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. Ninth up in our analysis: Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(This entry is part of a series exploring such measures for various cities. You can find our other entries in the series here: Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, and Seattle.)
According to the sources PayScale, Numbeo, and Apartment List, the average cost of living in Minneapolis is approximately $2200/month, with the median rent of a one-bedroom being $1400/month. In terms of the average post-MBA salary in this city, the data indicates it is around $105,199 while the average post-MBA compensation is $136,544.
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, Phama, Medical Devices, & Biotech lead the pack by a small margin with 14.7% of MBAs belonging to this industry, followed by Manufacturing and Hospitals, Medicine, & Healthcare Services with 11.9% and 11.2%, respectively. Consulting, Consumer Products, and Retail trail at fourth, fifth, and sixth place with 10.5%, 9.1%, and 8.4%. This leaves Technology, Internet, & Ecommerce (6.3%); Chemicals & Plastics (4.2%); Investment Banking (3.5%); and Computer Services & Information Technology (2.8%) finishing off the list. Our other category, which constituted almost 17.5% of our data, included industries such as Diversified Financial Services, Agriculture & Forestry, and Commercial Banking.
Now that it has been established what the popular industries for business students in Minneapolis are, let’s take a look at the functions they are hired for. Marketing comes in first with 19.6% followed by Consulting with 16.1% and Corporate Strategy with 11.2%. Corporate Finance takes fourth with 9.8% while General Management and Product Management share the fifth position, tyinging with 7.0%. Operations comes in sixth with 6.3%, and Investment Banking and Sales come after it with 3.5% and 2.8%, respectively. Analytics & Data Science rounds out the list with 3.78% while the Other category encapsulates 14.7%.
You may be wondering which employers are hiring for these MBA functions. According to the data, the top 5 employers are Medtronic (8.4%), General Mills (7.7%), 3M (4.9%), Target (4.9%), and Ecolab (4.2%).
However, when specifically looking at the top employers for the Phama, Medical Devices, & Biotech Industry, Medtronic has 57.1%, Boston Scientific Corp has 14.3%, and 3M has 9.5% of all the MBAs in our dataset from this industry living in Minneapolis. Trailing behind them is Cardiac Concepts and Greatbatch Medical with 4.8% each. In contrast, Manufacturing—the next most common industry— has its top employers as Emerson with 29.4%, 3M with 4.8%, Tennant and Twin City Fan Companies with 11.8% each, and Bilfinger with 5.9%. Likewise, Hospitals, Medicine, & Healthcare Services has a different set of top employers with Optum having 25.0%; United Healthcare having 18.8%; and 3M, Allina Health, and Department of Human Services tying for third place with 6.3% each.
The last question asked was which business schools have the most alumni working in this city. Unsurprisingly, the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management comes in first with the alumni making up 38.5% of the data. The University of Chicago School of Business makes up 17.5%. This is followed by University of Michigan Ross School of Business with 4.9%, Northwestern Kellogg School of Management with 4.2%, and Duke University Fuqua School of Business with 3.5%.
MBAs in Minneapolis – City Guide:
Are you interested in learning more about MBAs in other US cities? Continue checking out the RelishCareers Blog, where we will continue posting information about popular cities for business students. Candidates can also sign up for an account through RelishCareers and registrants will be informed of all upcoming blog posts through email.