“Despite the political uncertainty about the status of immigration and work visas in the United States and other parts of the world, companies are keen to hire graduates from this year’s MBA and business master’s programmes, including international candidates,” said Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC president and CEO.

Most U.S. companies (55 per cent) either plan to hire (28 per cent) or are open to hiring (27 per cent) an international candidate in 2017 — up from 49 per cent that had such plans last year. The technology industry in the U.S. is the most likely to hire international business graduates this year. Half of U.S. tech firms (50 per cent) plan to hire such candidates in 2017 — up from 27 per cent that planned to hire them last year.

 GMAC conducted the 16th annual Corporate Recruiters Survey in February and March 2017 together with survey partners EFMD and MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), in association with 97 participating graduate business schools. Survey findings were based on responses from 959 employers representing more than 628 companies in 51 countries worldwide.

Additional key findings were:

• 70 per cent of manufacturing companies plan to hire Master in Management graduates in 2017, up from 50 per cent of companies that hired them in 2016.
• Data analytics expertise continues to be in high demand. Sixty-nine per cent of employers plan to place recent graduate business school hires into data analytics roles in 2017, just trailing marketing, business development, and finance roles — each with 71 per cent.
• More start-up companies plan to hire b-school grads this year.
• MBA salaries will reflect 83 per cent premium over recent bachelor’s salaries.