MBA Career Center –

Maximizing your post-MBA career options.

Discovering new Post-MBA career paths –
Key employment figures of our Full-Time MBA graduates.

84,608€
Average post-MBA salary

106%
Salary increase

66%
Changed sector

38%
Changed function,
sector, and location

All data refers to the graduating class of Full-Time MBA students in 2022. Please refer to our Employment Report for more detailed information.

Career services –
Your future career starts here.

WHU's MBA Career Center is Germany's #1 career center, according to the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2021, which is a testiment to the career services we offer - from career coaching and personal development to networking events and recruitment.

An MBA degree opens up many new and exciting opportunities. Our dedicated MBA Career Center team will help you choose a post MBA career path that fits your personal goals and aspirations. Whether you seek to switch industries, change job function or location, advance your career in your current field, or start your own business, we will support you along the way.

Our “Triple M” career roadmap outlines our approach to helping you reach your individual career goals:

Triple M Career Roadmap

Your challenges:

  • What are my VIPS? (values, interests, personality, skills)
  • What are my career options?
  • How do I identify my career vision?

Our support:

  • Self-assessment tools, e.g. Birkman Profile, the Career Maximiser
  • Career orientation workshop
  • One-on-one counseling

Your challenges:

  • How do I develop networking strategies and connect with relevant people?
  • How can I build the ultimate LinkedIn profile?
  • Where do I find information about industries and companies?

Our support:

  • Career workshops (networking, LinkedIn, presentation skills, job search strategy)
  • One-on-one counseling
  • Alumni Talks
  • Company presentations
  • Career fairs

Your challenges:

  • How do I create the perfect CV?
  • How do I ace the interview?
  • Where can I get support with salary negotiations

Our support:

  • Career workshops (application training, interview skills)
  • Mock interviews
  • One-on-one counseling
  • Company presentations
  • Career fairs
  • Career Newsletter with job postings
  • CV database
  • External suppliers: VMock, PayNegotiation, MBA Exchange

Find out more: Watch our video!

Interested in recruiting WHU students for your company?

You can find information for companies here:

recruit at WHU

Our offerings to MBA students at a glance

Service oriented –
We help you to define and realize your post-MBA career goals.

As an MBA student, you benefit from a wide range of company presentations and workshops throughout the year. Executives, senior managers, junior employees—inlcuding many WHU alumni—as well as HR managers visit our campus to meet and recruit WHU students. They share their insights into the corporate culture, operations, and hiring processes. Informal get-togethers following the presentations give you a chance to connect with the company representatives and learn more about their organization as well as potential post MBA career opportunities.

Presentations and workshops in 2022-23: adidas, Allianz, Amazon, BASF, BASF Management Consulting, Bayer Business Consulting, BCG Platinion, BMW Group, crossconsulting, Delivery Hero, DHL Consulting, E.ON In-House Consulting, Emma – The Sleep Company, EY Parthenon, HelloFresh, Henkel, Horn & Company, Infosys, mm1, Monitor Deloitte, NKT, Picnic, PIMCO, PwC Management Consulting, Qiagen, SC Johnson, Tagueri, Telekom CSP, Trivago, Vodafone, Wayfair und Zalando.

Our weekly newsletter informs you about upcoming career and recruitment events, and partner company programs. The newsletter, which is tailored specifically to MBA students, also keeps you up to date on the latest job offerings in our WHU-internal job and internship database, where companies post numerous internships and entry-level jobs each year.

Every MBA student has the opportunity to create a profile on our student CV database. Our partner companies access this database to find interesting profiles and invite students to recruiting events on and off campus, for personal interviews, or as candidates for specific job opportunites.

All of our numerous career center activities are designed to equip you with the skillset needed to advance your post MBA career: From career orientation workshops, networking and LinkedIn workshops, as well as assessment center workshops to trainings to hone your presentation skills and interview skills. In small goups, you will learn to optimize your application documents. We also encourage you to you to meet with us individially to discuss your ideas and go over your application materials. We gladly meet with every MBA student for personal and confidential career counseling.

We offer a variety of events and activities specifically designed to help international students enter the German job market. In our job search strategy workshop, you will learn about German employers’ expectations, to successfully network in Germany, and to identify companies that match your post-MBA career goals. Additionally, we help you create application documents that meet the German application requirements. We also work with the Expat Service Desk Düsseldorf for you to access additional information and services they offer to expats who live and work in Germany.

We offer an extensive range of resources and useful information on our internal platform in support of your internship or job search. On this platform, you will find a number of helpful tools, including self-assessment tools such as CareerMaximiser, CV check tools such as VMock, and salary negotiation tools such as PayNegotiation. Additionally, it provides access to MBA Exchange, a platform designed for MBA students to research and identify post-MBA career opportunities. 

Our alumni are an integral part of the WHU community. In close collaboration with the In Praxi alumni association, which includes more than 6,000 members (around 90% of WHU graduates), we foster networking between students and alumni, of which many frequently participate in recruiting events on campus. This strong and unique network plays a significant role in finding internships, jobs, or even partners for entrepreneurial projects.

We organize this event annually to create a highly interactive, virtual, and in-person experience through a wide range of activities, including company presentations, career booths, CV Clinics, workshops, Speed-Networking, and more. This event is open not only to all current MBA students but also to our MBA Alumni. Join us on March 17-18, 2023. If you are interested in joining this event, please contact Dr. Shu Ling Tan.

Testimonials

Meet our alumni –
MBA graduates share their career paths and insights.

