Graduate Placement Report 2015
This Graduate Placement Report 2015 is the fourth annual report released by Rotterdam School of
Management, Erasmus University (RSM). The results of this survey provide information about the
first jobs of RSM students who graduated from our MSc programmes. The survey was conducted in
March 2015, and we received responses from 421 graduates of the 2550 who graduated between 1
January 2013 and 31 August 2014, responded, giving a response rate of 16.5 per cent.
In some cases, the number of respondents from certain MSc specialisations or nationalities was too
low to provide useful conclusions, so we have therefore commented on the most informative and
reliable features from our analyses.
Contents
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MSc graduate profile
Employment
Contract and benefits
Finding a job
Experience and competencies
CONTACT
Careers, Corporate & Alumni Relations +31 10 408 2888
[email protected]
MSc Graduate Profile
BACKGROUND OF GRADUATES
Respondents came from all 14 of RSM’s MSc programmes. The largest group of respondents is from
the MSc Finance & Investments (17 per cent of respondents), MSc Supply Chain Management (16
per cent), and MSc Strategic Management (12 per cent). From the medium-sized master
programmes, the MSc International Management/CEMS and MSc Management of Innovation are
well represented, as is the smaller master programme, MSc General Management.
Master programmes – number of respondents
11
11
32
Almost 40 per cent of RSM’s master graduates entered the programme directly after graduating
from one of our own bachelor programmes, a big decrease from the previous year when 70 per
cent came from our own bachelor programmes. Before doing a master at RSM, 23 per cent
completed a Bachelor in Business Administration (bedrijfskunde) and 17 per cent did a Bachelor in
International Business Administration at RSM. Almost 17 per cent studied first at a university for
Applied Sciences (HBO) and did a pre-master programme before starting their master programme.
Almost half, 43.5 per cent of all respondents, got their bachelor degree from a school other than
RSM, either in the Netherlands or another country.
Programme before master at RSM
DEMOGRAPHICS
The average age at graduation was 24.5, and the range was from 21 to 40 years old. Of the 421
graduates responding to the survey, 152 were female and 250 were male. We can say that the
Grade Point Average (GPA) of respondents in this survey does not differ greatly from the profile of
RSM graduates in previous years.
Gender of respondents
WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
There were 41 different nationalities among the respondents; 60 per cent were Dutch, 30.5 per
cent came from the European Economic Area (EEA), and 9.5 per cent came from outside the EEA.
Most international students came from Germany (12.8 per cent), then Bulgaria (4.3 per cent),
Greece (3.8 per cent), and China (3.3 per cent).
Country of origin of our MSc graduates
Employment
HOW MANY MSC GRADUATES ARE EMPLOYED?
Of all respondents, a majority of 86 per cent were employed within 12 months of graduation (363
graduates out of 421). At the time of the survey, 2 per cent had started their own business, 2 per
cent were doing an internship, less than 1 per cent worked freelance, 2 per cent continued
education with a PhD, and 1 per cent continued education with a second master. Of the remainder,
4 per cent were still looking for employment and 0.5 per cent were unemployed and not seeking
employment.
In the MSc programme, we can conclude that gender and nationality play no statistically significant
role in the likelihood of graduates finding their first job.
Employment status within 12 months of graduation
WHERE DO THEY FIND A JOB?
The industries that attract most RSM graduates are consultancy and business research (27 per cent)
and financial services and insurance (15 per cent).
Industries employing RSM graduates
The top 10 employers of RSM MSc graduates are Deloitte, PwC, Shell, Accenture, ABN AMRO, EY,
CapGemini, Google, the Boston Consulting Group, and Unilever.
RSM graduates responding to this survey say they work for 237 different companies around the
world. Large companies attract the most graduates; almost 43 per cent work for multinational
companies that have more than 10,000 employees.
Size of companies employing RSM graduates
Our MSc graduates found jobs in 42 countries. Almost two-thirds of all respondents, 62 per cent,
say they have found a job in the Netherlands, while 32 per cent found a job elsewhere in Europe
and 7 per cent went to other parts of the world. In total, almost a third (31 per cent) found jobs in
countries other than their country of origin or where they studied.
And in answer to a question we are asked by many non-EEA students: 68 per cent of respondents
with non-EEA passports stay in the Netherlands after graduation. A very small number of non-EEA
graduates, three in total, found jobs in other countries in Europe, and all of those were in the
United Kingdom.
