How the Mix of GME Candidates’ Career Expectations Has Shifted Over Time

A new survey report details shifts in candidate career goals based on the findings of the 2018 mba.com Prospective Students Survey.

The decision to pursue a GME often revolves around prospective students’ career aspirations. Business school offers a diverse range of career possibilities for candidates, regardless of their educational or professional background. Armed with a GME, candidates can embark on a variety of career paths and pursue job opportunities across a broad spectrum of industries and job functions.

A new report published on gmac.com this week assesses prospective students’ post-GME career plans, including their industries and job functions of interest and specific career goals. The second in a series of reports based off the 2018 mba.com Prospective Students Survey, the report also provides profiles of candidate career goals and targeted specific industries and job functions by preferred program type.

Key findings of the report include:

• This year’s survey findings highlight how the mix of GME candidates’ career expectations shift over time.
• The last several years have seen an increase in the share of candidates who plan to enhance their current career path through a GME (42% of candidates in 2017) and a decrease in the share who plan to use their GME to pivot to a new job function (34%) or industry (26%).
• Consistent with the past two years, a quarter of candidates intend to pursue an entrepreneurial career after their GME (25%).
• This year’s findings also highlight how larger political and economic factors likely impact the mix of GME candidates’ career expectations.

Access the full report at gmac.com/prospectivestudents. There, school professionals from GMAT accepting institutions can also access the 2018 mba.com Prospective Students Interactive Data Research Tool and explore the survey question-by-question and filter the data by a variety of geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics of prospective business school students.