The findings of GMAC Research’s 2017 Year-End Employer Poll, a brief survey of employers completed in November 2017, show that employers plan to increase their business school hiring in the coming year. In total, 83 percent of responding companies plan to hire new business school graduates in 2018.

Based on the survey responses of 93 employers (a response rate of 7.5%), the poll results provide a useful snapshot of the hiring forecast for business school graduates in 2018. Among the key findings are:

• Across all graduate management education program types, an increased share of employers plan to hire graduates in 2018 compared with 2017. For example, 69 percent of responding employers report that they hired recent MBA graduates in 2017 and 72 percent report plans to hire them in 2018. About 1 in 3 employers (32%) report that they hired recent Master in Management graduates in 2017 and 39 percent report plans to hire them in 2018.
• Though bachelor’s recipients continue to be sought by the majority of responding companies, expected bachelor’s hiring is flat compared with 2017 levels.
• In 2018, a greater share of companies expect to hire more specialists than generalists (40%) than more generalists than specialists (28%). This represents a shift from 2017, when the balance was roughly equal.
• In 2018, just 18 percent of employers have plans to hire international candidates, down from 27 percent in 2017.

For more, download the complete data brief from gmac.com.