It’s a common question – Why MBA?, asked by institutions all over the world. It forms an important part of your admission essays and interviews as well. But, more importantly, this is crucial for your long term success, because your assessment whether you need an MBA or not, can save you a lot of time, energy, and money. So, be 200% sure why you actually need an MBA and plan accordingly. There are five parameters to consider before drafting your answer:
1) Why MBA? – Is it Learning
It’s what you expect from a program. With an MBA, you won’t become an expert in any of the domains, even though it does have specializations within it. In the end, it’s just a general program. But it will equip you for some real-time skills which are relevant for most or all of the industries.
- Understanding the business and business linkages
The programs are structured in a way that you’re going to study all the domains in a business – operations; HR; organizational behaviors; finance; accounting; marketing; IT; these are the basics of First Year. These help you to understand how all the programs or functions are linked in any business; it’ll help you to broadly understand any business.
- Problem Solving Skills
One of the most important parts and something that mostly only this course prepares you for is your problem-solving skills. It sounds simple but the program is designed in a way that they follow a case study approach for all the functions. Suppose you’re in a finance class, or a marketing class, you’re gonna follow this complex problem-solving structure and you’ll be made to solve cases for your classes. It’s not a traditional academic environment. Here, you’re going to have to work in teams, work on a business problem, might be a financial or marketing or operations problem, you’ll be made to solve it in a real-time environment.
- Leadership
This is one of the most relevant skills to learn. It’s not a technical one, it’s more of a soft skill or something entirely based on your personality. This program will give you ample opportunities to hone your leadership skills. It’s designed in a way that you’ll be given presentations to make, team-based tasks, you’ll have field trips, exchange programs, community-involving projects, and all this will take place in a diverse culture. You’ll have so many opportunities to actually groom yourself to work in diverse environments, adapting to different work cultures, in terms of communication, collaboration, discipline, planning, strategy, et cetera. Everything in this program is a learning opportunity. So make the most of it. It depends a lot on your personality too.
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2) Why MBA? – Is it Career Growth
Most people pursue this course in order to take the next step in their careers.
- Suppose you’re in the consulting industry, you’ve worked in the consulting-support environment long enough to want to grow within the industry, so next up you decide you’d like to see the front-end of the industry. That’s career growth.
- Suppose again, you spent a couple of years working with a team. Moving forward, you aim for a managerial position. That is something you can expect out of this course – a career growth strategy.
You can form your own career strategies based on your skills and work experience. These are just a few minor cases you may relate to.
3) Why MBA? – Is it Career Transition
Many go for an MBA course to switch their goals and ambitions and make a turn to change their careers, or more specific industries or domains. Doing an MBA program is usually a career transition for most of us. One thing to remember is that this is slightly tricky and not as easy as we think. It’s fairly easy for young people (people with not more than two to three years of work experience). For them, the transition is mostly smooth. Most employers look for the younger generation, so they may be molded into perfect candidates for any domain or function. For them, the stakes are not that high, and career transition is easy.
People with more experience, who have worked in any particular sector for seven to eight years, generally know everything about the field and are practically experts there. So it’s difficult for the employers to think of you in a different industry and hire you as an individual. You could be looking for a senior managerial position with your years of experience but they would be reluctant to give you that based on the fact that you don’t have enough experience in this change of industry. You might still be passionate about it and have some prior knowledge but it’ll still be difficult for them to hire you.
The good thing is that you can always find extensions within your industry. Suppose you’re in financial services in an asset management firm, so you can always try your hand in M&A or iBanking or Private Equity world, possibly only for more experienced candidates.
4) Why MBA? – Is it Networking & Alumni network
You’ll be getting many chances to meet lots of industry experts, people from similar backgrounds as yourself, people in senior positions, all this through the many networking conferences, seminars, and social gatherings that these business schools conduct. So start making connections right there and then. Grow your circle of networks.
Most global schools are closely connected with their alumni. That’s a great asset if you happen to join the program. It’s up to you to fully use this opportunity and increase your network, during and even after the program. Stay well connected with them.
5) Why MBA? – Is it Brand Value & Mobility
Being a graduate of a top business school definitely gives you an edge over others. You carry this brand name for the rest of your life. Of course, your work will speak for itself but this brand value will help you with international mobility. You might get opportunities to work across the globe and get to work in different firms. And even if you don’t get the opportunity to work globally, your chances are still good within the country from where you graduated.
So these five elements should definitely be kept in mind before you plan your MBA. Think about where you fit the most, what’s your reason, and what’s your motivation.
