Every February, GMAC launches two online surveys—the Global Management Education Graduate Survey (Global Graduate Survey) and the Corporate Recruiters Survey—to gauge the opinions and behaviors of key audiences of graduate management education.
The Global Graduate Survey gathers opinions of graduating students about their educational experience and examines their job search behavior. The Corporate Recruiters Survey is a study of employer opinions about schools, job candidates, and their prospective hiring plans. Past years' copies of publicly available survey reports are available through the GMAC Research Library. Below are frequently asked questions and their answers.
Participating schools receive actionable data from a reliable source. All electronic survey reports are complimentary to survey participants.The following reports are available:
- The Survey Report summarizes the overall significant findings and implications of the results, including year-to-year trends (Corporate Recruiter Survey and Global Graduate Survey).
- The Survey Comprehensive Data Report contains detailed data tables and statistical analysis by various employer or student characteristics. This report is not available to the general public (Corporate Recruiter Survey and Global Graduate Survey). The Comprehensive Data Report for the Global Graduate Survey is now available in an interactive format, allowing you to explore in detail the most recent survey findings.
- An individualized School Benchmarking Report that compares either your school’s aggregated student responses against student responses from schools of your choosing, or your school's aggregated employer responses against other aggregated employer responses. These reports are exclusive to your school. GMAC requires a minimum number of survey reponses from your school in order to generate this report for you (Global Graduate Survey and Corporate Recruiters Survey).
- An individualized Survey Database Analysis Report that compares the overlap between your school’s employers and other schools’ employers. It also provides the top 20 companies by the number of unique employer contacts across all schools. This report is exclusive to your school and available to those that provide GMAC with their employer contacts (Corporate Recruiter Survey).
Graduate business schools worldwide are eligible to participate in any GMAC survey research studies, regardless of location, size, degree type offerings, program type offerings, accreditation status, GMAC membership, or GMAT® usage. If your school offers a graduate program in business, such as MBA, MS in Accounting/Taxation, Finance, or other graduate business programs, you are welcome to participate in our surveys and benefit from their findings.
Corporate Recruiters Survey
In 2010,168 business schools participated in the Corporate Recruiter Survey, generating a sample of nearly 26,000 employers. View a list of participating schools.
Global Graduate Survey
In 2010,147 business schools participated in the Global Graduate Survey. View a list of participating schools.
To enroll your school as a participant for our 2011 surveys send your request to research@gmac.com. Once you've registered your school, choose an individual who will serve as the primary contact between your school and GMAC. Then, select one of the following two survey options:
- Elect to have GMAC send invitations directly to your sample of students (Global Graduate Surveys) or employers (Corporate Recruiters Survey) based on names and email addresses that your school provides. GMAC will handle all follow-up contact with members of the survey sample.
- Your school can forward the GMAC survey invitation directly to your students or employers. In this option, schools send out follow-up reminders.
GMAC will send invitations with a unique Web link to the online survey directly to the students (Global Graduate Survey) or employers (Corporate Recruiters Survey) for which GMAC has contact information. Schools that opt to invite students or employers directly will receive the survey invitation from GMAC with a unique school-level Web link to the survey, which the primary school contact will forward to the survey sample.
The questionnaire is available at the online survey site from mid-February through mid-March. Two weeks into this time period, a follow-up email message is sent to nonrespondents and respondents who have started but not yet completed the survey. A separate follow-up message is sent to schools, which they can elect to forward to their students or employers.
Should I provide GMAC with a contact list or forward the survey invitation to my sample?
When GMAC sends out survey invitations, we assign a unique link to each individual in the sample, which enables us to track their response and exclude those who completed the survey from further follow-up. When a school administers the survey, we provide you with a link unique to your school, but not to each individual in your sample. This precludes GMAC from tracking individual responses and excluding those that already completed the survey from receiving a reminder. As an alternative, GMAC can provide you with survey links for each individual on your list; however, it will be your responsibility to assign these links to every individual when you send both the invitation and the reminder.
When GMAC sends the invitations to your students or employers, the survey may be completed in several sessions. In this case, responses are saved as respondents go through the survey, so if they need to leave the survey for any reason, they can always return and continue where they left off.
If your school sends the invitation to your students or employers directly, GMAC cannot track individuals and therefore, the respondent must complete the survey in one session.
Instructions for sending a contact list to GMAC
The deadline for schools to submit contacts is mid- to late January each survey year, depending on the particular survey (see dates below).
We prefer to receive your school’s list in an Excel spreadsheet, however, we will work with any data source that you have (e.g., email, a Word document , an Access or Oracle database).
When you submit your contact list, you may request that specific “seed” email addresses be included on the distribution list. You will receive the same messages as your students or employers (one invitation, and one follow-up). Please identify “seed” email addresses up front so we can exclude them from the sample and response rate calculations.