Only 4 per cent of graduates originating from the EEA found a job outside Europe.
World map showing where RSM graduates find their first job
ENTREPRENEURS
The 2 per cent of respondents that founded and are working in their own businesses totals 9
people. This is a too small a group to make any conclusions about the entrepreneurship of this
cohort of RSM graduates, although we can profile these respondents. Their average age is 24.5.
Four of them are Dutch and 5 come from other countries in the EEA. The entrepreneurial group
consists of 8 men and 1 woman.
Almost half (4) of the graduates running their own businesses studied first at a university for
applied sciences (HBO) and did a pre-master before starting their master degree. Most come from a
business education background; 3 of them completed a Bachelor in Business Administration (BSc
Bedrijfskunde) at RSM, and 1 completed a Bachelor in International Business Administration at
RSM. One completed a bachelor at a different university.
The timing of starting their own businesses is equally spread, with 3 starting more than 6 months
before graduation, 3 people started between 0-6 months after graduation, and the other 3 started
more than 6 months after graduation.
They all credit own networks for helping them to start their own companies.
The respondents work on average 44.7 hours per week, but the working week ranges from 8 to 75
hours for our entrepreneurial graduates.
Contracts and benefits
TYPES OF CONTRACT
More than half of employed MSc graduates from RSM, 59.3 per cent, have a permanent contract.
The second largest group, 37 per cent, have a temporary contract with the possibility of a
permanent contract in the future.
Respondents finding a job in an EEA country got a permanent contract in 79 per cent of cases; only
slightly more than those getting permanent contracts in non-EEA countries at 75 per cent.
However, significantly fewer graduates get permanent employment contracts in the Netherlands;
only 45 per cent.
There is no relation between the industry in which graduates work and the type of contract.
Neither is the type of contract influenced by whichever specialised MSc programme a graduate did,
except for those respondents from the MSc in Entrepreneurship and New Business Venturing,
where only 44.7 per cent got a permanent contract.
Type of contract per region
NUMBER OF HOURS WORKED
On average, graduates work a 39.5 hour week in their first job, ranging from 8 to 70 hours per
week. Respondents say they work an average of 48.6 hours per week, ranging from 8 to 100 hours
per week. Only 2 graduates out of the 363 employed say they regularly work more than 50 hours
per week.
Industry and country appear to make no difference to the hours worked by our graduates. Their
working weeks are similar, wherever they are in the world.
SALARY
The mean salary earned by respondents to our survey in their first year of employment – across all
industry sectors and globally – is €2,950 gross per month (€35,400 per annum), which is a little
lower than last year’s survey. Salaries range from €655 to €8,333 gross per month.
However, salaries paid to those working in the Netherlands buck the global trend of our graduates’
salaries. The survey shows that the mean monthly salary paid by companies in the Netherlands is
€2,912 gross, ranging from €750 to €7,000 gross per month. This is €104 more per month than last
year’s results. According to the higher education organisation VSNU, the average monthly salary of
a master graduate in the Netherlands is €2,7831.
Salary differences per region
1
http://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/f_c_university_education_monitor-en.html
In EEA countries other than the Netherlands, the mean monthly salary is €3,029 and in non-EEA
countries it’s €2,895. In the Netherlands, salaries follow a normal distribution with many
respondents earning close to the average. In the rest of the EEA, and in non-EEA regions, you see an
unequal distribution, with more respondents in the lower and higher salary ranges, and a smaller
proportion earning an average salary. There are 16 respondents who earn more than €5,000 gross
each month and 12 who earn less than €1,000 gross per month.
Spread of lowest and highest salaries
Earning more than €5,000 per month
Earning less than €1,000 per month
Germany (5)
Bulgaria (3)
United Kingdom (3)
Greece (2)
Netherlands (2)
China (1)
Switzerland (2)
Czech Republic (1)
United Arabic Emirates (2)
Cyprus (1)
Liechtenstein (1)
Hungary (1)
Papua New Guinea (1)
Indonesia (1)
Macedonia (1)
Netherlands (1)
There are differences in average salary and the percentage of people earning more than the
average salary for each specialised master programme. While we cannot draw detailed conclusions
for every specialised master programme, we can say that respondents from the MSc Marketing
Management and MSc Human Resource Management reported the lowest average salaries,
whereas respondents from the MSc International Management/CEMS, and MSc Business
Information Management reported the highest.
Average gross salary per month per master
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS
Our survey asked respondents to tell us of any other benefits they receive in addition to their
monthly salary.
