2015 Alumni Perspectives Survey Report

2015 Alumni Perspectives Cover, small

March 11, 2015

This summary report presents findings from GMAC’s annual Alumni Perspectives Survey, conducted in October and November 2014. The report includes responses from more than 12,000 graduate business school alumni who graduated from the classes of 1959 through 2014. These alumni represent 230 graduate programs in business at 71 universities worldwide. This methodology differs from that used for alumni surveys prior to 2013, which were based on longitudinal samples from the GMAC Global Management Education Graduate Survey.

Overview

The findings in the Alumni Perspectives Survey Report provide a current snapshot of more than 12,000 business school alumni in their journeys from business school through their careers. The data analyzed in this report tell their employment stories and offer alumni feedback about their career progression, the value of their graduate management education, and their level of involvement with their alma maters.

Quick Facts

  • B-school alumni rise fast in the workplace and have high levels of job satisfaction. Five years after graduation, the majority of business school alumni are in senior-level positions or higher in their organizations. At 10 years, 25 percent are in executive-level jobs and five percent are in the “c-suite” (CEO, CFO, etc.).
  • Nine in 10 (90%) alumni credit their graduate management education with increasing their earning power and alumni in both developed and developing economies exercise enhanced purchasing power.
  • More than 4 in 5 alumni say their graduate management education has contributed to improvements in their competitiveness, proactiveness, and innovation, which are considered components of entrepreneurial orientation in the workplace.