Jobs at private equity firms and hedge funds are difficult to come by, even if you have an MBA from a renowned institution, according to a financial services career website.
The average percentage of the top 35 business school graduates working in hedge funds lingered at 3.8%, eFinancialCareers found. Instead, most opportunities for MBAs could be found in investment banking, with an average of 57.1% of MBAs in front office positions.
According to the website, US business schools were most successful in securing jobs at the top banks, a “not surprising” phenomenon as “banks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia have focused more on recruiting at a graduate level and training in-house, [while] banks in the US have maintained their traditional focus on hiring from Ivy League business schools.”
However, US dominance fell behind when looking at percentages of alumni working in private equity, hedge funds, and asset management, eFinancialCareers’ database found.
The London Business School topped the rankings with 6% of graduates in hedge funds, 14% in asset management, and 23% in private equity. The Columbia Business School took second place with 9% in hedge funds, 17% in asset management, and 16% in private equity.
New York University’s Stern, Oxford’s Saïd, Cornell, Harvard Business School, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton, Yale, INSEAD, and Milan-based SDA Bocconi made the top ten on the list.
Last week at a panel at Stern, Michael Corbat, chief executive of Citigroup, reinforced the difficulty of breaking into hedge funds and private equity, due to “a limited number of seats in these firms.”
Instead, he argued now is an exciting time to join banking, emphasizing that it “is a business that’s still got the opportunity to grow.”
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