With the US President Donald Trump vs Harvard University legal battle raging in the background, employment data tied to the elite school’s students and professional paths ahead has been under the scanner since earlier this year. Back in January, the Wall Street Journal released a scathing report that put a big question mark against the careers of job-seeking Harvard MBAs who graduated in Spring 2024.
The leading American publication claimed that MBAs from Harvard Business School were facing more trouble than expected to find jobs despite the Ivy League university’s name on their CVs. 23% of job-seeking business-school graduates were reportedly still looking for work three months after leaving the campus since their yesteryear spring graduation. It was noted that the perceived stats had risen a sharp 20% from the previous year.
Kristen Fitzpatrick, who supervises career development and alumni relations for Harvard Business School, said that even the elite school wasn’t “immune to the difficulties of the job market.” She reluctantly highlighted that going to the top school was no longer going to be a “differentiator,” as graduates “have to have the skills.”
This negatively highlighted numbers were highly contradicted by the official career / employment data offered by the Harvard Business School. Underlining the hiring trends for the Class of 2024, the US university focussed on the positives. Instead of indicating how many students failed to land a job, it drove attention to a large majority voluntarily seeking employment as opposed to those who didn’t.
Harvard Business School employment data tells a different story
As per the HBS data, only 70% graduates from the Class of 2024 actually sought employment. Of those students, 85% received an offer, and finally 77% of those Harvard alums accepted an offer. On the other hand, 30% graduates did not seek employment. This minority constituted of 14% of those who were starting their own business, 13% who were company sponsored or had already been employed, 3% fell in some other category and 1% postponed their job search. As a result, Harvard flipped the negatives into positives as well.
Further details tied to Harvard employment data underlined the various industries student had ultimately associated themselves with. Consulting, consumer products, entertainment / media, health care, investment banking, investment management / hedge fund, manufacturing, nonprofit / government, private equity, retail, services, technology and venture capital emerged as common picks.
A majority of 88% Harvard Business School students chose to pursue their professional undertakings in the United States itself. The remaining 12% picked international destinations for their career, including Asia (5%), Canada (less than 1%), Europe (5%) , Latin America (1%) and Middle East & North America (less than 1%).