A very thoughtful and helpful student sent me the Southern Methodist University MSF career report and I thought this was something all of you would love to see. These reports are usually what all the students want to look at when they are considering a program and this presentation looks really strong. This program is in an economically strong and growing area and historically has done very well when it comes to finding students jobs and this report confirms all their hard work. I will include my thoughts below as well as a link to download the report directly. Enjoy!
2019 Employment Outcome Report
The Southern Methodist University MSF program reported 91.5% of job seeking applicants found employment within 6 months. This figure is slightly higher when you factor in those seeking additional graduate school after graduating (MBA or PhD). This is a pretty common path for a handful of students at most MSF programs.
Average base salary was $66,400 with a mean signing bonus of $6,700. Almost 40% of students who accepted a job received a signing bonus. These are much more common in investment banking, but I have seen a number of industries offer them.
Most graduates, as one would expect, accepted positions in the southwest. I would imagine this means primarily Texas. The next largest metro was the northeast and we can probably assume this is NYC. This program is going to be key for anyone looking for a career in Texas, but the SMU brand is known and respected around the country so if you want to work in a different part of the country you can, but realize you will need to work a little harder.
Below is a sample of hiring firms. This is my selections of some key names from the report that SMU put together. For the complete list, please download the full report.
- Accenture
- American Airlines
- Bloomberg
- Cadence Bank
- Comerica
- Duff & Phelps
- Ernst & Young
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
- FedEx
- Goldman Sachs
- JPMorgan
- Phillips 66
- PWC
- Santander Investment Bank
- Toyota
- Warrington Asset Management
These are some great names and many of them are based in Dallas as I have had friends who live and work there. From the names on this list it looks like the program places in F500, Commercial and Investment Banking, Consulting and Energy. A very nice mix of industries.
You can check out the full report, which has details on the timing of accepting jobs, how these roles were sources and other details. What SMU put together conforms MBA CSEA Reporting Standards as well. This is something I am seeing more and more, a function of this degree maturing.
Here is the full report for those interested in looking at it:
SMU Cox MSF Employment Report 2019
Once again, thank you to the person who sent this to me. I think this really shows the quality program SMU is running and I thought the report was incredibly comprehensive. This is a very strong program and Texas has one of the best job markets in the US. Make sure to check this one out.
Here is a link to the Southern Methodist University MSF Program
