The new MBA employment report from the London Business School is out.

It shows that the bottom has not fallen out of financial services MBA recruitment. Au contraire, there’s still quite a lot of hiring going on.

137 LBS MBA graduates found jobs in financial services this year

This is the first time for a while that more LBS MBAs have gone into consulting than financial services, but financial services remains a big hirer. 36% of this year’s graduates went into consulting. 34% went into finance.

Of those going into finance, 56 went into investment banking; 28 went into private equity; 24 went into hedge funds

It’s getting harder to use an MBA as a passport into financial services from another industry

If you want to use an MBA t get into finance, it will help if you've come from finance. 60% of LBS MBAs who went into financial services came from financial services in 2011. Last year, 55% did.

The biggest hirer of financial services MBAs at LBS was Credit Suisse

Source: LBS

But by far the biggest overall hirer of LBS MBAs was McKinsey

Source: LBS 

Mean pay for first year MBAs in finance is nearly 40% higher than in other sectors

Mean pay for LBS MBAs going into finance this year was £139k; median pay was £129k.

Mean pay for LBS MBAs going into corporates was £102k; median pay was £99k.

Mean pay for LBS MBAs going into consulting was £104k, median pay was £100k.

First year MBAs in finance can expect a bonus of around £40k

There was an unusual degree of consistency between the mean and median first year bonuses for MBAs in financial services. £40k is the norm.

The corporate sector can pay incredibly well, or incredibly badly

The worst paid LBS MBA going into the corporate sector earned just £13k. The best paid earned £496k

The best paid LBS MBA going into financial services earned £281k

 The worst paid earned £60k.

 The best paid first year MBAs are working in Latin America

Median pay was £118k in Latin America, £100k in theUK, £96k in Asia and £100k inEurope. Figures will have been influenced by exchange rate effects.

 If you’re an MBA, don’t bother cold calling or sending out random CVs

86% of LBS MBAs got jobs through the careers service, networking, club fairs or alumni. A mere 1% got jobs as a result of cold calling or sending out speculative letters.

 Plenty of LBS MBAs were hired by lesser known funds

The list of 2011 employers includes:

Almaz Capital Partners (an Eastern European and CIS funds company)

Boubyan Capital (a Shariah compliant investment company)

Coller Capital (a London private equity fund)

Finisterre Capital (an emerging markets hedge fund)

Greenpark Capital (a secondary private equity fund)

LMS Capital. (A London private equity fund)

LNG Capital (A London-based credit hedge fund)

Better Capital (Jon Moulton’s private equity fund)

That these funds have been hiring MBAs could be taken as an indication that they might want to hire other junior staff too.

As well as the usual suspects, LBS MBAs have also been hired by: Jefferies, Bank of China, Glencore, the FSA, Google and Facebook.