Even as employers recognise the ongoing impact of the macroeconomic shifts and geopolitical intricacies on their hiring decisions, business schools should feel reassured that their intentional cultivation of relevant skills in their students is paying off.

GMAC’s latest survey results reveal business school graduates remain sought-after by employers as valuable contributors and future leaders in the ever-evolving business world.

For more than two decades, the Corporate Recruiters Survey has provided the world’s graduate business schools and employers with data and insights to understand current trends in skill demand, hiring, compensation, and perceptions of MBA and business master’s graduates. GMAC conducted this year’s survey, together with survey partners European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and the Career Services and Employer Alliance (CSEA), from January to March 2025.

A total of 1,108 corporate recruiters and hiring managers from staffing firms in 46 countries participated in the survey, with nearly two-thirds of them recruiting with Global Fortune 500 companies.

1. Positive employer perceptions of business education: An overwhelming 99% of global employers express confidence in business schools’ ability to prepare graduates for success within their organisations. Today, more employers associate their confidence in business school with graduates’ innovation and ability to navigate technological disruption when compared to 2020. In fact, nearly two-thirds of employers—including 63% of Western European employers—say skills developed in business school are even more important in the context of businesses adopting new technologies. While U.S. employers are the least likely to see increased value of GME skills in the context of evolving technology, employers in regions like the Middle East and Central and South Asia have the most favorable views as their public and private sectors invest in their tech industries related to AI, 5G, smart cities, and the Internet of Things.

2. The enduring and rising importance of human skills in the modern workforce: With generative AI gaining traction, more employers value current new hires’ knowledge of how to use AI tools than last year. Thirty-one percent of employers say skills using AI tools is important to their hiring decisions in 2025 compared to 26% in 2024—and AI is the number one skill employers predict will influence their hiring decisions five years from now.

Despite the rising importance of AI, however, core skills like problem-solving, strategic thinking, and communication skills remain at the top of employers’ current and future priorities. Notably, socio-emotional skills like adaptability and initiative have become relatively more important to employers compared to the year prior, which is the case across most regions, including Western Europe (see figure above).

3. Growing employer confidence with increasing flexibility in work and study: Fifty-six per cent of global employers—and 61% of employers in Western Europe—agree or strongly agree that the skills gained through a business degree are more important than before for businesses using remote or hybrid working arrangements. This was truer of employers from the energy/utilities and relatively flexible technology industries, and less true among consulting recruiters who are perhaps more likely to rely on in-person work with clients.

The rise of remote and hybrid arrangements is not limited to the workplace. With rising candidate

interest in online, hybrid, and flexible learning, more than half (55%) of global employers say they value graduates of online or predominantly online and in-person programs equally—along with 58% of employers in Western Europe.

4. New “Gen Z” hires’ professionalism demystified—somewhat—by employers: Sixty-one per cent of corporate recruiters find recent GME graduates to demonstrate the same level of professionalism—defined in the survey as reliability, accountability, respectfulness, and professional appearance—as graduates from previous years. However, roughly a quarter of the more client-facing consulting and health care/pharmaceutical recruiters expressed concerns.

Regionally, just under half (46%) of U.S. employers expressed similar confidence in recent graduates’ professionalism compared to the GME graduates who came before them. On the other hand, 62% of Western European employers agree or strongly agree with the statement that “recent business school graduates demonstrate the same level of professionalism as graduates from previous years,” underscoring the regional differences among employers in how they consider recent graduates’ workplace conduct across the globe.

5. Hiring projections affirm popularity of graduate business degrees: Across degree types, more employers predict that they will hire graduates with advanced business degrees in 2025 compared to 2024, with a quarter or more of these employers anticipating expanding their hiring compared to last year. In fact, 90 per cent of responding global employers plan to hire MBA talent in 2025, even more than prospective employees with bachelor’s degrees or those coming directly from other organisations.

It is important to note that generalist MBA talent typically appeals to more kinds of organisations than graduates of more specialised business master’s programs, so the comparatively larger shares of employers who do not plan to hire business master’s talent should not be interpreted as a lack of job prospects for these students post-graduation.

In Western Europe, for example, the top three graduate business programs employers plan to hire the same or more than last year are data analytics (78%), MBA (77%), and management (76%)—all higher than prospective employees with a bachelor’s degree (74%) or hired directly from the industry (74%).

Read the full Corporate Recruiters Survey summary report on gmac.com.

Andrew Walker is the director of industry communications at GMAC.

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