Amazon Head-hunting at B-Schools

One of the world’s top retailers looks for MBA degree holders for hire. For California or London, launching a startup after dropping out of school is considered a tremendous thing. Still, if you plan to work for a tech juggernaut, you better reconsider this idea.

Financial Companies Yield Their Top Spot In Hiring

According to the Financial Times, Amazon, Apple and Google have become the largest companies to recruit MBA graduates straight from campuses. These three companies snatch employees up so quickly that they leave nothing for investment banks and others. Last year, the only contenders for Amazon in this field were consulting firms. At some universities, such as the Ross School of Business (Michigan), Amazon was the top recruiter.

The New Amazon Hiring Trend

Last year, Amazon hired 30% more MBA degree holders than in 2015. According to Miriam Park, the company’s director of recruitment, this new trend is nowhere near likely to slow down.

Baseline salaries at this company are not bad as well: for a program manager they are approximately 137,000 dollars, and for a senior manager no less than $180,000. It’s not much lower than in top consulting companies or banks.

Amazon and the other world-known companies prefer recruiting fresh MBAs due to their adaptability, creativity, knowing how to take a risk and inherent desire to construct and implement new ideas. Moreover, they know how to tackle ambiguous situations and are highly qualified in analytical and logical skills. For Amazon, such people are in high demand right now, as they are trying to use a new system of “working backwards” starting from the client, so data analysts are a must.

Additionally, Amazon supports student exchange with Ross School of Business: every year, students from that school spend about 7 weeks at the company to see what it’s like to work for this much-praised employer. It also allows Amazon to know who they’d like to have on the team next year.

Many MBAs prefer Amazon as a prospective employer, as it is going more and more international (currently its extent consists of offices in eleven countries and clients in 185).

For prospective MBAs who are currently studying in the US but have a lifelong dream of working and pursuing their careers somewhere in Europe or even China or India, Amazon is the perfect company.

Being one of the largest companies out there, Amazon needs good strategists, project managers and innovators. Still, its size and exponential growth are criticized quite often: they tend to hire young and talented candidates, get all they can from them and then discard them. Only a few of the recruited employees will go up the career ladder – the rest are expendable.

Still, Amazon gives its new hires many opportunities, as it’s continuing to tackle new and prospective markets all over the world. It makes a brilliant first job for a fresh MBA graduate – a perfect training ground to learn how to work in a large and established company with virtually no risks.