Timo Günter, MBA 2022

From day 1 of the MBA journey, WHU's MBA Career Center provides students with a comprehensive toolset to grow professionally ... more

Matías Concha, MBA 2021

The MBA Career Center team supported me to draft my roadmap for a triple change. Thus, I was invited to events related to my goals, ... more

Abby Barber, MBA 2021

During my MBA, the most valuable resource the Career Center provided to me was career coaching. Not only did the coaching sessions help me ... more

Frequently Asked Questions –
Additional information on your MBA career options.

Below, we answer the most commonly asked questions about our Career Center and the services we provide.

Open all Tabs

On average, around 30 companies in consulting, banking and financial services, large industry and services, German SMEs, and start-ups participated in events for our MBA students on Campus Düsseldorf. Companies also support student-led events such as the Entrepreneurship Roundtable.

All of our students have gained several years of work experience before entering the MBA program. Therefore, our program does not require you to complete an internship. However, we do recommend that all international MBA students as well as students who seek to change their industry and/or job function, consider completing an internship. You have the opportunity to combine your Master's thesis with an internship, which will provide you the chance to network, and if you do well you might be offered a position afterwards.

Our MBA alumni assume a broad range of positions directly after graduation, depending on their individual goals and interests as well as on the industry. For example, in industry and service companies, students often start their post-MBA career in strategy-related roles, participate in leadership programs or work in business analyst, business development, marketing, finance or operations-related roles. In the field of consulting, MBA students usually assume Consultant or Senior Consultant positions, as consulting companies often have a strict hierarchical structure. At start-up companies and accelerators, graduates typically assume advisory, senior-level, and entrepreneur-in-residence functions.

To date, WHU’s alumni organization In Praxi has more than 6,000 members, equaling approximately 90% of graduates from all of our academic programs at WHU. They all have different roles in various industries, including consulting, banking and financial services, industry and services, SMEs and family businesses, the non-profit and the public service sectors, and academia. At WHU, we also have a strong history of fostering entrepreneurship, many of our alumni have founded their own company. The majority of WHU alumni lives and works in Germany, however, you can also find our alumni in more than 65 countries and six continents. For those alumni, In Praxi organizes a number of events worldwide through their 35 regional chapters.

Usually, our recruiting activities focus on the German-speaking (DACH: Germany, Austria, Switzerland) region. Consultancies, in particlar, tend to recruit solely for this region. However, some of our partner companies operate internationally and thus, may be able to provide job opportunities in other countries, too. Some of our students—primarily EU citizens who don't face any visa issues and can move freely within the EU—started their post-MBA careers in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

We are happy to help you prepare applications for the European, UK, and North American markets. International MBA students from outside the EU are advised to focus their post-MBA career search on either Germany or their home country, as non-EU citizens face challenges when looking for jobs in other EU countries, including language barriers, different job markets, and strict visa requirements. A German student visa only allows you to work in Germany and not in any other EU countries.

The majority of our MBA graduates started their post-MBA careers in Germany, and about 98% started their careers in Europe. Most of our international students start working outside their home country after graduation.

For international students, we have designed several trainings and workshops. Our approach to guiding you is based on our experience and our understanding of your needs. In one-on-one counseling sessions, we help you identify appropriate companies and sectors, based on your individual skills, background, and career goals. Additionally, we work with the recruiters from our partner companies to point out positions for candidates who aren't fluent in German, however, we recommend that you improve your language skills as much as you can to prepare yourself for working in Germany after completing your MBA.

The number of our international alumni in Germany is constantly increasing. Many of them are happy to share their own experience and insights and are a valuable resource for you to learn about opportunities, challenges, and best practices.

With their student visa, non-EU students are allowed to complete an internship and work for an additional 120 days per calendar year in Germany while being enrolled at WHU. However, the MBA program’s tight and intense schedule typically does not allow students to work part-time during the semester. EU students as well as students from Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland do not face any restrictions on the German job market.

Non-EU citizens are allowed to stay in Germany to find a job for up to18 months after graduation. They are entitled to work in a business-related field. Our international graduates often meet the requirements to obtain an EU Blue Card. We encourage you to check the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for up-to-date information on work eligibility and visa requirements.

Generally, the better your German skills, the better your job opportunities. It greatly depends on the industry, company, and position, but in general, language requirements are becoming less strict as the labor market tightens. Aside from German skills, companies look for candidates with strong intercultural competences to ensure they succeed.

Usually, the top-tier consultancies as well as most banks require business fluency in German. However, some specialized consultancy companies will consider candidates with solid, but not fluent, German skills. Transaction advisory or very specialized financial services firms may also accept candidates with limited German language skills. Large industrial companies and medium-sized “hidden champions” that operate and compete on the global market might also be more flexible in terms of their language requirements. Start-ups, especially those in Berlin, tend to be open to candidates with rudimentary German skills.

WHU offers German courses for different proficiency levels throughout the program, in order to enhance your profile for the German job market.

The available courses include: 

  • 1-3 sponsored* German language course(s) offered by the Goethe Institute 
  • integrated German language classes (included in tuition)
  • one-year access to online platform Rosetta Stone to complement German language studies at your own pace

If you would like more information, please contact the recruiting team.

*WHU partially sponsors up to 550€ per course. The remaining cost must be covered by the student.

Get in touch

Your future awaits –
Get in touch with us now.

The WHU MBA recruiting and admissions teams are happy to answer any questions you may have about our curriculum, admissions requirements, and financing options. We are also happy to advise you on career prospects and return on investment as well as put you in touch with our alumni who would be happy to share their success stories and offer advice.

Recruiting Team MBA

Chun-Rong Chen
Sabine Noe
Alexandra Ionescu-Isar
Selina Flick
Lars Weber


+49 (0)211 447 09 144
mba(at)whu.edu