19, Jan 2012

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has completed its year-end poll for 2011. The results predict 2012 to be a year in which the prospect of MBAs is set to improve considerably. The poll shows that nearly three-quarters (74%) of employers plan to hire MBAs in 2012, which is a significant improvement on the corresponding figure for 2011 — 58%. Relative to the preceding year, the increase is not only in the number of companies planning to hire fresh MBAs, but also in the levels at which they will be placed.

The result also reveals that in 2012 the number of companies planning to increase the number of MBAs they hire will be nearly four times (22%) the corresponding figure for 2011 (6%). Pay packages too are set to get bigger, 32% companies plan to increase salaries for MBA hires.

GMAC is a nonprofit education organization of the world’s leading graduate business schools. It has been conducting the year-end poll of employers since 2009. In the 2011 poll, 229 employers from 216 companies from across the world participated. The poll results are a conclusion of an analysis that includes CMAC’s annual Corporate Recruiters Survey, an inclusion that lends the poll a vantage point to help understand and explain the trends in workforce demand for MBA and business master’s graduates.

Based in Reston, Virginia, GMAC has regional offices in London, New Delhi, and Hong Kong. The GMAT exam was created in 1954 and is used by more than 5,300 graduate management programs at approximately 2,000 business schools around the world to assess applicants.