Where MBAs have a 1.4% chance of getting into Goldman Sachs - and this is the best banking option

Goldman Sachs was the biggest investment bank employer of London Business School MBAs last year, but just 1.4% of graduates managed to secure a job there.

LBS’s MBA costs £75.1k ($94k), but the love affair with the financial sector continues to wane and fewer graduates than ever are choosing finance roles. Just 25% of this year’s graduates went into finance – the lowest proportion in the past five years, according to its new employment report.

More worrying is the fact that most investment banks have simply dropped off the radar. Goldman Sachs is the biggest banking employer, but took on just 6 MBAs from LBS last year, despite taking in 11 interns in 2015. Meanwhile, Citigroup, which took on nine LBS MBAs in 2014, hired just two last year. There were 407 students in the LBS MBA class this year.

Deutsche Bank took on three MBAs from LBS this year, but this does suggest a 100% intern conversion rate. These tiny numbers are indicative of a broader trend of MBAs shunning investment banking jobs and banks turning away from MBA hires - historically, LBS has accounted for around 40% of MBAs going into the City of London.

For the first time, more MBAs decided to go into jobs on the buy-side. 9% of the class of 2016 went into private equity, compared to 7% who chose investment banking. But investment banks still pay more than private equity firms for associate roles - $162.3k in average compensation, compared to $151.6k in private equity.

Investment banks' appetite for hiring MBAs has diminished, but the feeling is mutual. The most recently available information about the associate classes of 2016 suggests that just 23% of those across Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank have MBAs.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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