Elite European MBA Grads Prefer Google to Finance

More MBA students from Europe’s top business schools are choosing careers in Facebook, Amazon and other tech firms rather than finance.

London Business School (LBS), Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Oxford’s Saïd Business School, INSEAD and HEC Paris all report significant drops in the number of MBAs who have accepted full-time roles and internships at finance firms as the heaviest portion of the annual recruiting season comes to an end.

• At LBS, 30% of the class has accepted finance positions, down from 45% in 2007 and 2008. 
• At Judge and Saïd, the percentage heading into investment banking has dropped from more than a third of the class to about a quarter since 2008. 
• At INSEAD, only 14 graduates or the class of 2012went into finance, half the 2008 figure.

Amazon is already the top recruiter at LBS and Saïd and is projected to be the top recruiter for the graduating class of 2014 at HEC, according to the Financial News report. And smaller tech firms are also now competing with the banks.

For more information, please see the story in Financial News