This year, the most common additional benefit was education, courses and training; 71.3 per cent
say they receive this. Having a laptop was also mentioned by 68.8 per cent, and 66.8 per cent get
travel expenses for daily commuting.
Additional benefits
Finding a job
WHEN DO THEY START THEIR JOB SEARCHES?
About a fifth of MSc students (21 per cent) have already started looking for a job at least 6 months
before they complete their studies. A month away from graduation, 54 per cent are actively
searching for a job.
Job search start dates
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FIND A JOB?
The search for jobs seems to be effective, with 72.7 per cent of respondents saying they found a job
within three months of the start of their search and more than half, 52.3 per cent, securing the first
step on the career ladder before their graduation. There is no correlation between the time needed
to find a job and the industry in which graduates found employment, but the respondents’
specialised subjects did influence how much time they needed to find a job. More than 10 per cent
of respondents from the MSc Global Business & Stakeholder Management, MSc Human Resource
Management, and MSc Supply Chain Management needed more than 6 months to find a job. All
the respondents who finished the MSc Chinese Economy & Business, and MSc Entrepreneurship &
New Business Venturing found a job within 3 months from the start of their search. Sadly, the
response rate from some specialised master programmes was too low for us to make conclusions
about the speed of finding employment in general. These results represent only the respondents’
experiences.
Number of months to find a job by master programme
FINDING A JOB
Using their own networks (58.4 per cent) was reported as the most effective way of finding a job,
followed by doing an internship (37.7 per cent), and via social networking sites, such as LinkedIn
(35.8 per cent).
Giving students the opportunity to meet and interact with company recruiters on campus gets
approval from 36.7per cent of our respondents; these interactions include company presentations
(11.9 per cent), STAR Management Week activities (9.1 per cent) and the Erasmus Recruitment
Days (15.7 per cent).
The services of RSM’s Career Services were rated as valuable by 27.5 per cent of respondents.
RSM’s Job Board, on which companies advertise for applicants from within RSM, is rated as the best
service with almost 18 per cent approval, compared to 14.9 per cent who found the website
www.rsm.nl/career-services as effective, and 8 per cent who made use of other services from RSM
Career Services .
Finding a job
MSC DEGREE AND CURRENT JOB
Almost three-quarters of respondents (72.3 per cent) say that their employment position requires
them to have an MSc degree.
Required level of education
Only 5.8 per cent of graduates needed their specific MSc specialisation for their current job. About
half (52.3 per cent) thought ‘my specialisation or a connected specialisation’ was required for their
job, and 38.6 per cent said ‘no specific specialisation’ was required. This was generally true for all
14 specialised MSc programmes in our portfolio, according to the survey. More than a third of
respondents (37.2 per cent) see a direct connection between what they learned during their master
programme and their current job, and another 38.6 per cent sees a general connection.
Required specialisations
Experience and competencies
INTERNSHIPS
More than half, 56.5 per cent, of master graduate respondents took part in an internship linked to
their study at RSM before they started working ‒ that’s 238 people. Out of this group of graduates,
64 per cent did an internship during their MSc programme. There’s more information about this in
our internship survey report, available from http://www.rsm.nl/career-services/internships/
Internships during bachelor and master programme.
STUDY EXCHANGE
RSM graduates are keen to broaden their study experiences. Just over a quarter, 25.9 per cent or
109 respondents did a study exchange during their time at RSM.
Number of students going on exchange during their bachelor and/or master programme
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Most respondents took part in extra-curricular activities during their studies. The most frequently
mentioned were memberships of sports or cultural organisations (41.3 per cent), non-study related
part-time jobs (42 per cent), and study related part-time jobs (40.4 per cent). As you can see, there
is some cross-over, with some students taking parts in sports and cultural activities as well as
having part time jobs.
Extracurricular activities of RSM graduates
COMPETENCIES
Master graduates agree most strongly that the most important competencies to possess are
problem solving (88.6 per cent), working independently (87.7 per cent), and teamwork (81.5 per
cent). These skills are mostly gained during studies, say the respondents. Project management,
creativity, and entrepreneurial skills are gained mainly outside studies, compared to the other
competencies, say our graduates.
Possession of competencies and when they were developed
FOR QUESTIONS AND REMARKS ABOUT THE GRADUATE PLACEMENT REPORT 2015, CONTACT
Careers, Corporate & Alumni Relations +31 10 408 2888
[email protected]