One of the advantages of top-tier MBA degrees is their portability – candidates from top schools often have the opportunity to work in any city they want. For certain industries such as technology, a location like Silicon Valley is synonymous with the industry and is regarded as “the place to be” in terms of career growth. But what if there was a way to analyze what U.S. cities have to offer MBA students?
Utilizing data provided by MBAs across the nation, we are able to analyze metrics such as average compensation, the most common functional roles and industries, and the companies that hire a large number of MBAs in any major city in the United States. Last up in our analysis: Dallas, Texas.
(This entry is part of a series exploring such measures for various cities. You can find our other entries in the series here: Atlanta, Austin, Houston, and San Francisco.)
According to the sources Expatistan, Numbeo, and Apartment List, the average cost of living in Dallas is approximately $2200/month, with the median rent of a one-bedroom being $1060/month. In terms of the average post-MBA salary in this city, the data indicates it is around $121,236 while the average post-MBA compensation is $169,340.
City ranks for three separate measures out of a total of 55 evaluated cities
When looking at the top ten industries of MBAs living in this city, Consulting leads the pack by a large margin with 32.0% of MBAs belonging to this industry, followed by Aerospace & Aviation and Telecommunications with 14.4% and 8.5%, respectively. Consumer Products, Technology, Internet, & Ecommerce, and Energy, Oil, Gas, and Utilities trail at fourth, fifth, and sixth place with 7.8%, 6.5%, and 4.6%. This leaves Hospitals, Medicine, & Healthcare Services (3.9%); Diversified Financial Services (3.3%); Food, Beverage, & Tobacco (3.3%); and Retail (3.3%) finishing off the list. Our other category, which constituted almost 12.4% of our data, included industries such as Commercial Banking, Real Estate, and Manufacturing.
Now that it has been established what the popular industries for business students in Dallas are, let’s take a look at the functions they are hired for. Consulting comes in first again with 30.1% followed by Corporate Strategy with 15.7% and Corporate Finance with 14.4%. Marketing and Investment Management take fourth and fifth place with 7.8% and 3.9%. Operations, Product Management, and Sales share the sixth position, tyinging with 4.3%, and Business Development and General Management share the seventh position, tying with 2.6%. The Other category encapsulates 13.1%.
You may be wondering which employers are hiring for these MBA functions. According to the data, the top 5 employers are American Airlines (12.4%), Pepsico (7.8%), AT&T (7.2%), Deloitte Consulting (5.9%), and McKinsey & Company (5.9%).
However, when specifically looking at the top employers for the Consulting Industry, McKinsey & Company, Deloitte Consulting, and the Boston Consulting Group each have 18.4% of all the MBAs in our dataset from this industry living in Dallas. Trailing behind them are Everest Group and PwC Advisory with 6.1% each. In contrast, Aerospace & Aviation—the next most common industry— has its top employers as American Airlines with 86.4%; and Sabre, Southwest Airlines, and Triumph Group with 4.5% each. Likewise, Telecommunications has a different set of top employers with AT&T having 84.6% and Ericsson and Qualcomm tying for second place with 7.7% each.
The last question asked was which business schools have the most alumni working in this city. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business comes in first with the alumni making up 13.7% of the data. The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business makes up 9.8%. This is followed by Duke University Fuqua School of Business with 7.2%, Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business with 6.5%, and Northwestern Kellogg School of Management with 5.9%.
MBAs in Dallas – City Guide:
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