Information needed for the Corporate Recruiters Survey
Please include employer first name, last name, email address, and the company he or she represents. This information allows us to personalize the invitation and remove duplicates in cases where employers recruit at multiple schools.
We compile a master database from different contact lists that schools send us. We ensure its quality by removing duplicates within the list and across lists, checking for missing information or typos, etc.
Information needed for the Global Graduate Survey
Please include student first name, last name, email address, and the program in which they plan to graduate. This information allows us to personalize the invitation and track response rates by program type.
Corporate Recruiters Survey. Although there is no set minimum or maximum for the number of names to provide for the survey, we encourage you to submit the entire list of employers—those who recruit on campus and those that do not—to ensure that your employers’ feedback is representative of all employers that work with your school. GMAC requires a minimum of five responses from your school's employers in order to generate a School Benchmarking Report.
Global Management Education Graduate Survey. Although there is no set minimum or maximum for the number of names to provide for the survey, we encourage you to submit the entire list of graduating students—from each of your graduate business programs—to ensure that your students' feedback is representative of all students at your school. GMAC requires a minimum of 10 responses from your school's students in order to generate a School Benchmarking Report.
In addition to survey responses, GMAC collects personal data about participants when they register and enter the prize drawing. Any use of participant’s personal data will comply with the terms of the GMAC privacy policy.
We keep on file contact information of those who participate inthe survey in order to invite them for the next round of the survey. We also assign individuals to their respective schools to run School Benchmarking Reports (Corporate Recruiters Survey).
Contact information is encrypted and stored on a stand-alone secure server; only a limited number of people within the Research & Development Department has access to the files. All contact information of nonparticipants is deleted from GMAC systems within 30 days after the survey closes. If a school chooses to administer the survey, we delete its contact information immediately after checking the list to eliminate duplicate entries with other schools.
Survey responses are encrypted and stored on a stand-alone secure server separate from participants’ personally identifiable information (PII).
The following are Corporate Recruiters Survey deadlines :
December 1, 2010—Schools start submitting employer contact information to GMAC.
January 21, 2011—Contact list submission closes.
January 25, 2011—Deadline to notify GMAC if your employers prefer to respond in Spanish or French.
January 25, 2011—GMAC provides schools that administer the Corporate Recruiters Survey individually with invitation text and survey links for employers.
February 1, 2011—Survey launches.
February 15, 2011—Reminders sent to employers that haven't yet responded to the Corporate Recruiters Survey.
February 28, 2011—Last-call reminders sent to employers that haven't yet responded to Survey.
March 1, 2011—Survey closes (no deadline extension offered).
The following are Global Graduate Survey deadlines:
December 1, 2010—Schools start submitting student contact information to GMAC.
February 1, 2011—Contact list submission closes.
February 7, 2011—GMAC provides schools that administer the Global Graduate Survey individually with invitation text and survey links for students.
February 9, 2011—Global Graduate Survey launches.
February 23, 2011—Students receive reminders encouraging them to complete the survey.
March 18, 2011—Global Graduate Survey closes. Students who have not completed the survey two weeks after it launches will receive one reminder.
End of April—Early release copies of reports are sent to participating schools and employers electronically. In the case of interactive comprehensive data reports, participants receive a Web link that will connect them to the online report site, accessible via a password-protected login.
Mid-May—Online PDF copies of survey reports become publically available.
Late May, early June—Print copies of survey reports become available on request to research@gmac.com. Supplies are limited.
Yes, please send your request to research@gmac.com.
The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. The survey timing analysis last year showed that, on average, each respondent spent 12 minutes completing the survey.
The online survey is in English (Global Graduate and Corporate Recruiters Surveys) and Spanish and French (Corporate Recruiters Survey).
Corporate Recruiters Survey
Employer respondents will have their names placed in a drawing for one of five American Express gift cards or gift cheques in an amount equivalent to €1000 (one thousand European euros). In addition, they will receive a complimentary copy of the survey results—actionable information on overall hiring projections and compensation packages, as well as recruitment and hiring strategies for their industry and geographic region. As employers are able to benchmark their performance against the performance of similar organizations, they often tell us that they value an opportunity to take part in this research.
Global Graduate Survey
Student participants have a unique opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns to school professionals in a confidential manner. The name of each participant is entered in a drawing to receive one of five US$1,000 American Express gift cards. In addition, students have access to the reports so that they can benchmark their experiences and career progress with their peers. Students also are invited to participate in the GMAC Alumni Perspectives Survey, which allows graduates the unique opportunity to monitor their career progress in relation to their peer group.
To obtain the names of the winners, you may send a request, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope, to Legal Department, Graduate Management Admission Council, 11921 Freedom Drive, Suite 300, Reston, VA, 20190, USA. (Residents of Vermont need not supply postage). You will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement prior to receiving the winners list.
If you have questions or need additional information about the project, please send your request to research@gmac.com. You may access last year’s publicly available reports through the GMAC Research Library.