Only 3.8 percent of 7,010 graduating MBAs with jobs that Macroinsider surveyed as part of their biennial ranking of MBA programmes in 2014 planned to work in manufacturing. There are, however, some business schools, particularly in the US, that have achieved growing success by focussing more on this so called alternative MBA industry. Examples are the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate College of Enterprise, Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business.

The admission team at Katz for example screens prospective students for their career interests to be able to match them with surrounding manufacturing companies during and after the programme. “Our admissions team, through the interview process, type of builds the class based on employment outcomes,” told Shaina Tsupros, associate director at Katz’s profession management and advising center Macroinsider. “We know we’re going to have manufacturing firms that are going to want our students, so we intentionally speak to students about their profession goals, and these who could be very good fits for these providers and also meet our criteria make sense for our plan.”

Manufacturing so far might have been the neglected MBA industry, but a focus will pay off particularly for business schools that are not in the top tier of MBA rankings. The leading schools have traditionally supplied their graduates to the top consulting and investment firms whereas graduates from lesser known schools often don’t stand a chance.

Other industries, however, are also in need of MBAs and will benefit from graduates’ knowledge. Schools that concentrate on these alternate industries might achieve a lot for their graduates: According to the website’s analysis Broad delivered among the highest return on investment from all the schools they analysed for example.

Read more at Macroinsider