Queens MBA Employment Report

Queen's is a very well known university in Canada, with the Business School (Smith) being one of the biggest drivers of their reputation.  Surprisingly however, the full-time MBA program at Queen's is actually fairly small with under 100 students.  The biggest driver for Queen's would be their Executive MBA and their other video conference driven programs.  They have essentially as many students in their accelerated MBA for business graduates as they do in their full-time MBA program.  So while they are a fairly well known school, most people are surprised at the size of the Queen's MBA program (especially compared to the 350 students a year that graduate from Rotman).

First Impressions

From a quick glance, it is a bit surprising how little information Queen's has available.  The career report is two pages in length and looks more like an infographic than a full fledged report.  The report is also for the 2016 graduating class, but their website also includes some numbers and figures for the 2016 and 2017 graduating classes combined.  Since the combined numbers are a fair bit lower than the 2016 class numbers, I'm going to assume that the 2017 figures aren't quite up to the same level as the 2016 figures (I'll do some backwards engineering below to see what they might actually be). 

From the information that is provided, it does look positive in that virtually all of the 2016 grads were employed within six months of graduation and an average staring package for graduates around $120k.  However, with the way the numbers are presented, it doesn't follow the full set of guidelines and regulations that the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance recommends.  3 month placement is the normal reporting period for employment and compensation should be reported as base salary, signing bonus, and other compensation.  It is a little concerning that this is not included and does make me question the overall numbers they are reporting.

Employment Salaries

There isn't a huge amount of data to dive into, but a ~$120k (~$93k USD) average package for a graduate is fairly decent.  If you do look at the FT MBA rankings, for the three Canadian schools listed in 2018, the average salary of a graduate three years after graduation is around $100k USD.  Queen's was last ranked in 2017 and the average salary for alumni at that point was $93k USD.  So either the class of 2016 was really strong, or the average compensation number is a bit inflated (either through one big outlier or the average bonus and other guaranteed compensation for those reporting added directly to average salary).

55% of grads ended up in either Finance or Consulting as a post-MBA industry.  There isn't a breakdown on compensation by industry, so it's really a guessing game as to which industries are the best for Queen's grads.  My guess, given that it's a one-year program, ~70% of students are Canadian citizens or permanent residents, Queen's offers stand alone degrees in Finance, and ~20% of students come from a business background, students with a good track record in Consulting may have taken a year away from work to pursue the Queen's MBA and then jumped back in with fairly strong salaries.  Some of the big name consulting companies are listed as hiring Queen's grads within the last five years as well.

To guess at 2017 numbers, I'm going to make a simple assumption that the 2016 and 2017 grad classes are the same size.  If you make that assumption, the 2017 employment rate would be 86% of graduates employers 6-months after graduation and the average starting compensation package would be under $100k.  Those are quite big drop offs from 2016.  Compensation would now be more in line with other Canadian MBA programs (Rotman has a median base salary of $85k and an average of $91k).  The employment rate at 6-months would be a bit more concerning.  With roughly 1/3 of students being International, either they are really struggling to adjust to the North American work environment in one-year (and without an internship) or a number of Canadian students are not making as quick of a career change as they were hoping through the Queen's MBA.

Queens MBA Career Support

Queen's takes a somewhat different approach and really emphasizes the number of different coaches you'd be able to work with through their program (an executive coach, a career coach, a lifestyle/fitness coach, and a coach to help you through team work).  They don't go into much detail around the specific career supports available, beyond saying that you'll get to work with a career coach and work through workshops and self-directed resources.  It does sound like they do frequent trips to Toronto with students and hold employer events on campus each fall. 

Final Thoughts

My main take-away from going through Queen's website and their career information is that they are really focusing more on personal growth and development than they are in career/placement of students.  That's not necessarily a bad thing and may have more longer term benefits than focusing on immediate career success.  With it being a one-year MBA, I'd also suspect they are looking more for students who are looking to continue in a similar industry/area than those who are looking to make really dramatic career changes, so focusing on overall development does make sense as well.  Or it may just be an easier and more reliable thing to promote than annual career data when the overall class size is small and averages can really be skewed by a few outliers in either direction.

Regardless, for a program that costs $83k (or $93k for International students), I would really expect a more in-depth career report.  I realize with ~80 students that can have some challenges, but to only report overall compensation and a 6-month employment rate is rather sad.