three months of graduating, similar to last year’s class, while 90% secured positions within six months. View the full report.

A few highlights from the Haas Career Management Group:

• About 65% of all 2025 grads accepted positions in the consulting and tech sectors. Consulting, the top hiring sector among Haas graduates last year, shifted back to No. 2 this year, representing 27% of the class.
  
• The median base salary for the consulting sector was $190,000; the median for technology positions was $159,000.
  
• The financial services industry was the third-largest employer of Haas grads (15.7%), followed by the energy sector (5%), healthcare/biotech (3.3%), CPG/retail (2.6%), and real estate (2%). Entrepreneurship also held strong, with 15% of the class accepting positions at startups and 7% starting their own businesses.
  
• Top employers among grads this year included McKinsey & Company, Amazon + AWS, Adobe Systems Inc., Microsoft Corporation, ServiceNow, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Bain & Company, Nvidia Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Google, Boston Consulting Group, Boston Consulting Group, and Wells Fargo.

Becoming a Morgan Stanley investment banker

Yvonne Mondragón, BS 16, MBA 25, an investment banking associate at Morgan Stanley in San Francisco, arrived at Haas knowing that she wanted to be an investment banker. The daughter of immigrant small business owners, Mondragón is the first in her family to go to college.

A double Bear, she earned an undergraduate degree in business from Haas, where she interned at Wells Fargo. She worked her way through the financial analyst program, credit training program, and, eventually, became a relationship manager. 

She applied to the MBA program to shift from corporate to investment banking, which is how she found her way to Morgan Stanley.

“I was really fortunate to have met some of the recruiting folks before I even stepped into Haas, including Bill Rindfuss, executive director of Strategic Programs in the Haas Finance Group,” said Mondragón, who was also named a prestigious C&J White Fellow in investment banking at Haas during her first year in the MBA program. “I think they saw something in me, and they wanted to make sure that I was getting the exposure that I wanted.” 

Since graduating, she’s worked on a San Francisco-based Morgan Stanley team that manages financing deals that support private equity firm acquisitions. 

“I think one of the things Morgan Stanley gives us is agency, a sense of ownership when you are running with a bunch of different things that matter a lot,” she said. “You have the sense that you own it. ‘This is my responsibility to get to the finish line.’”

Pivoting from nonprofit to product management

For Shilpa Gopal, MBA 25, a career pivot to a product manager position at Adobe demanded persistence and soul searching. A teacher turned curriculum manager at education nonprofits before coming to Haas, Gopal found herself surrounded by peers who were pursuing product management—but with the edge of more technical or big-name corporate backgrounds. 

Understanding the intense competition, Gopal spent her first year at Haas immersing herself in everything she could read and learn about product management and co-founding the Product Management Club at Haas. 

Knowing that Adobe had an education team, she applied for an open job. After her application was rejected online, she found a Haas alum who worked in education at Adobe and reached out. The call worked. “She said, ‘We might be looking for an intern. Let me know if you are interested.’ A week later, I had an email that my application status had changed to ‘in process.’”

By graduation, Gopal’s manager had recommended her for an open product manager position on a different team, where she is driving growth for Adobe Firefly, the company’s generative AI product, on the Adobe Home Team.

Reflecting, she said that luck played a role in her job search, but so did a combination of authenticity, networking, following up, and saying thank you. “I made the transition to product management after an MBA, just like I’d planned,” she said.

“I am very grateful that this happened.”

An international student moves into a corporate role

International students often navigate a different path to finding dream jobs. Ramin Abbasov, MBA 25, a senior financial analyst at Amazon in Seattle, worked in financial risk management in Azerbaijan before moving to Berkeley for the MBA program. 

After interning at a private equity firm, Abbasov set his sights on a finance job within a large corporation, which required a big push in a new direction. 

“I used CMG resources, my online network … I asked for coffee chats,” he said. After spotting the Amazon financial analyst job post on the CMG website, he reached out to a Haas graduate on the Amazon finance team—and he started preparing.

Abbasov started preparing four to six hours a day for his interview, scheduling dozens of mock interviews with CMG team members and Haas alumni. He credits their drilling with helping him to craft his story, answer questions under pressure, understand cultural differences, and navigate his strengths and weaknesses.

“The mock interview let me understand how to talk about more than numbers,” he said. “I love playing with numbers, but it’s not everything … it’s how you communicate.” 

Now a senior financial analyst, he supports Amazon’s Fire TV product line, providing forecasting models and predictions for leadership. For international students, he said he can’t underestimate the importance of preparing for interviews.

“It doesn’t matter if you have the skill set; you need to deliver in the interview,” he said.