Google, McKinsey, Goldman Tops with MBAs

Posted by: Louis Lavelle on May 25, 2010

Few things short of the Earth’s tectonic plates move quite as slowly as MBA preferences in employers. For five years now, with little variation, the top three employers in the Universum USA Ideal Employer Rankings have been Google, McKinsey & Co., and Goldman Sachs. (In 2009 Bain & Co. beat Goldman for the No. 3 spot, and in 2006 McKinsey beat Google for No. 1.) This year, the top three employers are….drum roll please….Google, McKinsey, and Goldman.

The list, reported exclusively by CNNMoney.com, holds few surprises but makes for interesting reading nonetheless. Google was favored by nearly 1 out of 4 MBAs, with McKinsey a distant second at 15%. Three investment banks (JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, plus Goldman) made the top 15, while three others (Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital) made the top 25. With MBAs searching high and low for jobs during the recession, there were shake-ups throughout the list. Johnson and Johnson, Nestle, and Unilever all moved up in the rankings. And shifting priorities brought a few newcomers in to the ranking, including Teach for America.

Management consulting was the most desirable industry followed by financial services, with consumer goods and marketing/advertising tied for third place—the same top three from 2009. Perhaps unexpectedly, salary expectations one year after graduation have gone down from $98,403 last year to $94,376.