Dr Jochem Kroezen is Academic Director of the International Full-Time MBA at RSM. He said: “We’d like to say that the magic of our MBA is not in the academics of our programme but in the unique community we build during one intense year. The transformative connections that people build while they are with us and the unique learning experiences they enjoy together are ultimately the things that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. This LinkedIn rankings shows how strong and deep our network is and how important that is for career and life success.”
Hanna Schultz is Director of Engagement and Academic Services at RSM and leads the team providing services – including the coaches in the MBA Career Centre – for RSM’s growing alumni network of more than 55,000 graduates in total. She said: “We are so proud that our community of graduates keep in touch with each other, and that they are always there to support current students and fellow alumni. Whether it's by making connections, helping with a job application, or just being there for a chat – it makes such a huge difference.”
Career outcomes for MBAsThe ranking, published by LinkedIn News, is determined by a carefully weighted methodology using exclusive LinkedIn data that analyses the career outcomes of millions of alumni. In 2026, the ranking features the top 100 MBA programmes globally.
Methodology and eligibility
This analysis represents the world seen through the lens of LinkedIn data, drawn from the anonymised and aggregated profile information of LinkedIn's members around the world. To be eligible, MBA programmes must be full-time and accredited by AACSB or Equis. RSM has both. Programmes must have at least 1,500 alumni in total, with at least 400 of them graduating within the recent cohort (2020-2025). The anaysis excludes executive, part-time and certificate-based MBAs, as well as all programmes based in mainland China – LinkedIn’s data does not capture alumni based in China.
Depending on the specific metric in question, the methodology either encompasses all alumni or recent graduate cohorts, as defined by those who graduated between 2020 and 2025. The ranking for 2025 includes the methodology at the bottom of the article. In short, the methodology is based exclusively on LinkedIn data and is not based on surveys or submissions. There are five key pillars:
- Hiring and demand tracks job placement rates and labour market demand, focusing on recent graduate cohorts from 2020-2025. This assessment is based on LinkedIn hiring data and from analytics and performance metrics tracked within tools like LinkedIn Recruiter.
- Ability to advance measures promotion rates among recent graduate cohorts, in addition to how quickly alumni have reached director or VP-level leadership roles.
- Network strength measures the depth of connection between alumni who graduated from the same programme, plus the network quality of recent graduate cohorts according to their connections to professionals at director level or higher; and the growth rate of recent cohorts’ networks since they started the programme.
- Leadership potential measures the percentage of alumni with post-MBA C-Suite or entrepreneurship experiences.
- Diversity measures gender parity within recent graduate cohorts.
For more information about RSM’s rankings and accreditations, see the RSM website.
